Wait, wait, wait... Can they do that?

Under the "Torture Compromise," can the president designate a United States citizen, such as myself, as an "enemy combatant" based on his discretion, even if I have never left this country? And hold me forever, with no trial? And I have no right to judicial review?

Can this possibly be right? And if they can't do it, who is supposed to stop them?

I'm not even worried about the "torture" part any more. This is completely crazy.

UPDATE: Yglesias answers my question, "who is supposed to stop them," at least enough to point out that it won't be the courts.

There will certainly be challenges, but I wouldn't count on anything. The court-stripping issue hasn't been litigated all that much, but the idea that congress has the power to do this kind of thing has some real support from the text of the constitution. What's more, courts are generally disinclined to interfere in national security questions. And, of course, there's no particular reason to think that the Supreme Court's five conservative justices disagree with America's conservative politicians about this. You never really know what's going to happen, but we have a political system for a reason . . . if people elect politicians who want to give the president the power to indefinitely detain and torture people on the basis of his say-so that they're terrorists then the president is going to end up with the power to indefinitely detain and torture people on the basis of his say-so.