We never had, in the history of other wars, a Federal judge determining whether the military has the ability to determine whether someone is an enemy combatant, but we have that in this war. Does the Senator agree with that?

There is no requirement in international law to prosecute an enemy prisoner for a crime?

That we should reserve prosecution for a limited class of persons among enemy prisoners?

Does domestic criminal law focus on the wrongdoing of the actor, based on a specific event, when we are trying to resolve a dispute between the wrongdoer and the victim?

Does the Senator agree with me the reason the Supreme Court has recognized that an American citizen could be held as an enemy combatant if they collaborate with an enemy is that the Court views that as an act of war; and under the powers…

Mr. Speaker, this past weekend I joined millions of Americans in celebrating Thanksgiving with friends and family. As Americans, each of us has so much to be thankful for this holiday season. America is the greatest, most free country in…

Thank you. And this is a very good exchange. My view is that when we capture somebody at home and the belief is that they are now part of al-Qaida, that if we want to read them their Miranda rights and put them in Federal court, we have…

But what Senator Feinstein is proposing is that no longer do we have the option of holding the American citizen as an enemy combatant to gather intelligence, and we don't have the ability to hold them for a period of time to interrogate…

So would the Senator agree with me that the current law is very clear that anytime an American citizen joins the enemy force, they can be held as an enemy combatant; that is the law?

If we capture an American citizen as part of this cell and we can't hold them as an enemy combatant for intelligence-gathering purposes, does domestic criminal law allow us to hold someone for an indefinite period of time to gather…

Yes. Mr. McCAIN. So we are at war. We have American citizens who are enemy combatants. Yet the Senator from Illinois, in the most bizarre fashion that I have heard, says, therefore, they are guaranteed the protections of--as he said--a…

Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military cannot be used for domestic law enforcement functions. Does the Senator agree with me that tracking al-Qaida operatives--citizen or not--within the United States is not a law enforcement…

But our military has the ability to defend us against al- Qaida attacks at home, such as they do abroad.

That is the point. Why would you say that if you are in Afghanistan, we can blow you up, put you in jail forever, but if you make it here, all of a sudden we cannot even talk to you about being part of al-Qaida. What a perverse outcome, to…

``You are an enemy combatant, and we are going to talk to you about why you joined al-Qaida.'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

So if the Department of Defense somehow intercepted information about an al-Qaida cell, let's say in Connecticut or South Carolina, could they be involved in suppressing that cell?

What I would like my colleagues to understand is that no German prisoner in World War II had the ability to go to a Federal judge and say: Let me go. If you had brought up the concept in World War II that an American citizen who was…

And the law of war allows the following: trial or detention or both. Is that correct?