Yes, even if the suspect is an American citizen.

As everyone acknowledges, innocents previously thought to be terrorists were among the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Even in the criminal justice system, with its guarantees of due process, counsel, and appeals, and a standard of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," innocents are jailed. It is likely we've even executed innocent men. But we're prepared to trust that the president, routinely excoriated by his critics for making mistakes, won't ever make a mistake, even when permitted to act without any of the procedural safeguards known to prevent them.

The offending legislation is the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. Aside from authorizing the indefinite military detention of American citizens, it would mandate that the military rather than the Justice Department would handle most terrorism cases, including plots hatched and attempted or carried out in the United States. In other words, it would militarize domestic law enforcement in the name of fighting terrorism, break with generations of precedent, and just have the military handle terrorism related stuff, even on U.S. soil.

Mandating the militarization of counterterrorism is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who tried and failed to strip the bill of its most egregious provisions, explains some of them here. As Andrew Rosenthal puts it, "The Pentagon, the intelligence community, the Justice Department and the White House oppose the detainee rules. The people who would have to carry out these boneheaded policies think they would actually weaken national security."

That is an accurate characterization.

Even more troubling, however, is the indefinite-detention-of-citizens angle.

Investing one leader with unchecked power (again, see update) so extreme and prone to catastrophic abuse is a needless approach best suited to a nation of ignorant cowards; needless because guaranteeing the rare American citizen accused of terrorism access to the courts hardly makes us appreciably less safe; ignorant because avoiding the always-corrosive effects of unchecked power is one of the oldest political lessons; and cowardly because it sacrifices so much, erasing even the distinction between being accused by the state and being guilty, in the name of safety from a threat that poses a statistical risk to the average American orders of magnitude less than dying of food poisoning.

Supporters of the bill will tell you, "But these are terrorists! We're at war with them! They have no civilian rights!"

To which critics say, "How do you know they're terrorists? Who determines that?"

"The president!"

"And if he's mistaken? Or worse, decides to target his domestic enemies with a false accusation?"

Senate supporters of the bill never talk about either possibility.