President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country . . . and citizens partied only blissfully into the New Year.
Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely.
Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the President would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House that insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.
The latest claim is even more insulting. You do not “support our troops” by denying the principles for which they are fighting. They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the President. The “American way of life” is defined by our Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights. Moreover, the insistence that you do not intend to use authoritarian powers does not alter the fact that you just signed an authoritarian measure. It is not the use but the right to use such powers that defines authoritarian systems.
The almost complete failure of the mainstream media to cover this issue is shocking. Many reporters have bought into the spin of the Obama Administration as they did the spin over torture by the Bush Administration. Even today reporters refuse to call waterboarding torture despite the long line of cases and experts defining waterboarding as torture for decades. On the NDAA, reporters continue to mouth the claim that this law only codifies what is already the law. That is not true. The Administration has fought any challenges to indefinite detention to prevent a true court review. Moreover, most experts agree that such indefinite detention of citizens violates the Constitution.
There are also those who continue the long-standing effort to excuse Obama’s horrific record on civil liberties by either blaming others or the times. One successful myth is that there is an exception for citizens. The White House is saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to veto the legislation. That spin is facially ridiculous. The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key amendments protecting citizens were defeated. The provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans’ legal rights. Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite detention but even execution without a trial, the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality. THe Administration and Democratic members are in full spin — using language designed to obscure the authority given to the military. The exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032) is the screening language for the next section, 1031, which offers no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial.
Obama could have refused to sign the bill and the Congress would have rushed to fund the troops. Instead, as confirmed by Sen. Levin, the White House conducted a misinformation campaign to secure this power while portraying Obama as some type of reluctant absolute ruler, or as Obama maintains a reluctant president with dictatorial powers.
Most Democratic members joined their Republican colleagues in voting for this unAmerican measure. Some Montana citizens are moving to force the removal of these members who they insist betrayed their oaths of office and their constituents. Most citizens however are continuing to treat the matter as a distraction from the holiday cheer.
For civil libertarians, the NDAA is our Mayan moment. 2012 is when the nation embraced authoritarian powers with little more than a pause between rounds of drinks.
So here is a resolution better than losing weight this year . . . make 2012 the year you regained your rights.
Here is the signing statement attached to the bill:
————-
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2011
Statement by the President on H.R. 1540
Today I have signed into law H.R. 1540, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.” I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed. In hundreds of separate sections totaling over 500 pages, the Act also contains critical Administration initiatives to control the spiraling health care costs of the Department of Defense (DoD), to develop counterterrorism initiatives abroad, to build the security capacity of key partners, to modernize the force, and to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of military operations worldwide.
The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Over the last several years, my Administration has developed an effective, sustainable framework for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected terrorists that allows us to maximize both our ability to collect intelligence and to incapacitate dangerous individuals in rapidly developing situations, and the results we have achieved are undeniable. Our success against al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents has derived in significant measure from providing our counterterrorism professionals with the clarity and flexibility they need to adapt to changing circumstances and to utilize whichever authorities best protect the American people, and our accomplishments have respected the values that make our country an example for the world.
Source: ABC
Don S:
Parse is what we do!
Seriously, I think constitutional scrutiny requires a careful parsing of these sections. NDAA is, after all, the law of the land passed by Congress and signed by the President. I think a lot needs to be established about the power of the Executive in time of war. It’s a barren wasteland opinion-wise. JT is rightly concerned about the defeat of amendments meant to guarantee civil liberties but it may be that those amendments were seen as superfluous given Hamdi and Hamdan. We’re caught on a tightrope between the opposite poles of Madison (“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.”) and Cicero (“Laws are silent in time of war.’). It’s hard to know whether to stay put or step forward.
@ mespo
Yes, the definition of ‘covered persons/ We all know anyone can be charged with anything to bring preliminary charges or to scare the hell out of the rest of us.
(OT, why isn’t this approach being taken with the banksters, who should be charged with a whole lot of stuff, just because most of it is probably true though possibly unprovable according to current standards).
Comes down to burden of proof perhaps, and whether one thinks the GWOT/911 changed the landscape so much that basic Constitutional understandings must be scraped.
Admittedly, I’m just a GW law grad who never seriously practiced, but basic reasoning takes one so far as to ask the question: should one be required to parse the sections and subsections of laws that so fundamentally abridge Constitutional rights?
Don’t mean to sound obtuse but my reading of the law focuses on sections 1021 & 1022, not 1031 & 1032. Section 1021 is titled the “AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE..” Per subsection (b) of 1021, “covered persons” include those who planned or aided in the 9/11 attacks and those who aid or support al Quaeda or the Taliban. Under subsection (c) those covered persons may be held until the end of hostilities (not indefinitely), or bound over for trial under the modified Miltary Commissions Act, or transfered to civilian courts, or sent to his home country. Subsection (e) of Section 1021 states that construction of this provision as applied to US citizens and resident aliens will not modify or affect existing law or precedent. Subsection (d) provides that nothing in the law affords the President more power nor dimishes his authority under the congressional authorization issued under the War Powers Act also known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2011.
Presumably subsection (e) of 1021 includes the SCOTUS decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld which recognized the power of the government to detain enemy combatants, but ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the ability to challenge their enemy combatant status before an impartial judge. Also the SCOTUS case of Hamdan v. Rumsfield is implicated for non-US citizens requring that Military Commissions be authorized by Congress and have basic procedural saferguards found in the Geneva Convention and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It would be hard to imagine US citizens getting less protection than non-US combatants so I would expect these protections to apply across the board.
Section 1022 provides for the right of the military to hold “covered persons” captured during hostilities. The Section is entitled “MILITARY CUSTODY FOR FOREIGN AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS.” “Covered persons” is defined as members or affiliates of al-Quaeda, or those who plan or participated in attacks on the USor its partners. Those covered persons may treated as those persons covered by Section 1021. Sub-section (b) makes this Section (1022) inpplicable to US citizens or resident aliens.
As I read the statutes,US citizens have the right to contest their designation of enemy combatants under Hamdi and thus are not precluded from habeas relief. Also US citizens should at least get the protections of the UCMJ and the Geneva Convention. This is precisely what US ciizens enjoyed before the enactment of the NDAA of 2012.
This is certainly not a perfect solution and fraught with traps for civil libertarians, but I don’t see how the sky is falling any differently than it was after Hamdi or Hamdan. I also understand the concern that the statute mightbe used against US citizens, but I do not see the courthouse doors being shut given the language and case which the statute clearly incorporates.
I’m happy to hear opposing views.
Not all women are insane, just ask.
carol, Could be a low turnout. Romney won’t inspire the far right although he is trying, and Obama won’t inspire the far left. Read on another blog that women that oppose Ron Paul are being called insane and much worse in the blogosphere. Don’t know whether it is an organized effort.
@ Carol, “Don, Im trying not to (feel like a sap) but it does get harder and harder.Funny how the debt ceiling/spending was not linked when McConnell, Boehner, Cantor,voted repeatedly to raise ceiling limits during Bush years.
That’s right, and basically it was a replay of the shut-down-the-government scenario that Newt lost total credibility over back in the 90’s. A game of chicken between Boehner and Obama in which Boenher was virtually certain to lose until, inexplicably, Obama caved.
There is no explanation.
Sorry, all, to be off topic. But, in a way it does figure into the immanent question of just whose team Obama is playing for?
You will be wrong when I is right.
Don, Im trying not to (feel like a sap) but it does get harder and harder.
Funny how the debt ceiling/spending was not linked when McConnell, Boehner, Cantor,voted repeatedly to raise ceiling limits during Bush years. I felt at the time he did have to capitulate because of the credit rating issue (which turns out did not matter a whit-or so it appeared.). If he does not listen to his base this time, if we have a replay of last time, he will lose so many of us there will be almost no point in running. (Hyperbole, but still…. (oh sry ’bout those periods (:
correction to 7:12: Bush tax cut ‘cave’ was Dec 2010.
@ Carol L. “Every time I am disappointed with Mr. Obama he does something right and as soon as I am willing to support him again by going door to door and phoning complete strangers he turns around and does something to newly disappoint. If it holds he will not give in again to continuing the Bush tax cuts and allow himself, and the country, to be held hostage by Boehner and his minions to get the debt ceiling raised.)”
Don’t ya just feel like a sap? I mean this constant dangling on a string like we’re puppets that can be played. It’s that old hopey changey thing I guess. We already know what the insiders think about the ‘professional left’
As to the Bush tax cuts, I wouldn’t hold my breath, although that’s exactly what they hope you will do until the very last moment when, for some oh-so-persuasive reason it will be necessary to kick the can down the road until after the election because you know, just because. Remember this whole debt ceiling/Bush tax cuts thing never should have been linked from the beginning, and it was not necessary to cave on it last December (2011). Don’t fool yourself; Obama could care less about returning to the Clinton levels. It all plays into the BIG game, and that would be cutting entitlements. The worse things look, the better the chance is for the GRAND BARGAIN, ie., selling out the middle class.
Again.
Yes, it is so sad when guest(s) pose under multiple sock puppets accounts. Let the pie flying start the clown is in charge.
@Otteray Scribe: A point well made and perhaps a signal that it is time to leave the field and pick a rose or two.
@Swarthmore mom: Ah yes, the Tea Party. Originally constituted by Ron Paul supporters and then arrogated or bought out by the Republican Party.
http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/House/Ohio/Dennis_Kucinich/
The above link is a quick way to fact check statements others have made about elected officials.
“Dennis Kucinich sponsored a total of 112 bills. Of those bills, 4 have come to a vote on the floor of the house or senate and 1 have become law. Over that time, the average representative in this office sponsored 103.172 bills with an average of 10.9203 being voted on and 4.0636 becoming law. Since 1997. has been a co-sponsor on 3354 bills 287 of which were voted on and 109 became law. The average for a representative in the same office over the same time was to co-sponsor 1727.9203 bills, with 93.102 becoming law and 255.5292 being voted on.”
And for those who can wade through Marcy @ Emptywheel’s continual attempts to be even handed, though she comes up with futility, there’s this:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2011/12/31/163346/61
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/12/31/start-out-the-new-year-with-indefinite-detention/
@rafflaw: So who is the REAL progressive? Ron Paul?
There are none that I can find that will stand up for their principles.
Ron Paul is not a progressive, and believes in many things I find reprehensible, but my priority at this point is civil liberties and the restoration of Constitutional rights, because I believe without them progressive ideals are impossible, they are the foundation upon which progressivism must be built. So I will vote for and promote civil libertarians, and I will not support those that work toward the destruction of them, no matter what progressive advances they may promise. The promises are meaningless if they come with a police state.
For those poor fools that cannot follow logic and require an authority figure to tell them what to think, let me quote Professor Turley from the post above: “For civil libertarians, the NDAA is our Mayan moment.”
He identifies himself as a civil libertarian, and equates this loss of civil liberty with the apocalypse. I am not over-reacting, progressivism is meaningless, conservatism equally meaningless, Turley is right and I no longer care how flawed Ron Paul is if there is any chance of him and his stubborn libertarian ideology restoring the Bill of Rights to a position of power.
I’m splitting two posts I put way upthread but were held, due to excess links I imagine. One links to ACLU which was just mentioned:
Jeralyn, at Talk Left — though not very far left ; ), ain’t happy http://www.talkleft.com/story/2011/12/31/163346/61 — links to David Cole in New York Review as well, and quotes ACLU.
David Swanson get’s frontpaged at FDL, takes a looks, and says Obama is now king,
http://my.firedoglake.com/davidswanson/2011/12/31/obama-crowned-himself-on-new-years-eve/
Well, looks as if comments have gone Godwin. That means any meaningful discussion is over and the pie fights can begin in earnest.
I don’t get the freakout over this. The WH said they can KILL you without a trial. People are worried about a little indefinite detention (which we already have)?
Good point, Justin…
Justin, through the use of a humorous metaphor, has just shown what a bunch of fools people are, who argue over meaningless points, while Emperor Nerobama, has just declared he is WORSE THAN HITLER, and most of you have nothing to say about that.
You just change the subject… blah, blah,, blah, blah, blah.,
Face the reality and Impeach Obama or admit you personally don’t care a whit about the nation, posterity, the Constitution, and above all, yourself…….
Romero of the ACLU cameout in full attack mode, I am waiting for the court case to start.
I think the reason it was signed when it was for 2 reasons: 1) Holiday no one would take notice, and relatively few did
I wonder also if it was done with an eye towards the fight from Boehner for the new debt ceiling (one presumes) debacle.coming shortly.
One has to pick their fights. The signing statement was better then nothing and allegedly addressed his major concern.
(That is not to say I support this. Every time I am disappointed with Mr. Obama he does something right and as soon as I am willing to support him again by going door to door and phoning complete strangers he turns around and does something to newly disappoint. If it holds he will not give in again to continuing the Bush tax cuts and allow himself, and the country, to be held hostage by Boehner and his minions to get the debt ceiling raised.)
@Hugh: No need, I did argue for the replacement of Kucinich, he caved to Obama because his committee seat was threatened, he openly admitted he voted against his principles because he didn’t want to lose his committee seats. In other words, his self-interest in campaign contributions trumps his principles.