With all political attention focused on the Republican Presidential race or the recent holiday season, President Barack Obama under the cloak of little attention signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on New Year’s Eve.
This is not your basic run of the mill law and was passed in the same manner of another law over the holidays on December 23, 1913 - the Federal Reserve Act, also known as the Glass-Owen Bill. Many see the NDAA as against all that is written in the constitution of the United states. The NDAA effectively revokes the democratic right, habeas corpus, which prevents arbitrary imprisonment of individuals by the government by requiring that the government present evidence to a judge or court to justify taking a person into custody. Yes, one of the provisions included in the 2012 NDAA allows for American citizens suspected of terrorism to be indefinitely detained in military custody without charge or trial.
The Bill goes far beyond terrorists linked to the 9/11 attacks, to include anyone defined by the president as “engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” Under the new law, the president of the United States can designate any American citizen if desired, to be arrested and detained for life by the US military. This means that it could include domestic opponents of US military action and/or the Us government, including opponents of any war or even the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
The bill provides $662 billion for the US military and even authorizes the US military to seize individuals anywhere in the world and hold them in a military detention facility indefinitely, without a trial or any other legal recourse. In the signing statement, Obama stated he had “serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”
Section 1021 affirms the executive branch’s authority to detain persons covered by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) and Section 1022 seeks to require military custody for a narrow category of non-citizen detainees who are “captured in the course of hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”
He signed the bill into law although he had reservations and previously indicated that he would not sign the bill. In addition, it is another demonstration of the President breaking another campaign promise, specifically not to use signing statements and executive orders to circumnavigate legislation signed into law.
By making this the law of the land, Obama has provide himself and any other Presidents to follow, the right to indefinitely detain any American citizen in the future just by the arbitrary position of the executive branch. He has just implemented a de facto police state similar to those observed historically in fascist and totalitarian regimes globally.
Forethought pertaining to this legislation suggests that certain liberties and freedoms must be sacrificed in the name of protecting the country from further terrorist attacks. Obama did not have to sign the bill and could have done what President Truman did when he vetoed an indefinite detention bill. Guess Obama doesn’t see that The NDAA is more of a threat to our freedom and our rights than any terrorist ever can or will be.
