The case of Yaser Esam Hamdi and Esam Fouad Hamdi v. Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al., 2003 revolved around the detention of U.S. citizen Yaser Esam Hamdi by American military forces in Afghanistan during the War on Terror for allegedly being an enemy combatant. The Supreme Court ruled that while the government has the power to detain citizens who qualify as enemy combatants, those individuals have a right to due process under law and can challenge their enemy combatant status before an impartial authority. This ruling was significant because it affirmed that even in times of war, constitutional rights cannot be ignored or suspended without proper legal procedures.

In the dissenting opinion for Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the government had no authority to detain a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant without charging him with a crime or allowing him access to courts. He stated that the Constitution does not permit indefinite imprisonment without trial; if the government wishes to imprison someone, it must either charge them with treason (or another crime) or suspend habeas corpus in accordance with Article I Section 9 of the Constitution. Furthermore, he criticized his colleagues' attempt at balancing security and liberty interests as being outside their purview - such decisions should be made by Congress and not by judges interpreting constitutional text.