Posted on 12/01/2011 9:18:11 PM PST by Kartographer
Can the president use the military to arrest anyone he wants, keep that person away from a judge and jury, and lock him up for as long as he wants? In the Senate’s dark and terrifying vision of the Constitution, he can.
Congress is supposed to work in public. That requirement is in the Constitution. It is there because the folks who wrote the Constitution had suffered long and hard under the British Privy Council, a secret group that advised the king and ran his government.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
To those who say “it can’t happen here”,the reply should be “open your eyes—it already is.”
I stand by my position that this is bad law and could make it very easy for citizens to be declared as being ‘at war’ with the United States especially those who stand against this administration and what it stands for.
In this article ( http://news.yahoo.com/obama-lawyers-citizens-targeted-war-us-154313473.html ) Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson says: “Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.”
And they are declaring the Homeland to be a battlefield.
I have already heard from several from FR who tell me my concern over this move by the Senate to strip us on some of our rights is over blown, but I agree with you they don’t want to believe what they are seeing with their own eyes.
Where to start with the inaccuracies in this paragraph?
First, the judge implies the Supremes reversed Lincoln's position during the war. This is inaccurate. The case he is referring to wasn't decided till 1866.
Second, the Court nowhere says that the government must give such protections to all people everywhere. It said military courts could not be used to try civilians in those areas where the civilian courts were functioning. Obviously, military courts would continue to function for military personnel, including enemy combatants, everywhere. And military courts could continue to be used to try civilians in areas where civilian courts were not functioning. IOW, in combat zones. Or, as in the South during the war, in areas where the US courts were not functioning due to insurrection and rebellion.
Finally, the Court has never said " the Constitution guarantees its protections to everyone that the government restrains, no matter the crime, no matter the charge, no matter the evidence, no matter the danger." If it did, legal enemy POWs would have full constitutional rights, and they just don't.
And by any reasonable definition, illegal enemy combatants should have fewer rights than honorable legal POWs.
I have read the text of the Act in question. It specifically says it doesn't apply to US citizens anywhere in the world, or to legal residents within the USA.
Just curious. Do you seriously contend battlefield targeting decision should be made by court decision and subject to appeal? Don't you think that would be about the best conceivable way to lose the battle?
Let us consider a nearly worst-case scenario, a Mumbai-style assault on a US city. Does anyone seriously contend US military should not respond to such an attack? That only civilian police can fight back against an enemy attack n American soil?
An outright declaration of martial law is just too much of a frontal attack. I think they know they have to work gradual, pick off any dissent one by one. To do that they have to get around posse commitatus.
Are you aware many US citizens fought in the German, Italian and Japanese armies against America?
Do you think US soldiers asked them for their citizenship status and ID before shooting those who were fighting them?
We are talking about here at home the FAA has just relaxed it’s rules on unmanned drones on US soil. What did Janet N say all returning vets are potential terrorist. Read the writing on the wall. This SB1868 is not good for your or I.
Could The Messiah implement a Wealth Tax in his second term and make it stick even in the face of a Republican controlled House and Senate? With his Czars, it’s very possible, especially if he has a DOJ head who is part of the same crime family as the Prez!
Once it occurred to me that Obama’s second term is likely to include a Wealth Tax, my level of worry went way up!
Congress is turning into an unaccountable politburo gang.
Andrew McCarthy addresses the issue much more effectively than I can.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/284393/andrew-napolitano-s-mistake-andrew-c-mccarthy?pg=1
The law does not refer to “terrorists” as the group to which it applies. It specifically references those fighting on behalf of named organizations such as al Qeada.
Does anyone seriously contend that the US military cannot defend Americans against terrorists if the attack is made on American soil? Really? Where is that found in the Constitution?
Posse comitatus is an act of Congress, not part of the Constitution. It prohibits the Army and Air Force, but not the Navy or Marines, from enforcing the civilian laws except as authorized by Congress.
This may or may not be a wise law, but it doesn't violate either the PC or the Constitution.
The assault at Waco was made by the FBI, not US military.
Check out this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2815004/posts
U.S. Congress enacts laws to hold civilians under indefinite military detention without trial
I never said it did violate the Constitution. I just said they were trying to get around posse commitatus.
The devil in these details is, as I understand it, formally declaring the CONUS as a battlefield. All else is distraction.
Bottom line is to open the door for the govt to take you away, hold you in secret, have secret trials, and throw away the key in secret prisons all under the dark umbrella of nat’l security. You and your family can spend the rest of your life and fortune. trying to free you, if there’s even a process allowed for that or they even admit they have you.
The govt knows it’s at the end game. What they have left is basically a bluff. Doesn’t matter whether it’s legal or not. It’d be like IBM stealing your patent and you can’t even prove they did - in the end you don’t have the money or resources to prove it much less beat them in court. They’ll drag it out forever and make 10X money off your invention than they’ll ever pay out to you, if you ever gather enough evidence to get a court to listen to you.
That’s what this law is about.
He’ll definitely try it. He’ll do literally ANYTHING in his pursuit of absolute power.
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