I.N.N. World Report

A letter Attorney General Eric Holder issued defending the decision to treat the Christmas Day attempted bomber as a criminal suspect rather than a wartime captive offered new insight into the Obama administration's view of preventive detention. The letter suggested the administration sees virtually no legal foundation for holding terrorism suspects arrested on U.S. soil in preventive detention and had little interest in trying to create any. Holder didn't confine his reasoning to the Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's case, but offered an overarching view of the current state of the law. Holder suggested the administration would need to see a "court-approved system" for domestic military detentions to be able to conclude it DID have the authority. The letter was sent to a group of senators outraged that Abdulmutallab was given access to a lawyer and was being prosecuted in a civilian court, rather than being treated as a military prisoner. Source