NOVANEWS
by Stephen Lendman
Obama supports draconian FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provisions. Justification given is national security and war on terror hokum.
Henceforth, anyone anywhere, including US citizens, may be indefinitely held without charge or trial, based solely on suspicions, spurious allegations or none at all.
No reasonable proof is needed, just suspicions that those detained pose threats. Henceforth, indefinite detentions can follow mere membership (past or present) or support for suspect organizations.
Presidents now have unchecked dictatorial powers to arrest, interrogate and indefinitely detain law-abiding citizens if accused of potentially posing a threat.
Constitutional, statute and international laws won’t apply. Martial law will replace them if so ordered.
As a result, US military personnel anywhere in the world may arrest US citizens and others, throw them in military dungeons, and hold them indefinitely outside constitutionally mandated civil protections, including habeas rights, due process, and other judicial procedures.
In other words, presidents may order anyone arrested and imprisoned for life without charge or trial. Tyranny arrived in America. Abuse of power replaced rule of law protections.
Even someone erroneously arrested and cleared of wrongdoing could be held indefinitely without charge, given non-civil trials, none at all, or, for foreign nationals, sent abroad to torture prison hellholes.
Civil Libertarian Responses
On December 14, an ACLU press release headlined, “White House Backs Away from Defense Bill Veto Threat,” saying:
Obama “support(s) passage of the (FY2012) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains harmful provisions (to) authorize the US military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world.”
Responding, ACLU Washington Legislative Office director Laura Murphy said:
“The president should more carefully consider the consequences of allowing this bill to become law. If (he) signs this bill, it will damage both his legacy and America’s reputation for upholding the rule of law.”
The last time Congress authorized indefinite detentions for uncharged US citizens without trial was in 1950 over Harry Truman’s veto.
The Emergency Detention Act provision of the Internal Security Act authorized incarceration for those considered likely to commit espionage or sabotage.
It was never used, then repealed by the 1971 Non-Detenton Act, stating:
“No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress.”
At issue was never again subjecting US citizens to lawless internment the way Japanese Americans were in 1942. At the time, loyal citizens were forced into War Relocation Camps lawlessly.
Murphy faintly hoped Obama would emulate Truman. However, Senate bill sponsor Carl Levin said he insisted on subjecting US citizens to the same draconian treatment as foreign nationals. The original Senate bill excluded them. At his request, they were added.
ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer called NDAA “an awful bill….” He and other civil libertarians are outraged by its passage. Jaffer added:
This bill will “make permanent as an American law this fixture of worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial. (It’s) a bill that would further militarize counterterrorism policy.”
It’s “a bill that will make it harder to close Guantanamo. It has all the problems that we identified earlier, and it is really quite astonishing and disappointing that (Obama) is withdrawing his veto threat.”
All along, of course, it was disingenuous and hollow. As explained above, he insists on subjecting uncharged US citizens to the same draconian treatment as foreign nationals.
On December 14, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said:
Obama “made a choice with chilling consequences today when he announced he would not veto the NDAA despite the lack of change to provisions of the bill that make it even more difficult to shut down the prison at Guantanamo and make indefinite military detention(s) without trial a permanent feature of the US legal system.”