For those of you that have been on vacation or just busy with your family, friends or your career, you may not have heard that Obama took the time out of his busy schedule on New Year’s Eve to sign the National Defense Authorization Act, also know as NDAA. What does that mean? It sounds good and that it would be something that us Americans would want for the security of the nation.
The problem with that is the fact that it has violated the U.S. Constitution, especially the fourth amendment. While the bill originated in the House of Representatives with good intentions of protecting the American people (I rather say person), the bill has had things added to it and altered to where now the freedom and liberties of the American person in question.
This new law now authorizes the military to indefinitely detain any person being suspected as a terrorist. the law allows the President to use “all necessary and appropriate force” to detain any person, including US citizens, who “was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces, under the law of war until the end of hostilities”
Obama stated a few weeks ago that he would veto the bill if it was brought to him because of certain provisions in the bill. After the bill was “altered” as to not remove any powers from the President, he didn’t seem to have a problem with it. In a written statement,Obama wrote: “The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists… My Administration will aggressively seek to mitigate those concerns through the design of implementation procedures and other authorities available to me as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, will oppose any attempt to extend or expand them in the future, and will seek the repeal of any provisions that undermine the policies and values that have guided my Administration throughout my time in office.”
In my opinion, why would he sign a bill into law if there were provisions he and his administration want to change or remove? While I do understand that the military funding was due to expire on January 2nd, but that didn’t mean that Congress needed to right this entire bill. It wasn’t like they didn’t know there was new military funding bill that needed to be voted on by the end of 2011.
Now many have thought that the Patriot Act went too far into infringing on our freedoms and liberties, but this takes it to a whole new level. Even many of Obama’s supporter are not happy with his decision to sign this bill. The ACLU are one of them. “President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”
Even those in the security division of our government feel that this is a clear violation of the Constitution The Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI and the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the NDAA are harmful and counterproductive.
William S. Sessions, a man who has served as FBI director under three Presidents, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, wrote in a letter to members of the conference committee working on the NDAA that the detention provisions “could pose a genuine threat to our national security and would represent a sweeping and unnecessary departure from our constitutional tradition.”
The Senate voted 38-60 on November 29th to reject an amendment to the NDAA that would have removed provisions authorizing detention without charge. The amendment offered by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), would have replaced those provisions with a requirement for an orderly congressional review of detention power. (Jurist, Jan. 1; WP, ACLU, Atlantic Wire, Dec. 31; NLG, Dec. 27; Constitution Project, Dec. 9; ACLU, Dec. 5; ACLU, Nov. 29)
For those of you who may not be aware of it, but none of this information is being spoken about on the main stream media outlets. They’ve made it a point to steer clear of the topic. So please share this with everyone you know.