In Hedges v Obama [1], the trial court blocked the government's power to indefinitely detain. The ruling was immediately appealed and the trial court's decision was stayed. I take it from the government's rush to appeal that there are people are being detained right now that would have had to be released had the ban been upheld.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama

The injunction in Hedges blocked the detainment power in its entirety (on the basis of being unconstitutionally vague), not only detainment with respect to American citizens. Obama is fighting to preserve the detainment power, not for the power to detain American citizens, which would be contrary to his signing statement and the expressed intent of Congress.

>Padilla was ultimatey tried and convicted in a federal civilian court

You're OK with indefinitely detaining American citizens until the government slaps some charges on & convicts? Spooky.

I'm not "OK" with what happened to Padilla, but the contention was that the executive branch "has been given the power" to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens, and that assertion is false.

Read the history of the Padilla case: http://www.nyclu.org/case/padilla-v-bushhamdi-v-rumsfeld-cha....

See also: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/what-supreme-cou....

There was a legal wrangling over the scope of the President's detention powers, and Padilla's appeal to the Supreme Court was rendered moot by the government deciding to charge him. No U.S. citizen has been indefinitely detained since.