Smart Detention
For both a nice legal overview of detentions, and a suggestion for what we might do in detaining suspected terrorists, see Jeff Rosen's article in The New Republic.
Rosen criticizes the current methods

In the past, U.S. law distinguished between lawful combatants, who were held as prisoners of war until the end of hostilities, and unlawful combatants, who were tried by military tribunals. But the administration has created a new category called "enemy combatants," who may never be tried by the military or the civilian justice system, and who may be detained indefinitely--until the end of a war on terrorism that could never end. And, while other Western democracies have imposed legislative and judicial oversight on the preventive detention of terrorism suspects, the Bush administration--arrogantly and inexplicably--has refused to acknowledge any role for Congress or the courts.

but acknowledges a need for a new detenation plan

if the administration's actions have no clear precedent, neither do the threats the United States now faces. Justice Department lawyers argue, plausibly, that the United States needs to devise a system of preventive detention so it can mine the intelligence value of suspects without having to provide Miranda warnings and lawyers from the moment of arrest. And administration critics, such as former Attorney General Janet Reno, are wrong to suggest, in their Supreme Court briefs, that the president should be forced to resort to the ordinary criminal justice system to try all American citizens who have gone abroad to train with Al Qaeda.

Good read, and thorough.