Posted on 01/02/2012 5:56:39 PM PST by Yosemitest
President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens.
It was a symbolic moment to say the least.
With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country
. . . and citizens partied only blissfully into the New Year.
Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements
and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely.
Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops.
It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light.
As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the President would not sign the NDAA because of the provision.
That spin ended after sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House
and insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.
The latest claim is even more insulting.
You do not support our troops by denying the principles for which they are fighting.
They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the President.
The American way of life is defined by our Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights.
Moreover, the insistence that you do not intend to use authoritarian powers does not alter the fact that you just signed an authoritarian measure.
It is not the use but the right to use such powers that defines authoritarian systems.
The almost complete failure of the mainstream media to cover this issue is shocking.
Many reporters have bought into the spin of the Obama Administration as they did the spin over torture by the Bush Administration.
Even today reporters refuse to call waterboarding torture despite the long line of cases and experts defining waterboarding as torture for decades.
On the NDAA, reporters continue to mouth the claim that this law only codifies what is already the law.
That is not true.
The Administration has fought any challenges to indefinite detention to prevent a true court review.
Moreover, most experts agree that such indefinite detention of citizens violates the Constitution.
There are also those who continue the long-standing effort to excuse Obamas horrific record on civil liberties by either blaming others or the times.
One successful myth is that there is an exception for citizens.
The White House is saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to veto the legislation.
That spin is facially ridiculous.
The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key amendments protecting citizens were defeated.
The provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans legal rights.
Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite detention but even execution without a trial,
the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality.
The Administration and Democratic members are in full spin using language designed to obscure the authority given to the military.
The exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032) is the screening language for the next section, 1031,
which offers no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial.
Obama could have refused to sign the bill and the Congress would have rushed to fund the troops.
Instead, as confirmed by Sen. Levin, the White House conducted a misinformation campaign to secure this power
while portraying Obama as some type of reluctant absolute ruler, or as Obama maintains a reluctant president with dictatorial powers.
Most Democratic members joined their Republican colleagues in voting for this unAmerican measure.
Some Montana citizens are moving to force the removal of these members who they insist betrayed their oaths of office and their constituents.
Most citizens however are continuing to treat the matter as a distraction from the holiday cheer.
For civil libertarians, the NDAA is our Mayan moment.
2012 is when the nation embraced authoritarian powers with little more than a pause between rounds of drinks.
So here is a resolution better than losing weight this year . . . make 2012 the year you regained your rights.
Here is the signing statement attached to the bill:
They ALL deserve to be kicked out of office for even thinking about passing this liberty grabbing piece of excrement. What were the TEA party folks doing, twiddling their thumbs?
Jonathon Turley and Glenn Greenwald seem like fear mongers too. Look at this passage from Turley :
The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key amendments protecting citizens were defeated.
The provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans legal rights.
Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite detention but even execution without a trial,
the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality.
So here is is actually saying that the bill does not change the Senate’s current views on detaining citizens. So if the Senate viewed US Citizens as potentially subject to indefinite detention before the bill like he is saying-and if it does, it is clearly under only highly specific circumstances-then it is unclear how this bill somehow represents a sort fo huge movement towards an out and out police state where the military is arresting citizens anytime the govt says it doesnt like them. Even Turley here is stating that the bill does not do anything to change the Senate’s current position on detaining Citizens. Which means that someone detained by the miltary would be able to contest, in trial, whether or not they are included in the provisions and whether or not existing law allows for them to be detained, possibly indefinitely, without trail. And he ends it with “hide the harsh reality”, not very helpful in explaining why we should be thinking that we are becoming a police state. Since it can certainly be argued that existing law requies US citizen detainees to a trial and a lawyer-and SCOCUS has ruled numerous times that it does.
let me see now...the govt can take over your land for any reason...they can put you in a jail and hold you for anything...they can wire tap your house, read your emails, study your habits by chekcing car and cell phone records....
its good to be free isn't it...
The “Two Party” System is DC vs Flyover Country....DC just got its “insurance” against having to listen any more to the peons and peasants....
Except that youw oudl have to prove they fall under the categories this bill applies to-and it was designed to refer to members or supporters fo Al Qaeda and the Taliban and their affiliates and/or anyone who had a role in 9/11. And then you would have to prove in a court of law that existing law combined with current circumstances allow for them to be detained like that. So you would still have to have a trial-in fact possbily a series of trials-and win them all.
Just one more piece of legislation destined for the USSC which should ALSO be rules unconstitutional.
It doesn’t matter what he said. What matters is what he signed.
Ron Paul mentions it in every speech. And has asked many times why hasn’t the other candidates even mentioned it?
It is very likely they would if the govt truly tried to detain a random number fo US Citizens because they didnt like what they said or simply because, for instance, they took part in Teap Party or OWS movements. SCOTUS has ruled these kinds of detentions as unconstitutional several times before. Obama could try to “pack” SCOTUS with judges who wouldnt rule that way, but presidents who tried that before all failed.
1. That’s not entirely true-Presidents are held accountable for their signing statements, and good lawyers would probably even find ways to use those statements to help prove something in a court of law. They mean something if said president wants to keep any hope of reelection and keep himself from being impeached and ensure his political career doesnt get ruined and supporters turn on him and the whole Democrat party-which ideally they dont want.
2. As said before, he didnt sign anything that clearly and unambiguously gives the govt any more right than they had already to detain someone without a due process. Whatever power the govt has now to do this, they’ve always had.
So the signign statement does count for something. Of course the question is how much it counts for.
Au contraire!!! The media has been 24/7 talking about IOWA, and the candidates poll numbers. I'm sure this was all by design so Zero could do his thing.
Is this the one that will send us to GITMO, the place that he said he wanted to close?
Oh Lord, please let us have NEWT GINGRICH.
This is all a red herring to distract us from something else, because this bill does NOT do what its detractors are saying it does. Here’s some information I posted on a friend’s Facebook profile last night. He happens to be a Ron Paul supporter, and he was in hysterics over this law.
First Post: I don’t know the details, but I’m reading the final bill passed by the House and Senate conference committees and submitted to the president, and this is what it says in section 1022:
(b) APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES CITIZENS AND LAWFUL
RESIDENT ALIENS.
(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS.The requirement to detain
a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
(2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.
Second Post (posted after he rebutted by saying that my first post was only about section 1022, but that 1021 was the section that allowed for the indefinite detention of US citizens):
I see this in section 1021, James:
(b) COVERED PERSONS.A covered person under this section is any person as follows:
(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.
(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.
And this...
(e) AUTHORITIES.Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
So, hysterical ranting aside, it appears that to be covered by the Counterterrorism aspect of this law allowing for indefinite military custody, a person has to have “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the events of 9/11/2001, or harbored those responsible, or been a member of al-Qaeda or the Taliban or provided support or assistance to them, and this does not apply to cititizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States.
What am I missing?
Additional Post (after much argument back and forth): From MotherJones - a very left-leaning website:
So what exactly does the bill do? It says that the president has to hold a foreign Al Qaeda suspect captured on US soil in military detentionexcept it leaves enough procedural loopholes that someone like convicted underwear bomber and Nigerian citizen Umar Abdulmutallab could actually go from capture to trial without ever being held by the military. It does not, contrary to what many media outlets have reported, authorize the president to indefinitely detain without trial an American citizen suspected of terrorism who is captured in the US. A last minute compromise amendment adopted in the Senate, whose language was retained in the final bill, leaves it up to the courts to decide if the president has that power, should a future president try to exercise it. But if a future president does try to assert the authority to detain an American citizen without charge or trial, it won’t be based on the authority in this bill.
So it’s simply not true, as the Guardian wrote yesterday, that the bill “allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.” When the New York Times editorial page writes that the bill would “strip the F.B.I., federal prosecutors and federal courts of all or most of their power to arrest and prosecute terrorists and hand it off to the military,” or that the “legislation could also give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial,” they’re simply wrong.
Additional Post: The only sections I find relating to this in the law are sections 1020 and 1021, and then some information in the following sections relating to the review process. I do not see anything like what is being discussed in the blog James linked. There CERTAINLY is nothing in this law that allows indefinite detention of US citizens or anyone captured on US soil. I think the section on authorities that I posted from section 1020 defers to previous law as a determination as to whether someone can be detained. That’s what Mother Jones is talking about up above when they say that this bill “leaves it up the courts to decide...” That’s a far cry from saying that this bill allows the indefinite military detention of US citizens or those caught within US borders.
Totals | Democrats | Republicans | Independents |
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Needed To Win
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283 | (65%) |
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93 | 190 | 0 | |||
136 | (31%) |
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93 | 43 | 0 | |||
0 | (0%) |
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0 | 0 | 0 | |||
14 | (3%) |
|
6 | 8 | 0 | |||
Required: | Simple Majority of 419 votes (=210 votes) (Vacancies in Congress will affect vote totals.)
|
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|
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No propaganda ministry hack media reporting by design, a bill confusing with contradictory statements by design. Who here trusts Zero the usurper in thief??? Everything the Kenyan klown puppet does is by way of deception, from the master of lies, Satan. He lies, again and again. And in cohoots is a ruling class of REpubliCONS and DEmRATS.
Its just a bill though. Butchers Bill 369 for the three hundred and sixty-nine heads who will be held to account for violating their oaths as no federal statute can repeal the Bill of Rights, our God given inalienable Rights.
SENATE (86 of 100)
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=1&vote=00230
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (283 of 435)
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2011-932&sort=vote
Democrats, independants, conservatives are all against this. This is beyond politics. Lets see them start making people disappear with black bags over their heads, no due process by U.S. military on U.S. soil. Its just gonna get loud.
Totals | Democrats | Republicans | Independents |
|
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Needed To Win
|
||||||||
93 | (93%) |
|
48 | 44 | 1 | |||
7 | (7%) |
|
3 | 3 | 1 | |||
0 | (0%) |
|
0 | 0 | 0 | |||
0 | (0%) |
|
0 | 0 | 0 | |||
Required: | Simple Majority of 100 votes (=51 votes) (Vacancies in Congress will affect vote totals.)
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And also, when it comes to the whole indefintie detention without a trial thing, I can see how mortifying it can seem with our current administration but if we are being truly frank and honest with ourselves, in the aftermath of 9/11, when many members of this community had the same kind of rage Americans had following Pearl Harbor, this is something we would have supported for those who arent US citizens or legal aliens, caught plotting to harm us in another nation. They would have been totally on board with in and in fact they often were-the Patriot Act and the AUMF act of 2001 are not too terribly different from this current bill.
Even if no American citizen would ever be violated by the provisions of NDAA 2012,
look what’s next up the pipe for voting —
HR 3166, the “Enemy Expatriation Act”.
Deemed a “terrorist”, or “providing aid” to one, under this law, US citizens would be stripped of their American citizenship. Stripped of citizenship, all bets and pretenses of protection are off.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3166
Then look at SOPA for internet “privacy” protection. Wow, the ruling class tyrants of both parties have found edicts they have common ground on! Amazing isn’t it? Silly tyrants really want to go there?
What is most interesting about this if you put it up on a referendum, it might get about 5% of the vote. Right, left, and center are all against this POS fascist bill, and yet it overwhelmingly passed both houses of Congress and was gleefully signed by the dictator...I mean president.
I think our representatives no longer represent us. Banana republic?
I will be truly frank and honest with you right now. I despise bush for the department of homland security...then and now.
I heard on the news today that this particular sections was removed from the bill...just saying.
Ref: Bott Radio Network...Christen news station
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