The National Defense Authorization Act

[MMJ_fanatic]

For those of us following the darker side of politics and legislation, a disturbing  :o development:

The National Defense Authorization Act is the Greatest Threat to Civil Liberties Americans Face
E.D. Kain (Forbes contributor)

If Obama does one thing for the remainder of his presidency let it be a veto of the National Defense Authorization Act – a law recently passed by the Senate which would place domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which would open the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, so long as the government calls them terrorists.
So much for innocent until proven guilty. So much for limited government. What Americans are now facing is quite literally the end of the line. We will either uphold the freedoms baked into our Constitutional Republic, or we will scrap the entire project in the name of security as we wage, endlessly, this futile, costly, and ultimately self-defeating War on Terror.
There are still changes swirling around the Senate, but this looks like the basic shape of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Someone the government says is "a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an associated force" can be held in military custody "without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force." Those hostilities are currently scheduled to end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects.
But far more dramatically, the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn't limited to foreigners. It's confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas' Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — "U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority."
An amendment that would limit military detentions to people captured overseas failed on Thursday afternoon. The Senate soundly defeated a measure to strip out all the detention provisions on Tuesday.
So despite the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge, and for the lifespan of an amorphous war that conceivably will never end. And because the Senate is using the bill that authorizes funding for the military as its vehicle for this dramatic constitutional claim, it's pretty likely to pass.
I seriously don't care if you're a liberal or a conservative or a libertarian or a Zen anarchist. So long as you aren't Carl Levin or John McCain, the bill's architects, you can join the Civil Liberties Caucus. Spencer writes:
Weirder still, the bill's chief architect, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), tried to persuade skeptics that the bill wasn't so bad. His pitch? "The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States," he said on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill would just let the government detain a citizen in military custody, not force it to do that. Reassured yet?
Civil libertarians aren't. Sen. Al Franken* (D-Minn.) said it "denigrates the very foundations of this country." Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) added, "it puts every single American citizen at risk."
This is what I mean: Give me Rand Paul and Al Franken* any day of the week over the Levins and McCains of the Senate. We need more elected officials with the sensibility of Ron Wyden or Al Franken* on the left, or Rand Paul on the right. Right and left are such shoddy, ad hoc descriptors these days anyways.
What's truly at stake when we start talking about Big Government and such is far more dangerous and preposterous than high marginal tax rates.
We're talking about the stripping away of our most basic freedoms. We're talking about a potential state that can call me a terrorist for writing this blog post and then lock me up and throw away the key.
What's the line from Batman? The night is always darkest just before the dawn. I like to think that's true, because times seem awfully dark these days.


*Update:  Actually, Franken voted for the NDAA, so never mind.  He's also sponsoring the Protect IP Act which would clamp down on free speech online.

[YouAre_GivenToFly]

Whatever... I wasn't using the 4th through 10th Amendments anyway.

[Penny Lane]

Glad you posted this MMJ Fanatic---

However, the President already has these powers granted to him, thanks to your boy GWB (AUMF Act passed in 2001) --whereby Congress was duped into granting unconstitutional powers in 'times of war'. THEN the US Supreme Court said that the AUMF was illegal (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld). This act is basically codifying what is already in place. Executive branch threatened to veto the NDAA unless they took out the part about the military policing the streets and detaining people they think are linked to terrorism. I agree with you that all of it is dangerous.

Since we've debatably and subjectively been in a time of war since 2001, and now we're withdrawing troops, I'm curious as to what will happen to the AUMF. Before anything went because it was a 'war'....now what will happen?

[YouAre_GivenToFly]

Since we've debatably and subjectively been in a time of war since 2001, and now we're withdrawing troops, I'm curious as to what will happen to the AUMF. Before anything went because it was a 'war'....now what will happen?

My best guess is that we'll start to hear a lot more of that talk about how the Global War on Terror^TM doesn't look or feel like previous conventional wars, so whether we realize it or not we're at war and our rights don't exist.

[Penny Lane]

Since we've debatably and subjectively been in a time of war since 2001, and now we're withdrawing troops, I'm curious as to what will happen to the AUMF. Before anything went because it was a 'war'....now what will happen?

My best guess is that we'll start to hear a lot more of that talk about how the Global War on Terror^TM doesn't look or feel like previous conventional wars, so whether we realize it or not we're at war and our rights don't exist.

i just don't want any of this tied to Obama's administration...
this is all the cleanup to our country and our Constitution for something that 3 or 4 people wanted..and if there's one party who hasn't 'shat' on civil liberties....it's Dems. (as much as both parties make me ill)

[Penny Lane]

Whatever... I wasn't using the 4th through 10th Amendments anyway.

LOL pre-gaming for MMJ outside the MSG door passing around ericm's firewater, we were using one of them...Headhunter and I "if they ask what's in the bag, you don't have to tell them! it's your right" ...ha ha

[MMJ_fanatic]

Glad you posted this MMJ Fanatic---

However, the President already has these powers granted to him, thanks to your boy GWB (AUMF Act passed in 2001) --whereby Congress was duped into granting unconstitutional powers in 'times of war'. THEN the US Supreme Court said that the AUMF was illegal (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld). This act is basically codifying what is already in place. Executive branch threatened to veto the NDAA unless they took out the part about the military policing the streets and detaining people they think are linked to terrorism. I agree with you that all of it is dangerous.

Since we've debatably and subjectively been in a time of war since 2001, and now we're withdrawing troops, I'm curious as to what will happen to the AUMF. Before anything went because it was a 'war'....now what will happen?

I am compelled to rebut your comparison of the 2 acts.  AUMF was focused on "the use of any force necessary against those determined to to have planned, authorized, committed or aided the attacks of September 11th 2011".  I realize this may sound like hair splitting but they really are 2 differently focused pieces of work.  The supreme court ruling you cite was strictly focused on the tribunals at Guantanamo to try the terrorists detained ther.  Those were judged illegal by the supremes (not AUMF).  Bottom line this whole thing should likely be scrapped unless we are all hoping for a dictatorial government replacing our current model.

[el_chode]

My personal opinion is that any senator that votes to declare the United States a warzone is in effect declaring war on the United States and should be tried for treason accordingly as an enemy combatant.

But I'm an extremist I guess.

[davymac]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/us/politics/obama-wont-veto-military-authorization-bill.html

[Tracy 2112]

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/obama_to_sign_indefinite_detention_bill_into_law/singleton/

[Penny Lane]

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/obama_to_sign_indefinite_detention_bill_into_law/singleton/

great article, i was by no means implying that Obama was off the hook...

I need to say that again: long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. That's what makes the apologias over Obama and GITMO so misleading: the controversy over Guantanamo was not that about its locale — that it was based in the Caribbean Sea — so that simply closing it and then  re-locating it to a different venue would address the problem. The controversy over Guantanamo was that it was a prison camp where people were put in cages indefinitely, for decades or life, without being charged with any crime. And that policy is one that President Obama whole-heartedly embraced from the start.

Totally prior to and independent of anything Congress did, President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention as his own policy. He is a proponent — not an opponent — of indefinite detention. Just review the facts — the indisputable facts — if you have any doubt about that or if you know anyone who does:

[MarkW]

Could be worse - you could live in a country like the UK, which agrees to extradite its own citizens to the USA without any proof or wrongdoing or proper legal process. Sigh.

[mjk73]

Let's be honest people, do you really think this shit hasn't been going on since long before 9/11? This is nothing new, it's just more visible now that it's much harder to hide shit from the public and that we have a built in excuse of "national security". Not that it was ever used as an excuse before, but with crazy zealots flying planes into buildings, paranoia supersedes intelligence and everything is a matter of National Security.