Indefinite detentions without charge passed by Congress, signed by President

Obama signs NDAA into law, dismantles Bill of Rights


Rumors have been floating around the internet for the past week or so that Obama signed NDAA into law before Christmas. Well, he didn't. But that doesn't really matter now, because today he did.

According to the ACLU, President Barack Obama just signed one of the most controversial bills into law since the Patriot Act. The sad part is that neither the House nor the Senate nor Obama seemed to think it was all that controversial, as it passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate, and the president just signed it (even though he had at one time threatened to veto).

In case you haven't heard, H.R. 1540: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 or NDAA, is not your typical defense spending bill. It gives authority to the president (or perhaps it'd be more fitting to call him king or ruler at this point) to order the military to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without official charge or trial on the mere suspicion of being a terrorist or linked to a terrorist organization.


http://www.examiner.com/independent...signs-ndaa-into-law-dismantles-bill-of-rights

===================================================

Unless punitive laws are very precisely defined, they can create loopholes for blackmail, grand standing, shaddow politics, executive privelage, and various sorts of human rights violations. This bill will definitely not provide for a more transparent government or protect civil rights.

 

I wonder if the Occupy movement has frit them ? They'll be back in hugely increased numbers in the new year, word has it- and welcome.
Imo, Obama has proven, pretty much single-handedly, that Washington corrupts decent men and women. It should be evident to everybody by now that ' representative democracy ' has run its course as the most acceptable form of government. I'm personally backing eDemocracy and anything which promotes it. Politicians are not our friends.

 

Don't worry, unless of course you're a terrorist.

Obama wasn't decent to begin with.

 

Sounds like fascist-speak to me. Fortunately , those who would have us enjoy the ' security ' of fascism have no carrots for their ducking-stool program. See you, Jimmy.

 

A terrorist isn't affected by this law as they would be properly indicted and prosecuted under the laws of the United States.

It is the person that isn't a terrorist and where there is no evidence of them breaking the law that would be detained under this law. We know exactly who would be targeted under this law and why. It would be those that hold a political belief that is unpopular with our government and not someone that has broken the law that would be detained in violation of the protections afforded by the US Constitution.

Since when have Americans ever supported imprisonment of an individual based solely upon a person's political beliefs where no laws have been broken?

 

World War 1

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNAHjsAnTd4&feature=related"]How Liberty Dies - YouTube[/ame]

 

Don't forget WWII as well.

 

This is how fascism grew in Italy and Germany. It started with laws like this, to "protect" people by giving the government special rights. And look how it ended.

Nice start to 2012...

سلام

 

In times of declared war individuals can be detained as POW's although we've seen abuses of this by our government such as the detention of Japanese citizens on the West Coast of the United States during WWII. Those cases were clearly unconstitutional although in the Supreme Court decision in Korematsu v. United States upheld those detentions.

Those detentions were later overturned by a federal court when it was found that the US government had suppressed and withheld information that would have materially impacted the Supreme Court decision in Korematsu v. United States. In short the FDR adminstration lied to the Supreme Court about the detentions by presenting a case that those being held were Japanese spies when, in fact, it knew that they weren't spies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States

The provisions of this current law which allows imprisonment without an indictment clearly violate the "due process" requirements of the 5th Amendment.

 

I was talking more about the "Red Scare" which was focused on political ideology.

 

<<< Mod Edit: Personal Insult >>>

And that is sad since they should not be afforded those rights.

 

Many confuse limitations on the actions of our government imposed by the US Constitution with the granting of Rights to individuals. There is a difference between the two. A prohibition may protect a Right but the US government is constrained by the prohibition regardless of the "Rights" of the individual.

The 5th Amendment specifically states:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/

This is a prohibition imposed on the US government that states nothing relate to the Rights of any individual. It also addresses "persons" which is anyone that is subjected to the authority of the United States government. The law passed and signed by the president by-passes due process of the law as the 5th Amendment requires an indictment by a Grand Jury. It is clearly unconstitutional.

 

Any right-wingers want to pop-up and brag about how 'free' America is? It appears that the Constitution and all it encompasses is being ignored, by-passed and arrogantly dismissed with ever increasing frequency. PATRIOT and the laughably-named Homeland Security laws were a good start to the creeping fascism and gradual erosion of individual rights we're seeing evidenced here.

 

Terrorists are the new communists. People might start naming names soon that have no real connections...

I really don't like this. I understand POWs but this lets them do it on our soil doesn't it? I mean in the heat of battle gathering evidence of a POW's wrongdoing is literally often impossible even if they were gunning your troops up. But POWs usually are released at the end of a war (and our latest wars have no end).

 

I was a bit young when this went on and it perhaps hasn't received the historical review I should have given it but to my knowledge people were not being imprisoned without due process of the law.

 

The US Army Criminal Investigation Command carries out investigations even on the battlefield and is highly competent.

http://www.cid.army.mil/

The armed resistance to US military forces is not a criminal act. In any case the Geneva Conventions address POW's and since it is a treaty that the US is a party to it is also US law.

Currently the US isn't legally at war with any nation. US forces in Afghanistan are engaged in a civil war on the side of the US imposed government and all prisoners would rightfully be under the jurisdiction of the Afghanistan government and not the US government.

 

Ok, so I suppose I mixed up 'charge' with 'indictement'. In my own defence, I had read this article immediately after the New Year's which at the time seemed to have left more to interpretation than it really did. But at least I didn't get through the holidays looking as bad as this guy: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cXddVfXSbQ"]Santa got run over by my Chevy - Manic Hispanic - YouTube[/ame]

Nevertheless, this bill does represent a step closer in streamlining the civilian with military court procedures, and subscribes to the notion expressed by one of the Rockerfellers in the late 1990s, who seemed to have cast a sort of an omen in fact, that the political establishment will wage decades-long military operations "chasing after militias hiding out in caves", which the establishment will call wars and in their name will usurpt one civil liberty after another.

 

Unfortunately... we've definitely fallen in terms of civil liberties.