Indefinite detention for US civilians in your Congress?

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

According to the ACLU:

If enacted, sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA would:

1)  Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside the United States;

(2)  Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and

(3)  Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.


https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3865&s_subsrc=fixNDAA

This blog called Lawfare seems to have the most comprehensive collection of information about it.

Congress is now poised to codify this unprecedented system of indefinite detention based on secret evidence into U.S. law.  Under the proposed sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA headed for a vote in the coming weeks, this system of holding individuals suspected of having links to an anti-U.S. insurgency without affording them a meaningful opportunity to challenge the government's evidence could now become not just a temporary wartime measure, as it's been presented since 2001, but a permanent feature of the U.S. "justice" system.  Of course, it's not really justice, which is why it wouldn't fall under the Department of Justice's purview.  It would be the establishment of a permanent military prison system that would sweep in not only foreigners and lawful U.S. residents but even U.S. citizens.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/11/daphne-eviatar-on-latif-and-the-ndaa/

I just simply couldn't imagine this being systematically abused like the Patriot Act. No sir.

Ben wrote last week about the Administration's threat to veto the Defense Authorization Bill, in large part because of its detainee transfer and related provisions.  As Josh Gerstein notes, "whether for political reasons or due to some complex internal dynamics, the administration seems at this point willing to put up more of a public fight over detainee-related strictures than it has in the past.  However, whether that will ultimately translate to a willingness to blow up the defense bill with a veto is unclear."

I doubt that the President will blow up the bill.  Too many liberal democrats, including Senate Arms Services Chair Carl Levin, support it, so the president cannot charge political extremism.  And as John McCain has said, "[t]here is too much in this bill that is important to this Nation's defense."  Is the president really going to expose himself, in an election cycle, to the charge (fair or not) that he jeopardized the nation's defenses in order to vindicate the principle of presidential discretion to release terrorists from GTMO or to bring them to the United States to try them in civilian courts?  It is the right principle, but it is a generally unpopular one that the president has not to date fought for.  I doubt he will start fighting for it eleven months before the election.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/11/is-the-president%E2%80%99s-veto-threat-credible/

Sounds about right.

Lawfare has the most amount of source material and discussion about this, and the latest news seems to be an amendment that would strip out those offending clauses. Whatever happens, I'll be keeping an eye on this.

[Freeky]

I don't want to be here anymore because of stuff like this, but there's nowhere else to go. 





Fuck this country's people and their determination to destoy everything that was ever good about the place.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Turkey is nice...

[Cain]

The US Congress love and honour the US Military so much, they want to make it an agent of domestic repression on par with the Gestapo.

The White House is, surprisingly, fighting this bill, though I wonder if it is the specifically military dimension that bothers them, since I recall the Obama DoJ considering "preventative detention" before now, which is pretty much the same thing.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

The US Congress love and honour the US Military so much, they want to make it an agent of domestic repression on par with the Gestapo.

The White House is, surprisingly, fighting this bill, though I wonder if it is the specifically military dimension that bothers them, since I recall the Obama DoJ considering "preventative detention" before now, which is pretty much the same thing.

I was reading through the Congressional record and Lindsey Graham was one of the biggest defenders of 1031 and 1032, who just repeated in an endless number of ways that critics of those two sections are just making stuff up and seeing things that aren't there. "Where does it say that?" He asks repeatedly. Which suggests to me some sneaky fucking legal weaselry to make what the critics are talking about possible but ambiguous enough to defend in this manner.

I also got the impression that the White House was more concerned with 1031/1032 interfering with their power over detainees more than the issue of indefinite detention. But these senators are masters of the sleight of tongue and merely said what they interpreted, neither side quoting from the actual bill to support their windbaggery.

I suppose this could be a move to help repair Obama's image over his whole promise to shut down Guantanamo and the accompanying giant can of indefinite detention worms that still hasn't been codified in Congress. But, I'm not counting on it. And yeah, if I remember correctly, the last dozen or so cases in appeals all supported indefinite detention.

It's very fishy....

[Cain]

Pissing match over who has control sounds about right. 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

But ifn yew ain't doin' nuthin' wrong, yew ain't got nothin' to worry about.
     \



Ah 21st Century America, where every conspiracy theorist's nightmares can come true for all the reasons they're way off about.

[Cain]

I'm still waiting for my FEMA death camp. 

[Cain]

Turkey is nice...

LOL, missed this before

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susurluk_scandal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_%28organization%29

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I'm still waiting for my FEMA death camp. 

Well, the problem is with the Teabaggers in office. Even though they're all about sending undesirable liberals to death camps, they don't want to pay for the train infrastructure needed to bring the FEMA coffins to the FEMA death camps.

This works out in their favor. They've suspected that they were on the lists. They want to make sure it's just liberals, immigrants, Muslims, and women who refuse to make a sammich.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

The Senate passed the NDAA (S. 1867) last night on a 93-7 vote. The seven senators who voted against final passage are:

    * Coburn
    * Harkin
    * Lee
    * Merkley
    * Paul
    * Sanders
    * Wyden

The bill now moves on to a conference with the House.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/12/ndaa-passage-final-transcript-from-senate-floor/

There was an amendment to 1031 that passed, but it sounds like a meaningless passing of the buck:

[...] note the following statement by Senator Feinstein, offered in the course of explaining the impact of this amendment:

    So our purpose in the second amendment, number 1456, is essentially to declare a truce, to provide that section 1031 of this bill does not change existing law, whichever side's view is the correct one. So the sponsors can read Hamdi and other authorities broadly, and opponents can read it more narrowly, and this bill does not endorse either side's interpretation, but leaves it to the courts to decide.

Think about that last bit for a moment.  It seems to me this is quite typical of the role Congress has played in recent years in relation to detention policy.  Rather than actually state explicitly whether it wishes detention authority to extend to some circumstances or entities, the general pattern has been to simply leave in place the generic language of the AUMF (and, now, the only slightly-more-specific language of section 1031), with the government and detainee lawyers then fighting over their preferred readings and the judiciary eventually making the ultimate decision.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/12/congress-the-courts-and-detention-of-americans-under-the-aumfndaa/

[Cain]

Surprisingly, Glenn Greenwald of all people has argued this bill is not as bad as it sounds.

Though to be fair, by not as bad, he means "the President has already assumed these powers anyway and the courts had not seen fit to contradict him, plus the original 2001 AUMF is being interpreted as broadly as the cover the new one will give to the Executive".

Interestingly, the Executive will be able to veto the sending of American terrorists to Guantanamo, under this bill, or opt for them to be tried in the civilian courts rather than the military.  I think that caveat alone may cause Obama to back down and not pursue a veto.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Surprisingly, Glenn Greenwald of all people has argued this bill is not as bad as it sounds.

Though to be fair, by not as bad, he means "the President has already assumed these powers anyway and the courts had not seen fit to contradict him, plus the original 2001 AUMF is being interpreted as broadly as the cover the new one will give to the Executive".

Interestingly, the Executive will be able to veto the sending of American terrorists to Guantanamo, under this bill, or opt for them to be tried in the civilian courts rather than the military.  I think that caveat alone may cause Obama to back down and not pursue a veto.

That fits all too well with my initial take on the situation.

That article by Glenn Greenwald on Salon was pretty excellent. Another great nugget in there:

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.

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/01/congress_endorsing_military_detention_a_new_aumf/singleton/

[maphdet]

Bastards the lot of them. All of them.

You guys see the bit about how one is defined or could be defined as a 'terrorist'.
The missing fingers, ownership of ammo and weatherproof guns, and of course seven days of food on hand.
wtf.

Im threw with all this bullshit. This has made me sick. And I am now going to just live. Yup. Just live and try to be happy and try to slowly get off the grid.
And when they come for me-well, my camp location will be six feet under.

Fucking bastards they are. Bleh.

[Freeky]

Bastards the lot of them. All of them.

You guys see the bit about how one is defined or could be defined as a 'terrorist'.
The missing fingers, ownership of ammo and weatherproof guns, and of course seven days of food on hand.
wtf.

Im threw with all this bullshit. This has made me sick. And I am now going to just live. Yup. Just live and try to be happy and try to slowly get off the grid.
And when they come for me-well, my camp location will be six feet under.

Fucking bastards they are. Bleh.

Waitaminnit, missing fingers and seven days worth of food is considered criteria for terrorists?    :vomilulz: