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The Obama administration announced Friday it would try Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri in a federal court, removing the "enemy combatant" label that has kept him in a Defense Department brig in South Carolina since 2003. The formal indictment marks a major shift away from the Bush terrorism worldview; it could also keep more power in Obama's hands.

A dual U.S./Qatar Qatari/Saudi citizen and a 1991 graduate of Bradley University in Illinois, al-Marri and his family entered the U.S. on September 10, 2001 with the stated plan that al-Marri would return to the school for further study. He and his family were living in Peoria, IL on a visa when al-Marri was arrested in December 2001 and charged with credit card fraud and making false statements to the FBI. He was transferred to New York as a material witness in the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In 2003, President Bush labeled al-Marri an "enemy combatant" and had him transferred to the Department of Defense's custody for indefinite detention (legally unrelated to the previous criminal charges) at the South Carolina Navy brig, where he still is today. Al-Marri challenged his detention in a habeas corpus lawsuit--he is being represented by the ACLU--that has made its way to the Supreme Court, which said in December that it would hear the case.

Now, al-Marri's legal request has been granted: he will have a criminal trial.

In a formal indictment that sprung from President Obama's directive to review detainee cases, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged al-Marri with providing material support to al-Qaeda. Pending the Supreme Court's approval, the DoJ will transfer him to a civilian jail in the Central District of Illinois, where he was arrested.

While this would seem to reverse eight years of detention philosophy, it also could keep the option open for Obama and future presidents to detain "enemy combatants" on U.S. soil.

Since al-Marri is the only legal U.S. resident detained as such a "combatant" on U.S. soil, his Supreme Court case stands (for the time being) as the lone chance for groups like the ACLU to set a precedent on whether or not the president of the United States has power to label U.S. citizens legal residents as combatants and detain them indefinitely without trial. The Obama administration is asking the court to dismiss the case: since he is being released into the court system, DoJ wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court today, al-Marri's habeas challenge is moot.

Consequently, the ACLU is happy for its client, but it has mixed feelings.

"This indictment is an important step toward restoring the rule of law and is exactly what should happen when the government suspects an individual of terrorist acts," ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is working as al-Marri's lead defense counsel, said in an ACLU press release Friday afternoon. "This case is now finally where it belongs: in a legitimate court that can fairly determine whether Mr. al-Marri is guilty of a crime."

But that happiness doesn't mean al-Marri and Hafetz will drop the habeas challenge they have successfully pushed to the Supreme Court. Hafetz very much wants it to continue.

"The government's going to say, 'Don't hear it because it's moot,'" Hafetz told me in a phone interview. (And the government did, in fact, say that verbatim in its Supreme Court brief.) "But our view is this is a fundamental issue that's basic to our system."

"They're just avoiding review and maintaining Bush era power," Hafetz said. "That does not honor the rule of law."

To Hafetz, that avoidance of review sounds familiar. In November 2005, the Bush administration moved the case of suspected terrorist and U.S. citizen Jose Padilla into the criminal court system, before his habeas challenge reached the Supreme Court. When the case got there in 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that Padilla's habeas challenge was indeed moot, and a ruling on habeas law and executive power was not rendered.

"This happened before, in the Jose Padilla case," Haffetz told me of the al-Marri indictment. "Once the power is going to be reviewed, they shipped him back to the justice system."

The Obama administration does not have a policy on "enemy combatant" detention of U.S. citizens and legal residents within the country's borders. The ACLU has called on it to announce one--namely, to make clear that the president does not have such power.

While Attorney General Eric Holder signaled early on that he would break from Bush administration policies, it's unclear whether the administration will formally announce a stance on the issue. Holder's department is currently conducting a review of all "enemy combatants" being held at Guantanamo Bay, but it remains to be seen whether a broader policy recommendation will come out of that process.

Holder posed today's indictment as a move away from Bush-era policies of snatching suspected terrorists and locking them away without trial.

"This indictment shows our resolve to protect the American people and prosecute alleged terrorists to the full extent of the law," Holder said today in the DoJ news release announcing al-Marri's newfound criminal case. "In this administration, we will hold accountable anyone who attempts to do harm to Americans, and we will do so in a manner consistent with our values."

But with regard to as the ACLU's desire to set a precedent in the Supreme Court, Holder's department does not share it.

"Al-Marri is the only person captured in the United States currently that's detained and designated as an enemy combatant," DoJ spokesman Dean Boyd told me over the phone. "Essentially, the issues that the Supreme Court would consider in al-Marri's case no longer apply to any detainees."

"He is a category of one," Boyd pointed out, declining to speculate on any future detainees or any policy the department might or might not come up with. The White House, similarly, has not said what it intends to do in the future.

So while al-Marri has gotten the relief he has requested--potentially signaling a break from the days of Bush--his case likely won't yield a verdict on the policy that brought him to South Carolina in the first place, if the court dismisses al-Marri's challenge as it ruled against Padilla's.

In July, Holder's 180-day mandate for a review of detainee cases will be up. Whether he and Obama come up with a broader detentions policy is another question.

Update: corrected 2/28/09 at 3:30 p.m.--al-Marri is not a U.S. citizen, but rather a legal resident who entered the country on a student visa.