Senate to vote on giving President authority to indefinitely imprison American citizens, and others, without charge or trial

I debunked this the other day.

Did you read the bill?

I quote from section 1031:

“(d) CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATION ON APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES PERSONS.—The authority to
detain a person under this section does not extend to the
detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United
States on the basis of conduct taking place within the
United States except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.”

Arbitrary detention and denial of due process to anyone is a bad thing to me. I fail to see, however, how sections 1031 and 1032 of this years Defense Appropriations Bill diverge in any way from current policies on the detention of military combatants and suspected terrorists.

From Udall’s speech linked to above.

In a recent op-ed in the Chicago Times, a bipartisan group of three former federal judges, including William S. Sessions, who is also the appointed director of the FBI under President Reagan, said it best when describing these provisions – quote – “legislation now making its way through Congress would seek to over-militarize America’s counterterrorism efforts, effectively making the U.S. Army the judge, juror to the exclusion of FBI and local and state law enforcement agencies. As former federal judges, we find this prospect deeply disturbing. Not only would such an effort ignore 200 years of legal precedent, it would fly in the face of common sense.” End of quote. And, Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that that op-ed be entered into the record.

Mr. President, I would also point out that these provisions raise serious questions as to who we are as a society and what our Constitution seeks to protect. One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.

No offense to you, Mr. X, but I trust the text of the bill more than a guest blogger on the ACLU website.

An OWS call has gone out to Occupy the Phones.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world.. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing. The White House has threatened a veto, but we can’t let it get that far.

There is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Instead of simply going along with a bill that was drafted in secret and is being jammed through the Senate, the Udall Amendment deletes the provisions and sets up an orderly review of detention power. It tries to take the politics out and put American values back in.

In response to proponents of the indefinite detention legislation who contend that the bill “applies to American citizens and designates the world as the battlefield,” and that the “heart of the issue is whether or not the United States is part of the battlefield,” Sen. Udall disagrees, and says that we can win this fight without worldwide war and worldwide indefinite detention.

The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown. That is an extreme position that will forever change our country.

Now is the time to stop this bad idea. Please urge your senators to vote YES on the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

Who are are targets?

1. Your Senators: Tell them to
A. Pass the Udall amendment OR
B. Vote NO on the bill.
You can find who your Senators are and their phone numbers here:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

2. The bill sponsors, as well as Senators Graham and Ayotte for pushing this fascist piece of trash. Even if we don’t change their minds, they have to know that there will be blowback for something this extreme, and that it will essentially slow business in their offices to a crawl.

Senator John McCain
(202) 224-2235

Senator Carl Levin
(202) 224-6221

Senator Lindsey Graham, who explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” AND STILL SUPPORTS IT!
(202) 224-5972

Senator Kelly Ayotte, who declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.” She apparently is looking for another Kent State.
(202) 224-3324

Bonus points for leaving messages on their webpages, FB pages, and in their district offices, which can be found by Googling them. I’m just trying to make this shorter and readable! This event is EST, to coincide with office hours in DC.

Thanks again for all you do. To the phones!

http://www.facebook.com/events/329475330401070/

Relevant:

“Levin and McCain Strike Deal Over Detainee Handling”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/levin-and-mccain-strike-deal-over-detainee-handling/

Thank you, Mr Anonymous for that very relevant piece that helps to clarify the issue for me.

At stake is the inclusion or exclusion of the very text that I pasted above, and repeatedly referred to.

I did not realize that there was a move to remove this text. The removal of this text, while likely presenting little threat to OWS protesters, would certainly be an affront to due process as guaranteed in the Constitution.

oh geez, a president that wants to veto a bill that would give him more power. that’s interesting.

<<>>

Who determines who the “bad people” are? I can’t believe that Levin’s office can’t understand the problems with that.

I included the text of the sections (1031 and 1032) at issue on my blog, where I publicly chastigate myself for being wrong. The text I’ve included is before Levin and McCain came up with the brilliant idea of axing the exemptions for US citizens and permanent residents.

It’s worth noting that the Obama admin has threatened a veto is the exemption isn’t included.

http://peterslarson.com/2011/11/29/infinite-detention-military-police-and-the-denial-of-resident-rights/

One of my FB friends has apparently been calling his office repeatedly. He said the lady their has been getting hostile with him.

I’m going to call later just to do add to the pressure.

Udall’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post:

In the 10 years since we declared war on terrorism, our country has grappled with how to detain and prosecute accused enemy combatants in a war that will have no clear end. Two of my colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking Republican John McCain (Ariz.), argued on this page Monday for controversial provisions they authored in the National Defense Authorization Act aimed at addressing those questions.

I have no doubt that my colleagues had the best of intentions when they wrote those provisions, but their proposal is deeply flawed. If the Senate passes this legislation in a vote expected this week, we risk harming our ability to combat terrorism and weakening our national security.

While Sens. Levin and McCain argue that the provisions merely codify existing authority to detain accused terrorists, the secretary of defense, the directors of national intelligence and the FBI, and the White House — along with numerous defense experts — have said this would amount to a significant expansion of the military’s detention authority.

For example, the provisions would require the military to dedicate a significant number of personnel to capturing and holding terrorism suspects — in some cases indefinitely — even those apprehended on U.S. soil. And they authorize the military to do so regardless of an accused terrorist’s citizenship, even if he or she is an American captured in a U.S. city.

Our law enforcement, military and intelligence workers have spent more than a decade carefully and collaboratively determining how to work together in the war against terrorism. But these proposed changes would require the military to take on a new responsibility as police, jailors and judges — jobs for which it is not equipped and which it does not want. These changes to our laws would also authorize the military to exercise unprecedented power on U.S. soil.

Additionally, the requirement that the military — not civilian law enforcement — take suspected terrorists into custody threatens to undo much of the progress the FBI and state and local law enforcement have made to stop terrorists plotting in the United States and overseas. That could make it difficult or impossible to collaboratively gather intelligence on domestic terror cells at all.

The guilty plea last month by would-be Detroit plane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is just one example of law enforcement’s critical role in our national security. The last thing we should be doing is preventing local, state and federal authorities from investigating and acting on threats to our safety.

The White House is so concerned about the changes that it has threatened to veto the defense authorization legislation if they are included. In light of that, I have offered an amendment aimed at averting a veto. My amendment would strike the detention provisions from the bill and require the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and State as well as the director of national intelligence to issue a joint report detailing the gaps in our detention policy. This report would be due within 90 days and would allow Congress to draft detention legislation that meets our national security needs and keeps faith with the guiding principles of our Constitution.

We owe it to our service members and the citizens they protect to pass the defense authorization bill quickly. But without the expertise of our military professionals, we simply don’t know how destabilizing these detention provisions could be to national security policy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/defense-bill-gives-military-too-much-responsibility-for-detainees/2011/11/28/gIQAbbAO6N_story.html

Senate Passes Bill Allowing Indefinite Detention of Americans … Considers Bill Authorizing More Torture

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/senate-passes-bill-allowing-indefinite-detention-americans-considers-bill-authorizing-mo

From a discussion on Reddit about a Washington’s Blog post about whether this applies to U.S. citizens.

The bill says that the military MUST indefinitely detain anyone SUSPECTED of helping terrorists or associated forces.

1031(e) says that the MANDATORY indefinite detention doesn’t apply to U.S. citizens … but the government CAN indefinitely detain any U.S. citizen it feels like without trial, without presenting evidence, without letting the citizen consult with a lawyer … destroying the Constitutional rights to trial, to face our accuser, etc. And destroying rights which go back to England in 1215.

In other words, it’s like saying “you don’t HAVE to lock up Joey for the rest of his life because he called you a mean name, but you CAN lock him away and throw away the key and then falsely accuse him of being a suspected terrorist if it would make you happy”.

Get it?

Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ncgzd/dont_be_fooled_the_indefinite_detention_bill_does/

Washington’s Blog:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/12/the-indefinite-detention-bill-does-apply-to-american-citizens-on-u-s-soil.html

From Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com:

In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama – after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill – yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s],” only to turn around – once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct). As a result, the final version of the Levin/McCain bill will be enshrined as law this week as part of the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I wrote about the primary provisions and implications of this bill last week, and won’t repeat those points here.

The ACLU said last night that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.” Human Rights Watch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”

Both groups pointed out that this is the first time indefinite detention has been enshrined in law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when — as the ACLU put it — “President Truman had the courage to veto” the Internal Security Act of 1950 on the ground that it “would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights” and then watched Congress override the veto. That Act authorized the imprisonment of Communists and other “subversives” without the necessity of full trials or due process (many of the most egregious provisions of that bill were repealed by the 1971 Non-Detention Act, and are now being rejuvenated by these War on Terror policies of indefinite detention). President Obama, needless to say, is not Harry Truman. He’s not even the Candidate Obama of 2008 who repeatedly insisted that due process and security were not mutually exclusive and who condemned indefinite detention as ”black hole” injustice.

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/obama_to_sign_indefinite_detention_bill_into_law/singleton/

http://www.recalltherogues.org/states/michigan.html