Sen. Carl Levin and Sen. John McCain have set in motion bill S. 1867 in the upcoming “defense authorization bill”.
Glenn Greenwald distills the bill's 3 main provisions: 1) it mandates that all accused Terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system INCLUDING U.S. CITIZENS ON U.S. SOIL ACCUSED OF “TERRORISM”; 2) it renews the 2001 “Authorization to Use Military Force” (AUMF) against anyone who SUBSTANTIALLY SUPPORTS Al Qaeda, the Taliban or “ASSOCIATED FORCES”; 3) it “imposes NEW RESTRICTIONS on the U.S. Government’s ability to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo “
According to Tom Carter of wsws:
The military detention provisions of the NDAA, if passed, would overturn once and for all a central principle of the relationship between the American population and its government that has persisted since 1791: the Fifth Amendment, which states, “No person … shall be deprived of … liberty … without due process of law …”
Translated in to plain English, this means that the US military can unilaterally cause any person to “disappear,” imprisoning him or her indefinitely—without trial, without a warrant, without the involvement of an attorney or a judge, without respect for international law, and without giving any reasons.
These provisions of the NDAA are unmistakably expansive and vague. What does “associated forces” mean? What does it mean to have “supported such hostilities?” What does it mean to give “aid” to “enemy forces?”
In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court held that provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act making it a crime to “provide material support to terrorism” made it a crime for the Humanitarian Law Project to provide legal advice regarding “peaceful conflict resolution” to the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey or the LTTE in Sri Lanka. The text of the NDAA could be similarly interpreted to authorize the military to detain anyone who provides legal advice, provides medical attention, donates money, or even writes an article deemed sympathetic to someone the US military has designated an “enemy.”
In any event, if a person were abducted by the military and held incommunicado, does it make a difference whether or not the prisoner “supported” any “enemies,” if the prisoner never would have the opportunity to go before a judge and argue at the provisions of the NDAA do not apply to him?
snip
The official “opposition” to the military detention provisions consisted of supporters of an amendment to the bill proposed by Democratic senator Mark Udall, simply requiring the military to make regular reports to Congress on its secret detention program. This amendment, designed to provide the illusion of public oversight, would have been nothing more than a fig leaf.
Are you fathoming the magnitude of this serious further trashing of our civil protections?
Glenn Greenwald laments:
If someone had said before September 11 that the Congress would be on the verge of enacting a bill to authorize military detention inside the U.S., it would be hard to believe. If someone had said after September 11 (or even after the 2006 and 2008 elections) that a Democratic-led Senate — more than ten years later, and without another successful attack on U.S. soil — would be mandating the indefinite continuation of Guantanamo and implementing an expanded AUMF, that, too, would have been hard to believe. But that’s exactly what Congress, with the active participation of both parties, is doing. And the most amazing part of it all is that it won’t change much, because that is more or less what Washington, without any statutory authorization, has already done. That’s how degraded our political culture is: what was once unthinkable now barely prompts any rational alarm — not because it’s not alarming, but because it’s become so normalized.
Greenwald on the "cognitive dissonance" we should all be feeling ... if the corporate media were even beginning to give this momentous Constitution-gutting the attention it deserves:
... the U.S. Government claims it has killed virtually all of Al Qaeda’s leadership and the group is “operationally ineffective” in the Afghan-Pakistan region; and many commentators insisted that these developments would mean that the War on Terror would finally begin to recede. And yet here we have the Congress, on a fully bipartisan basis, acting not only to re-affirm the war but to expand it even further: by formally declaring that the entire world (including the U.S.) is a battlefield and the war will essentially go on forever.
Indeed, it seems clear that they are doing this precisely out of fear that the justifications they have long given for the War no longer exist and there is therefore a risk Americans will clamor for its end. This is Congress declaring: the War is more vibrant than ever and must be expanded further. For our political class and the private-sector that owns it, the War on Terror — Endless War — is an addiction: it is not a means to an end but the end itself (indeed, 2/3 of these war addicts in the Senate just rejected Rand Paul’s bill to repeal the 2003 Iraq AUMF even as they insist that the Iraq War has ended). This is the war-hungry U.S. Congress acting preemptively to ensure that there is no sense in the citizenry that the War on Terror — and especially all of the vast new powers it spawned — can start to wind down, let alone be reversed.
Greenwald also purports a rather cynical but disturbing pattern among the Democrats in Congress, something he calls “villain rotation” whereby the Dem Party can posture to be on the side of the “people” and the Constitution by taking turns shoring up the needs of the 1 percenters by a rotating crop of them siding with the GOP members:
.... consider how typically bipartisan this all is. The Senate just voted 37-61 against an amendment, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, that would have stripped the Levin/McCain section from the bill: in other words, Levin/McCain garnered one more vote than the 60 needed to stave off a filibuster. Every GOP Senator (except Rand Paul and Mark Kirk) voted against the Udall amendment, while just enough Democrats – 16 in total — joined the GOP to ensure passage of Levin/McCain. That includes such progressive stalwarts as Debbie Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeanne Shaheen and its lead sponsor, Carl Levin.
I’ve described this little scam before as “Villain Rotation”: “They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it.” This has happened with countless votes that are supposed manifestations of right-wing radicalism but that pass because an always-changing roster of Democrats ensure they have the support needed. So here is the Democratic Party — led by its senior progressive National Security expert, Carl Levin, and joined by just enough of its members — joining the GOP to ensure that this bill passes, and that the U.S. Government remains vested with War on Terror powers and even expands that war in some critical respects.”
Greenwald quoting Sen. Lindsey Graham:
“If you’re an American citizen and you betray your country, you’re not going to be given a lawyer . . . I believe our military should be deeply involved in fighting these guys at home or abroad.” As Graham made chillingly clear, one key effect of the provision is that the U.S. military — rather than domestic law enforcement agencies — will be used to apprehend and imprison accused Terrorists on American soil, including U.S. citizens.
Greenwald points out that this is dispensing with Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution which provides that no American can be punished for treason without due process. The bill will allow an American citizen to be imprisoned indefinitely without a trial or even assassinated without a trial which has already happened via the present President. This is what Greenwald chillingly calls "as violent a betrayal of the U.S. Constitution as one can imagine, literally.”
That deserves repeating: “AS VIOLENT A BETRAYAL OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AS ONE CAN IMAGINE, LITERALLY.”
Greenwald:
But even there, the essence of this bill — that the entire world is a battlefield, including (by definition) U.S. soil — has long been (as I’ve always argued) the most important and most dangerous component of the Bush/Cheney War on Terror, because it means the President can exercise “war powers” anywhere in the world against anyone he accuses of being a “belligerent.” And that premise is one that has been fully embraced by Obama officials as well.
Indefinite, charge-free military detention of people accused — accused – of Terrorism has been fully embraced by both the Bush and Obama administrations (it’s one of the reasons some of us have been so vocally critical). The Obama administration has gone even further and argued that it has the power not merely to detain accused Terrorists (including U.S. citizens) without due process, but to kill them. It is true that the Obama DOJ has chosen to try some accused Terrorists in civilian courts — and this bill may make that more difficult — but the power of military detention already rests with the Executive Branch. And while it would be worse for Congress to formally codify these powers and thus arguably overturn long-standing prohibitions on using the U.S. military on U.S. soil, the real legal objections to such detention are grounded in Constitutional guarantees, and no act of Congress can affect those. In sum, this bill would codify indefinite military detention, but the actual changes when compared to what the Executive Branch is doing now would be modest. That’s not a mitigation of this bill’s radicalism; it’s proof of how radical the Executive Branch under these two Presidents has already become.
Greenwald on Obama’s stance on the bill which the Obama apologists are myopically celebrating:
Most media discussions of Levin/McCain assert that President Obama has threatened to veto it. That is not quite true: the White House’s statement on this bill uses language short of a full-on veto threat: “the President’s senior advisers [will] recommend a veto.” Moreover, former Bush DOJ official Jack Goldsmith makes a persuasive (though not dispositive) case that it is unlikely that the President would veto this bill. Most likely, it seems to me, is that the veto threat will be used to extract concessions in order to have a bill that the President will sign.
snip
Let’s be very clear, though, about what the “veto threat” is and is not. All things considered, I’m glad the White House is opposing this bill rather than supporting it. But, with a few exceptions, the objections raised by the White House are not grounded in substantive problems with these powers, but rather in the argument that such matters are for the Executive Branch, not the Congress, to decide. In other words, the White House’s objections are grounded in broad theories of Executive Power. They are not arguing: it is wrong to deny accused Terrorists a trial. Instead they insist: whether an accused Terrorist is put in military detention rather than civilian custody is for the President alone to decide. Over and over, the White House’s statement emphasizes Executive power as the basis for its objections to Levin/McCain:
Greenwald offers a depressing update, one worth applying his rotating villains theory to:
Any doubt about whether this bill permits the military detention of U.S. citizens was dispelled entirely today when an amendment offered by Dianne Feinstein — to confine military detention to those apprehended “abroad,” i.e., off U.S. soil — failed by a vote of 45-55. Only three Republicans voted in favor of Feinstein’s amendment (Paul, Kirk and Lee), while 10 Senate Democrats voted against it (Levin, Stabenow, Casey, Pryor, Ben Nelson, Manchin, McCaskill, Begich and Lieberman). Remember: the GOP — all of whom except 3 voted today to empower the President to militarily detain citizens without charges — distrusts federal power and are strong believes in restrained government. Meanwhile, even The American Spectator has a more developed appreciation of due process than these Senate Democrats and the White House.
They may have 10% or less popularity but they, our oath-taking representatives, indeed have the power to once again promote the fast hardening of soft fascism in America.
The FBI and Homeland Security assuredly were involved with the local mayors and paramilitary garbed and behaving violence-prone police against the occupiers.
The 1 percenters continue to be championed by their fellow 1 percenters in Congress and the administration, to the point that if any of us among the 99 percenters become "belligerently" effective enough in our protests, threatening enough in demanding actual justice and accountability against the rampant economic and military terrorism from our own government, we could be abducted, imprisoned, and “they” can anti-constitutionally but legally throw away the key.
I call that bi-partisanship fascism.
Be afraid.
Further afraid.
Playing hardball doesn't begin to describe the level of evil being embraced in this class war being waged at those of us exercising our heretofore citizen rights along with the rest of the 99 percenters here and around the globe by the despicable 1 percenters and their political and military operatives.
[cross-posted at correntewire and sacramento for democracy]
--------------
Near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (along the Potomac River) there are huge (mysterious and erie) facilities being constructed (not visible from the road) on many thousands of acres. The State Police barracks have some huge new brick constructions with many chimneys. Honest. I've been watching the State Police Inn going up from steel frames etc., since the groundbreaking on `I-70 in towards DC - Built (not China) In Maryland. Who knows?
`
I never read the long chapter on:`
self-defense course in philosophy.
Roads here are like S.E. Bangkok.
`
Traffic jams are driving me crazy.
Interstates may be one mile wide.
Road crews are all foreign injuns?
`
I have been away too long in Canada.
The county I was in had 1- stop light.
One green/red & stop\go on yellow.
One electric light that I never did see.
`
I may ask my pediatrician what she thinks.
She thinks my overalls still smell. Ay stinks.
The clothes I wore in Canada smell. Fishy.
`
Honest. Every home you enter smell like:
Halibut, Scallops, Smoked Potluck, Clam.
Maybe we all will be in the slammer. Why?
`
Pete Singer sings we all must get a bit littler.
Seven billion folk need lots of goat milk. huh.
There are problems coming down the` Pike.
`
No eat GMO smoked salmon. O dirty.
The fish are engineered to grow fatter.
Faster too. The fish are mushy. Beware.
`
The fish pollute waterways. They in jails.
The fish grow in water tanks and pollute.
It's a good idea to yellow tape driveways.
Use yellow crime scene police tape tape.
I went on a tour in Digby. Nova Scotia.
I may build me a higher up bunk bed.
If someone needs a bunk? You cook?
The surveyor filled me in on bad news.
I don't know what's happening. Behave.
`
I never read the long chapter on:`
self-defense course in philosophy.
Roads here are like S.E. Bangkok.
`
Traffic jams are driving me crazy.
Interstates may be one mile wide.
Road crews are all foreign injuns?
`
I have been away too long in Canada.
The county I was in had 1- stop light.
One green/red & stop\go on yellow.
One electric light that I never did see.
`
I may ask my pediatrician what she thinks.
She thinks my overalls still smell. Ay stinks.
The clothes I wore in Canada smell. Fishy.
`
Honest. Every home you enter smell like:
Halibut, Scallops, Smoked Potluck, Clam.
Maybe we all will be in the slammer. Why?
`
Pete Singer sings we all must get a bit littler.
Seven billion folk need lots of goat milk. huh.
There are problems coming down the` Pike.
`
No eat GMO smoked salmon. O dirty.
The fish are engineered to grow fatter.
Faster too. The fish are mushy. Beware.
`
The fish pollute waterways. They in jails.
The fish grow in water tanks and pollute.
It's a good idea to yellow tape driveways.
Use yellow crime scene police tape tape.
I went on a tour in Digby. Nova Scotia.
I may build me a higher up bunk bed.
If someone needs a bunk? You cook?
The surveyor filled me in on bad news.
I don't know what's happening. Behave.
I put all their names up on my blog, because I think it's important that we know who is willing to bypass the Constitution so readily. We need to vote them out, wherever possible. They need to be unemployed, or at least, go looking for work at their precious corporations.
impeach congress
the last straw
they have broken
trust with the people
We The People
they simply want to consolidate
the protracted coup which
they have been busy
implementing
4 decades
impeach them.
the last straw
they have broken
trust with the people
We The People
they simply want to consolidate
the protracted coup which
they have been busy
implementing
4 decades
impeach them.
It's for our own good! Just like drug war! We need to be protected from Islam! Just like the Jews in Germany! We have run out of African Americans to incarcerate ? For profit lock up ! For Profit Medicine! Its all good! For profit para military ! Profit - Profit - Profit! Govcorp! Corpgov! Obama!
Thanks for comments. This is truly, surreally horrifying. It means a lot, though brings the horror home even harder, your confirming just how violent as Greenwald says they are being with our civil rights, since there is a corporate media blackout on these deplorable goings on. We as a citizenry have not risen up enough for the grotesque injustices against so many innocent foreigners being indefinitely incarcerated for having been at the wrong place at the wrong time and the military's incompetent rounding up of faux-terrorists, but now that it is happening to us and will happen more and more, now that there is some momentum for citizen dissent, so dear God, let us rally and call out our leaders for being so brazenly TREASONOUS. Yes, impeachment is the word. Alice in Wonderland America, where to be patriotic and fight for the Constitution may get you labeled "traitor" and incarcerated permanently without due process. As Maddow once said, "It is an ethical freakshow of a universe." Last Friday on NewsHour David Brooks referred to "Post-Morality America." Damn right.
UPDATE:
Andy Worthington entitles his article over at common dreams: "Deranged Senate Votes for Military Detention of All Terror Suspects and a Permanent Guantánamo". Excerpts:
"Yesterday the shameful dinosaurs of the Senate — hopelessly out of touch with reality, for the most part, and haunted by specters of their own making — approved, by 93 votes to 7, the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (PDF), which contains a number of astonishingly alarming provisions — Sections 1031 and 1032, designed to make mandatory the indefinite military detention of terror suspects until the end of hostilities in a “war on terror” that seems to have no end (if they are identified as a member of al-Qaeda or an alleged affiliate, or have planned or carried out an attack on the United States), ending a long and entirely appropriate tradition of trying terror suspects in federal court for their alleged crimes, and Sections 1033 and 1034, which seek to prevent the closure of Guantánamo by imposing onerous restrictions on the release of prisoners, and banning the use of funds to purchase an alternative prison anywhere else. I have previously remarked on these depressing developments in articles in July and October, as they have had a horribly long period of gestation, in which no one with a grip on reality — and admiration for the law — has been able to wipe them out.
"The four sections are connected, as cheerleaders for the mandatory military detention of terror suspects want them to be sent to Guantánamo, and have done, if I recall correctly, at least since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Christmas plane bomber in 2009, was arrested, read his Miranda rights, and interrogated by the FBI. Recently, Abdulmutallab, who told his interrogators all they wanted to know without being held in military custody — and, for that matter, without being tortured, which is what the hardcore cheerleaders for military detention also want — was tried and convicted in a federal court.
"Hundreds of other terror suspects have been successfully prosecuted in federal court, throughout the Bush years, and under Obama, but supporters of military custody like to forget this, as it conflicts with their notions, held since the aftermath of 9/11 and the Bush administration’s horrendous flight from the law, that terrorists are warriors. Underpinning it all is the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the founding document of the “war on terror,” passed the week after the 9/11 attacks. This authorizes the President to pursue anyone, anywhere who he thinks was involved in the 9/11 attacks, and it is a dreadfully open-ended excuse for endless war whose repeal I have long encouraged, but which some lawmakers have been itching to renew, even after the death of Osama bin Laden, and the obvious incentives for the winding-down of the ruinous, decade-long “war on terror.”
snip
"However, one of the even more extraordinary things about the Senate’s custody provisions is not only that they are a mangled, scrambled mess, but also that no one who will be required to obey them wants anything to do with them. The executive branch, the military, the FBI and the CIA — no one asked for this new policy. As Spencer Ackerman noted for Wired:
"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opposes the maneuver. So does CIA Director David Petraeus, who usually commands deference from senators in both parties. Pretty much every security official has lined up against the Senate detention provisions, from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to FBI Director Robert Mueller, who worry that they’ll get in the way of FBI investigations of domestic terrorists.
"Also opposing the bill’s unwanted provisions are Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson, Obama Counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, 16 former interrogators and counter-terrorism professionals, and 26 retired military leaders who, on Tuesday, urged Senators to support an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall, backed by Sen. Jim Webb, to strip all the troublesome provisions from the legislation (and also see Sen, Udall’s eminently sensible Washington Post op-ed). Despite this, the Udall amendment was defeated by 61 votes to 37 (with 16 Democrats voting against the amendment — see the breakdown of votes here).
"Obama, of course, is no great defender of due process, as he had Osama bin Laden killed in a Wild West style and also approved the execution without any kind of charge or trial of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, in Yemen, where he was producing irritating jihadist material in English on the Internet. However, it seems likely that his defense secretary, Leon Panetta, will indeed be forced to jump through hoops if the custody provisions are not removed.
"I honesty find it hard to believe that these proposals even made it as far as they did, especially as Sen. Carl Levin was involved in drafting the legislation with the usual deranged suspects — Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Liebermann — plus torture advocate Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who attempted to specifically reintroduce torture as official US policy in her own deranged bill, which was recently defeated. Astonishingly, the Senate Armed Services Committee, where this toxic brew was created, conjured it up in secret, which did not go down well with some of the lawmakers’ colleagues. Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially found his spine and spoke up against it, he soon remembered that it is his job to cave in on matters of importance, which he duly did, although others were not so easily swayed.
"Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, as Andrew Rosenthal explained in the New York Times, noted with horror that the provisions were “hashed out behind closed doors without consultation with his committee [he is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee], or the Intelligence Committee, or the Defense Department, the FBI or the intelligence community.” In addition, as Andrew Cohen explained:
"Leahy, and California’s Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote Sen. Reid a letter requesting that the controversial provisions be removed from the NDAA. “We concur with the Administration’s view that mandatory military custody is ‘undue and dangerous,’” they wrote, “and that these provisions would ‘severely and recklessly undermine’ our Nation’s counterterrorism efforts.”
snip
"Go figure, indeed. It may, perhaps, be slightly cynical of me to note that the story of Guantánamo involves foreigners and that Americans only wake up in any kind of numbers when legal monstrosities might apply to American citizens, but there does appear to be some truth in it. If it could be demonstrated that no American could possibly end up in mandatory military custody as a result of the Senate’s mad provisions, I would be prepared to wager that hardly any Americans would bat an eyelid.
snip
"If Obama is wavering, as is his habit, I would suggest that he takes note of the fact that the election season is nearly upon us, and that, as we approach that frenzy of hype and hyperbole, he needs do something to make his progressive supporters remember why they might want to vote for him, rather than just hoping — or presuming — that they will not vote against him. In short, the President needs to veto this bill, and stand up for US justice, and the still-pressing need to close Guantánamo, rather than doing as he has so often on national security issues, and caving in to pressure."
end of quote
Time for Obama to begin to earn the higher approval he has than Congress and to veto this bill. Time for us to contact the WH and tell him to do it. Time to raise more hell. If enough of us do, they won't be able to scoop up those on the vanguard fighting for justice for all of us.
UPDATE:
Andy Worthington entitles his article over at common dreams: "Deranged Senate Votes for Military Detention of All Terror Suspects and a Permanent Guantánamo". Excerpts:
"Yesterday the shameful dinosaurs of the Senate — hopelessly out of touch with reality, for the most part, and haunted by specters of their own making — approved, by 93 votes to 7, the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (PDF), which contains a number of astonishingly alarming provisions — Sections 1031 and 1032, designed to make mandatory the indefinite military detention of terror suspects until the end of hostilities in a “war on terror” that seems to have no end (if they are identified as a member of al-Qaeda or an alleged affiliate, or have planned or carried out an attack on the United States), ending a long and entirely appropriate tradition of trying terror suspects in federal court for their alleged crimes, and Sections 1033 and 1034, which seek to prevent the closure of Guantánamo by imposing onerous restrictions on the release of prisoners, and banning the use of funds to purchase an alternative prison anywhere else. I have previously remarked on these depressing developments in articles in July and October, as they have had a horribly long period of gestation, in which no one with a grip on reality — and admiration for the law — has been able to wipe them out.
"The four sections are connected, as cheerleaders for the mandatory military detention of terror suspects want them to be sent to Guantánamo, and have done, if I recall correctly, at least since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Christmas plane bomber in 2009, was arrested, read his Miranda rights, and interrogated by the FBI. Recently, Abdulmutallab, who told his interrogators all they wanted to know without being held in military custody — and, for that matter, without being tortured, which is what the hardcore cheerleaders for military detention also want — was tried and convicted in a federal court.
"Hundreds of other terror suspects have been successfully prosecuted in federal court, throughout the Bush years, and under Obama, but supporters of military custody like to forget this, as it conflicts with their notions, held since the aftermath of 9/11 and the Bush administration’s horrendous flight from the law, that terrorists are warriors. Underpinning it all is the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the founding document of the “war on terror,” passed the week after the 9/11 attacks. This authorizes the President to pursue anyone, anywhere who he thinks was involved in the 9/11 attacks, and it is a dreadfully open-ended excuse for endless war whose repeal I have long encouraged, but which some lawmakers have been itching to renew, even after the death of Osama bin Laden, and the obvious incentives for the winding-down of the ruinous, decade-long “war on terror.”
snip
"However, one of the even more extraordinary things about the Senate’s custody provisions is not only that they are a mangled, scrambled mess, but also that no one who will be required to obey them wants anything to do with them. The executive branch, the military, the FBI and the CIA — no one asked for this new policy. As Spencer Ackerman noted for Wired:
"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opposes the maneuver. So does CIA Director David Petraeus, who usually commands deference from senators in both parties. Pretty much every security official has lined up against the Senate detention provisions, from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to FBI Director Robert Mueller, who worry that they’ll get in the way of FBI investigations of domestic terrorists.
"Also opposing the bill’s unwanted provisions are Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson, Obama Counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, 16 former interrogators and counter-terrorism professionals, and 26 retired military leaders who, on Tuesday, urged Senators to support an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall, backed by Sen. Jim Webb, to strip all the troublesome provisions from the legislation (and also see Sen, Udall’s eminently sensible Washington Post op-ed). Despite this, the Udall amendment was defeated by 61 votes to 37 (with 16 Democrats voting against the amendment — see the breakdown of votes here).
"Obama, of course, is no great defender of due process, as he had Osama bin Laden killed in a Wild West style and also approved the execution without any kind of charge or trial of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, in Yemen, where he was producing irritating jihadist material in English on the Internet. However, it seems likely that his defense secretary, Leon Panetta, will indeed be forced to jump through hoops if the custody provisions are not removed.
"I honesty find it hard to believe that these proposals even made it as far as they did, especially as Sen. Carl Levin was involved in drafting the legislation with the usual deranged suspects — Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Liebermann — plus torture advocate Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who attempted to specifically reintroduce torture as official US policy in her own deranged bill, which was recently defeated. Astonishingly, the Senate Armed Services Committee, where this toxic brew was created, conjured it up in secret, which did not go down well with some of the lawmakers’ colleagues. Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially found his spine and spoke up against it, he soon remembered that it is his job to cave in on matters of importance, which he duly did, although others were not so easily swayed.
"Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, as Andrew Rosenthal explained in the New York Times, noted with horror that the provisions were “hashed out behind closed doors without consultation with his committee [he is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee], or the Intelligence Committee, or the Defense Department, the FBI or the intelligence community.” In addition, as Andrew Cohen explained:
"Leahy, and California’s Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote Sen. Reid a letter requesting that the controversial provisions be removed from the NDAA. “We concur with the Administration’s view that mandatory military custody is ‘undue and dangerous,’” they wrote, “and that these provisions would ‘severely and recklessly undermine’ our Nation’s counterterrorism efforts.”
snip
"Go figure, indeed. It may, perhaps, be slightly cynical of me to note that the story of Guantánamo involves foreigners and that Americans only wake up in any kind of numbers when legal monstrosities might apply to American citizens, but there does appear to be some truth in it. If it could be demonstrated that no American could possibly end up in mandatory military custody as a result of the Senate’s mad provisions, I would be prepared to wager that hardly any Americans would bat an eyelid.
snip
"If Obama is wavering, as is his habit, I would suggest that he takes note of the fact that the election season is nearly upon us, and that, as we approach that frenzy of hype and hyperbole, he needs do something to make his progressive supporters remember why they might want to vote for him, rather than just hoping — or presuming — that they will not vote against him. In short, the President needs to veto this bill, and stand up for US justice, and the still-pressing need to close Guantánamo, rather than doing as he has so often on national security issues, and caving in to pressure."
end of quote
Time for Obama to begin to earn the higher approval he has than Congress and to veto this bill. Time for us to contact the WH and tell him to do it. Time to raise more hell. If enough of us do, they won't be able to scoop up those on the vanguard fighting for justice for all of us.
common dreams address for Worthington:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/02-7
Call/Write the President
PHONE NUMBERS
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitor's Office: 202-456-2121
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/02-7
Call/Write the President
PHONE NUMBERS
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitor's Office: 202-456-2121
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
AJ-detention camps in our futures? attempts to cow dissenters with that incredible specter of oppression? profits for privatized prisons, even more. win/win for the soulless!!!!
II and S -- the iron fists seem entirely out of the velvet gloves to some of us at least!
FWIW I emailed Obama about this, but Obama sure doesn't take his marching orders from the likes of me or hundreds or thousands or even millions like me. Corporate overlords have captured him and and Congress and thus this country.
Colleen Rowley had this to say on common dreams:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/03-5
"The political, military industrial, corporate class in Washington DC continues to re-make our constitutional republic into a powerful, unaccountable military empire. Yesterday the U.S. Senate voted 93 to 7 to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012 which allows the military to operate domestically within the borders of the United States and to possibly (or most probably) detain U.S. citizens without trial. Forget that the ACLU called it "an historic threat to American citizens", this bill is so dangerous not only to our rights but to our country's security that it was criticized by the Directors of the FBI, the CIA, the National Intelligence Director and the U.S. Defense Secretary! For the first time in our history, if this Act is not vetoed, American citizens may not be guaranteed their Article III right to trial."
"The government would be able to decide who gets an old fashioned trial (along with right to attorney and right against self-incrimination) and who gets detained without due process and put into a modern legal limbo. Does anyone remember that none of the first thousand people the FBI rounded up after 9-11, and which were imprisoned for several months (some brutalized) were ever charged with terrorism? Does anyone remember that hundreds of the Gitmo detainees who were handed over to their American military captors in exchange for monetary bounties were found, after years of imprisonment, to have no connection to terrorism?"
"When in doubt about a case, what do you think the government will again do? Does it prefer to submit its evidence to a jury's scrutiny and its witnesses to the trouble of being cross-examined in court by a defense attorney or would it be easier to have no questions asked and dump the accused into detainee prison without rights? I think we already know that answer from the nearly ten years of experience at Guantanamo."
"Senator Lindsey Graham declared that suspected citizens open themselves up "to imprisonment and death". "And when they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them: 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer.'"
"Of course, the politicians will say we are just talking about a few cases. But in fact the sky's probably the limit given the current legal ambiguity in the Patriot Act expansion of "material support for terrorism" to now include humanitarian aid and even mere advocacy speech without any need to prove an accused person intended to support any kind of terrorist violence. The Department of Justice has been currently using this ambiguity for over a year to investigate twenty three American citizens who are anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Additionally, the "war on terror" will undoubtedly expand even more when it is de-linked from 9-11 -- see "The War on Terrorism Congress Never Declared -- But Soon Might" by Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor, expert on these issues and associate dean for scholarship at American University Washington College of Law:"
snip
"Given this expansion of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force contained in the 2012 NDAA to encompass undefined "associated forces", we could witness the US government targeting a large range of political dissidents, human rights activists, humanitarians, and maybe even "occupiers"."
"The NDAA is deliberately confusing for political purposes but much is at stake. Obama's determination as to whether or not he will veto the problematic 2012 war funding bill will determine how Benjamin Franklin's glib response to the woman waiting outside the Constitutional Convention is ultimately answered. Franklin and other founding fathers had created "a Republic, Madam, if you can keep it". But a lawless Military Empire could now await where U.S. "emergency war powers" trump the Constitution, where the Commander in Chief becomes king for a term(s), the military enters into police state actions in violation of 130 years of Posse Comitatus law, and the Constitution becomes as quaint as the Geneva Conventions were for Alberto Gonzalez and the Bush Administration."
"Corrupted, compliant politicians have already allowed their fears to get the better of them by going along with pre-emptive war in violation of the Nuremberg Principles and international law and torturing in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture. So why should they also not go for detaining American citizens without constitutional rights or trial?"
II and S -- the iron fists seem entirely out of the velvet gloves to some of us at least!
FWIW I emailed Obama about this, but Obama sure doesn't take his marching orders from the likes of me or hundreds or thousands or even millions like me. Corporate overlords have captured him and and Congress and thus this country.
Colleen Rowley had this to say on common dreams:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/03-5
"The political, military industrial, corporate class in Washington DC continues to re-make our constitutional republic into a powerful, unaccountable military empire. Yesterday the U.S. Senate voted 93 to 7 to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012 which allows the military to operate domestically within the borders of the United States and to possibly (or most probably) detain U.S. citizens without trial. Forget that the ACLU called it "an historic threat to American citizens", this bill is so dangerous not only to our rights but to our country's security that it was criticized by the Directors of the FBI, the CIA, the National Intelligence Director and the U.S. Defense Secretary! For the first time in our history, if this Act is not vetoed, American citizens may not be guaranteed their Article III right to trial."
"The government would be able to decide who gets an old fashioned trial (along with right to attorney and right against self-incrimination) and who gets detained without due process and put into a modern legal limbo. Does anyone remember that none of the first thousand people the FBI rounded up after 9-11, and which were imprisoned for several months (some brutalized) were ever charged with terrorism? Does anyone remember that hundreds of the Gitmo detainees who were handed over to their American military captors in exchange for monetary bounties were found, after years of imprisonment, to have no connection to terrorism?"
"When in doubt about a case, what do you think the government will again do? Does it prefer to submit its evidence to a jury's scrutiny and its witnesses to the trouble of being cross-examined in court by a defense attorney or would it be easier to have no questions asked and dump the accused into detainee prison without rights? I think we already know that answer from the nearly ten years of experience at Guantanamo."
"Senator Lindsey Graham declared that suspected citizens open themselves up "to imprisonment and death". "And when they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them: 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer.'"
"Of course, the politicians will say we are just talking about a few cases. But in fact the sky's probably the limit given the current legal ambiguity in the Patriot Act expansion of "material support for terrorism" to now include humanitarian aid and even mere advocacy speech without any need to prove an accused person intended to support any kind of terrorist violence. The Department of Justice has been currently using this ambiguity for over a year to investigate twenty three American citizens who are anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Additionally, the "war on terror" will undoubtedly expand even more when it is de-linked from 9-11 -- see "The War on Terrorism Congress Never Declared -- But Soon Might" by Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor, expert on these issues and associate dean for scholarship at American University Washington College of Law:"
snip
"Given this expansion of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force contained in the 2012 NDAA to encompass undefined "associated forces", we could witness the US government targeting a large range of political dissidents, human rights activists, humanitarians, and maybe even "occupiers"."
"The NDAA is deliberately confusing for political purposes but much is at stake. Obama's determination as to whether or not he will veto the problematic 2012 war funding bill will determine how Benjamin Franklin's glib response to the woman waiting outside the Constitutional Convention is ultimately answered. Franklin and other founding fathers had created "a Republic, Madam, if you can keep it". But a lawless Military Empire could now await where U.S. "emergency war powers" trump the Constitution, where the Commander in Chief becomes king for a term(s), the military enters into police state actions in violation of 130 years of Posse Comitatus law, and the Constitution becomes as quaint as the Geneva Conventions were for Alberto Gonzalez and the Bush Administration."
"Corrupted, compliant politicians have already allowed their fears to get the better of them by going along with pre-emptive war in violation of the Nuremberg Principles and international law and torturing in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture. So why should they also not go for detaining American citizens without constitutional rights or trial?"
OR-Thank you for listing them, though I see ALL of them, except was it 7 as dark and dirty right now. libby
The Cuban government has yet to cash a cheque of the Guantanamo rent.
Australia has just been imposed another 2500 US Marines in Darwin on the northern shore ~ a town unable to look after its own indigenous population. Hillary Clinton has lunch with Aung San Suu Kyi ~ we are looking down the barrel at the next conflagration & there isn't anything a United States citizen can do about it.
Australia has just been imposed another 2500 US Marines in Darwin on the northern shore ~ a town unable to look after its own indigenous population. Hillary Clinton has lunch with Aung San Suu Kyi ~ we are looking down the barrel at the next conflagration & there isn't anything a United States citizen can do about it.
Thanks for this post. We're sliding into totalitarianism and no one seems to give a shit.
The government seems to see our liberties as a threat.
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