Less than 24 hours after a judge blocked a law that gives the government the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without trial, attorneys for the Obama administration were already filing an appeal.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in New York ruled Wednesday that the law is unconstitutional after The Nation Institute senior fellow and Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges brought a lawsuit alleging his free speech rights were being violated by the very possibility of the law being enforced, even though President Barack Obama declared in a signing statement that the administration will never detain Americans without trial.
Judge Forrest, an Obama appointee, said that the language of the law was too vague and that Congress must better define “what conduct comes within its scope,” or else it could be applied to people like the plaintiff to chill free speech activity and the practice of journalism.
Congressional Republicans crafted the bill to make it much more difficult to shut down the Guantanamo Bay military prison, compelling a vote on indefinite detention powers by tying it to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a military spending bill late last year.
Thursday’s filing may come as a surprise to many, given the administration’s lengthy signing statement that insists authorizing indefinite detention of Americans “would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”
“Judge Forrest’s decision firmly rejects governmental overreach,” plaintiff attorney Bruce Afran said in a media advisory. ” We now have a judgment that the NDAA, by threatening indefinite military detention as the price of speech, violates the First Amendment and threatens core American values.”
“The federal court has denied the dangerous notion that American civilians can be taken into military custody and that the President is above the law outside of the reach of the courts,” he added. “The decision is an affirmation of the American constitution.”
By Friday morning, petition site Demand Progress said more than 60,000 people signed a form asking Obama not to appeal the ruling. “If we don’t do anything, they’ll keep fighting to defend this law!” the petition site declared.
Given that there has been no rebellion or invasion declared by the US government, the Constitution has something to say about this...
quote:Article I, Section 9, paragraphs 2 & 3: The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. ... Amendment VI: In all prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial...
Indefinite, secret detention flies directly in the face of "a speedy and public trial".
quote:A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody. A habeas corpus petition is a petition filed with a court by a person who objects to his own or another's detention or imprisonment.
quote:A "bill of attainder" is any act of a legislative body declaring a person or group of persons guilty of a crime and assessing a punishment without the benefit of trial.
We have a Congress, Senate, and President sworn to uphold the Constitution. It's time all citizens started demanding they do that.
Congressional Republicans crafted the bill to make it much more difficult to shut down the Guantanamo Bay military prison, compelling a vote on indefinite detention powers by tying it to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a military spending bill late last year.
Oh my, how interesting.
Water boarding. The American sport of choice of Republicans. [/sarcasm]
A federal judge refused late Friday to immediately stay her ban on the military's expansive, new indefinite detention powers. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest has banned the government, twice, from enforcing one paragraph of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a 565-page military appropriations bill that sailed through Congress late last year. That paragraph, Section 1021(b)(2), lets the military hold anyone accused of having "substantially supported" al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces" until "the end of hostilities."
(read more at the site)
A clerk for Judge Forrest told Torrance that she would respond to the motion on Wednesday, after the Jewish New Year. Torrance replied that this would not be fast enough. "Absent an interim stay, the government may determine that it must seek a stay from the court of appeals prior to that ruling," Torrance wrote in an email to chambers. The email exchange, which Courthouse News acquired late Friday, shows that, Bruce Afran, an attorney for Hedges and the co-plaintiffs, disputed the pressing need to alter an injunction that is "virtually identical (if not precisely identical)" to the one that has been in effect since May. Afran's co-counsel, Carl Mayer, told Courthouse News in a phone interview: "The president is doubling down on American civil liberties. More than doubling down, tripling down." He speculated that the maneuver smacks of an election-year effort to act tough on national security. "Either they've been detaining people all along under the NDAA, in which case they're in contempt," Mayer said. "Either that, or they want to be really aggressive for political reasons." Government lawyers filed a notice of appearance at the 2nd Circuit late in the day.
Analysis: Al Qaeda in Yemen suffers another blow as top Saudi member is killed
By Tim Lister and Paul Cruickshank Sept 11.2012 Abu Sufyan Said al-Shihri was prisoner number 327 at the Guantanamo Bay, Cubla, detention center, transported there after being captured as he tried to cross the border into Pakistan from Afghanistan late in 2001.
But in 2007 he argued before a review board that he was a Muslim - not a terrorist - and if allowed to return home to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia he would join his family's furniture business.
Al-Shihri was repatriated and put through a rehabilitation program, but within months absconded to become one of the founding members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in neighboring Yemen.
Four years later, his reported demise - in the remote and mountainous Hadramawt province - is a significant success for Yemen's armed forces in their re-energized campaign against AQAP and its allies in the south and east of the country.
Al-Shihri was the most senior Saudi figure in the group and important to its recruitment and fund-raising. And despite his relative youth (he was about 40) he had plenty of experience in jihadist circles. He had fought in Chechnya and trained in urban warfare at an al Qaeda camp near Kabul before the Taliban were overthrown.
According to local officials in Yemen, al-Shihri was killed by a U.S. drone strike against a car in which he and other militants were traveling, after being tracked for several days. It is further evidence of the growing liaison between the two governments since President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi took office earlier this year.
Al-Shihri's demise follows the killing of U.S.-educated al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki a year ago and senior operative Fahd al-Quso in May.
... That paragraph, Section 1021(b)(2), lets the military hold anyone accused of having "substantially supported" al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces" until "the end of hostilities."
This is one of many reasons why Congress is supposed to declare wars (as the Constitution requires), not sit by (even cooperatively) while we "engage in hostilities" at the initiative of the President. With a declaration, the enemy is defined as are the terms ending hostilities. As it is, since 1945, we've witnessed one after another of "military actions" in which this nation is involved - none of them "declared", none of them defining who the enemy actually is, and none of them defining what the final objectives are. Which means no definition of the terms under which the hostilities would end - hence, they end up being almost endless, with US troops on-ground even 60+ years later, in some cases.
We must face the fact that Many nations' foreign policies now - from the US to the UK and Canada - are being run for the benefit of a few companies that profit vastly from keeping these countries on a permanent 'war footing.'
Congress is supposed to declare wars (as the Constitution requires), not sit by (even cooperatively) while we "engage in hostilities" at the initiative of the President...
Which means no definition of the terms under which the hostilities would end - hence, they end up being almost endless, with US troops on-ground even 60+ years later, in some cases.
Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by restricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during the final phase of capitalism, roughly between 1920 and 1940. The economy of many countries was allowed to stagnant, land went out of cultivation, capital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were prevented from working and kept half alive by state charity. But this too, entailed military weakness and since the privations it inflicted were obviously unnecessary, it made opposition inevitable. The problem was to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking into the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labor power without producing anything that can be consumed.
We must face the fact that Many nations' foreign policies now - from the US to the UK and Canada - are being run for the benefit of a few companies that profit vastly from keeping these countries on a permanent 'war footing.'
Defence companies come and go. I would contend a greater, more lasting influence are politicians who have almost universally discerned that their careers and power are greatly enhanced by keeping or involving the nation in endless foreign military crises which the politicians invariably promise to solve, though such "solutions" always require granting the politicians more power and mandating restrictions on citizen freedom in ever more intrusive ways.
In ancient days, the kings of Europe found the best way to expand their power and tax revenue whilst siphoning off popular discontent was to become embroiled in a foreign war or by targeting foreign "threats"... and little has changed that way other than the nature of the current political structures and the titles of those in power. When G.Washington and other Founders advised early-on that the US should become entangled in "no foreign alliances", it was not because they were ignorant "isolationists" - it was precisely to curb the death spiral that they knew would set in when our political leaders discovered that involvement in foreign conflicts was a "golden" path to increasing the power of government (and themselves) at the expense of the citizenry and freedom. That was a primary reason that the Constitution was framed to invest Congress with the authority and responsibility to commit the nation to hostilities, not one man (the President). But Congress discovered that by letting the President take the lead, they could dodge the blame for the onset of conflict while simultaneously enhancing their own power in conducting affairs and criticizing the President during the crisis. And so it has occurred...
Congressional Republicans crafted the bill to make it much more difficult to shut down the Guantanamo Bay military prison, compelling a vote on indefinite detention powers by tying it to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a military spending bill late last year.
Oh my, how interesting.
Water boarding. The American sport of choice of Republicans. [/sarcasm]
And now the Obama administration wants to extend it. Pot, meet kettle, and enjoy the irony. (Save the politics for elsewhere, please.)
... That paragraph, Section 1021(b)(2), lets the military hold anyone accused of having "substantially supported" al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces" until "the end of hostilities."
This is one of many reasons why Congress is supposed to declare wars (as the Constitution requires), not sit by (even cooperatively) while we "engage in hostilities" at the initiative of the President. With a declaration, the enemy is defined as are the terms ending hostilities. As it is, since 1945, we've witnessed one after another of "military actions" in which this nation is involved - none of them "declared", none of them defining who the enemy actually is, and none of them defining what the final objectives are. Which means no definition of the terms under which the hostilities would end - hence, they end up being almost endless, with US troops on-ground even 60+ years later, in some cases.
It's very important to remember. And that perhaps explains the endless hostility against the US from some other nations. Those undeclared wars usually targeted on changing regime, which is never an acceptable reason, no matter from which side of the conflict you see it, nor from those, who just watch it... Unless you totally blinded by propaganda, it looks like we always are looking for a next enemy. And for sure, it just creates them quite reliably...
Having enemies around makes the process of getting total control over our own population easier. That's why we see all these actions from those, who's in power. And don't be surprised, if some day you'll discover yourself living in Novus ordo seclorum.
I am sure of one thing..some of our members and guests might be held in indefinite detention in this thread by their own powers..the longer it is here.. we will see more conspiracy theories abound. My thought on Abu Sufyan Said al-Shihri would be along the lines of "what a waste of a drone" he was safer in detention.
Naw..they will clean it up. or give me indefinite detention....but I do know that it is hard to declare war on a moving target..this is not 1945 and those that have declared war on the US today are not an entity that will be going away . When Pearl Harbor happened we knew what to do..today???????
...but I do know that it is hard to declare war on a moving target..this is not 1945 and those that have declared war on the US today are not an entity that will be going away . When Pearl Harbor happened we knew what to do..today???????
I'd rather see the admittedly agonizing and uncertain public process of declaring war unfold in Congress (if a path of war were chosen there), where at least there'd be open discussion of who we were pursuing with our hostilities, where that pursuit would occur, under what conditions/rules-of-engagement, and what the ultimate stated purpose/goal would be for ending hostilities. Currently (much as it has been since WWII) the President commits us to military action against whomever because of some crisis d'jour, the engagements lead to wherever geographically they may drift at any given moment, the conditions/rules are made up as we go along, and the ultimate purpose/goal is whatever is desired in the eye of the beholder. Meanwhile Congress feels free to criticize the President, all the while funding the hostilities and passing all manner of supporting legislation to "protect" the nation against "them" - whoever "them" is - with little consideration of the ultimate Constitutionality or freedom-consequences of the legislation. After all, it's a "crisis"... the President has decided to act militarily, and so we all follow along - like lemmings over a Constitutional cliff.
Good analysis ..and the cliff exists because in the case of those who are in detention they could care less about the Constitution..or what everyone would like.. " standard rules of engagement"..they just want to destroy you and any/everything you stand for and will do it by concentrating on hitting soft target and even their own people who do not agree with their philosophy. They are conditioned to do that by virture of the way they have grown up under their various rulers. They even have their own lemmings where they live..thay are innocent people who just want to be a peace and raise a family. I was reminded of that again with the current unrest by this comment left at one of the news sites.....
You just can’t figure out these Muslim extremist’s..!!! A cheap film about Muslim prophet…no one killed by the film. No mosques destroyed or holy Muslim books burned. Yet Muslims riot and kill in the streets all over the world.
Well let me ask…Where is the outrage and riots over the slaughter of Muslims, the destruction of hundreds of Muslim Mosques of every sect, the buring of thousands of Muslim holy books….all in Syria by Bashar Assad the ruler of Syria. TELL ME…where are the Muslim nations? Where…are the Muslim’s who are outraged?
Bashar Assad has mass murdered over 39,000 Syrian Muslims !! Butchered unarmed Muslim civilians…men, women, children and babies. Assad has arrested or disappeared over 235,000 other Muslim Syrian people. He has slit their throats after capture, burned them alive in their homes, burried them in mass graves hundreds at a time.
Where is this so called Muslim outrage ???
None….nothing anywhere !! Not one protest against Assad’s attackes on Muslims and Muslim mosques !!
Yet…today…and I mean right now !!! Assad is shelling with artillery, and bombing with planes Muslim cities, villages and towns…just as he has for 19 months. Not one Muslim on TV, or in the streets to protest this slaughter!
Yet here we have Muslims all across the world as “Movie Critics” burning and killing over the insult ???
What about the actual act, the actual destruction of Muslim People and their Holy places of worship? How can Muslim’s let Bashar Assad act..and not protest such atrocities against Muslims?
If there is this little outrage over Syria’s Muslims being slaughtered …then all this rioting and outrage over an unpublished movie nad it’s trailer is just a bunch of Muslim BS! Useless waste of lives and energy.
If Muslims don’t care about what is going on in Syria …..Muslim’s just don’t care…AT ALL.
Now I don't agree with all that was said..but if you can imagine being brought up in that atmosphere..living it in your daily life..your outrage and anger would be without direction and easily manipulated by those who have no desire for democracy.
I don't disagree that Muslim extremists are the primary focal point of the terrorism situation facing the nation at the moment. Asymmetric warfare presents many unique problems for nations in the current century... particularly where the antagonists embed themselves within or seek to destabilize a variety of nation states. But I disagree with those who would suggest that even part of the solution to this is to deny Constitutional protections or recourse to American citizens (the subject of this thread) or to ignore the foundational provisions of that Constitution itself (the requirement for Congress to send down a declaration of hostilities that at least assures they've been intimately involved in deciding what it is the nation is launching itself upon, and mapped out the outline thereof).
The Constitution came into existence to establish the functional definition of how the various parts of the national government are to operate with respect to each other, and to protect citizens and states from unwarranted actions of the national government no matter how well-intended. It is the task of Congress to assert its Constitutional role as declarer of war and find a way to deal with modern military crisis situations in a Constitutional manner, just as it is the task of the military to find a way to conduct successful warfare within an asymmetric conflict... but deferring repeatedly to the President on initiating major military conflict is not a Constitutional solution. If such deferring is believed necessary "in the modern world", then change the Constitution accordingly... have that amendment debate nationally, as we're supposed to if change is truly needed.
I don't disagree that Muslim extremists are the primary focal point of the terrorism situation facing the nation at the moment. Asymmetric warfare presents many unique problems for nations in the current century... particularly where the antagonists embed themselves within or seek to destabilize a variety of nation states.
I agree with your entire post.
As technology changes, tactics change and greater opportunities present themselves. Accordingly, I don't think it's fair by the previous poster to compare the response of our government on 12/7/41 to the response against recent terrorism. The former was an attack by a nation - the latter is an attack by an ideology which has many sects/cells spread across the globe that will willingly act in collusion.
In response to the thread topic, I firmly believe that the relinquishing of rights to solve a problem is never an answer submitted by intelligent people - only lazy people.
Yes, I specifically mean American citizens that, first and foremost, are under the protection of the Constitution, regardless of what they're accused of (being presumed innocent until proven guilty). According to your Wiki reference:
quote:An unlawful combatant or illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war. An unlawful combatant may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action. ... An unlawful combatant who is not a national of a neutral State, and who is not a national of a co-belligerent State, retains rights and privileges under the Fourth Geneva Convention so that he must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial. ... Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention."
Domestic Federal law in the US is under constraints of the Constitution, and citizens accused of being unlawful combatants therefore fall under the protections of the Constitution. Since the Constitution makes no internal exclusion for its application to citizens, excluding its protections becomes an anti-Constitutional act , whatever the rationale for doing so. When we start excluding or excepting Constitutional protection for citizens, we do so at our own great peril.
And now the Obama administration wants to extend it. Pot, meet kettle, and enjoy the irony. (Save the politics for elsewhere, please.)
Democrat or Republican, they are just two sides of the same coin. Heads they win, tails you lose.
Until we come up with a viable third option we will be forever stuck in this mess. Even with a third option how long will it be before they are corrupted?
quote:Just over a week ago, we wrote of the challenge to Obama's NDAA totalitarian bill. Hope remained that Chris Hedges' view of the indefinite detention as "unforgivable, unconstitutional, and exceedingly dangerous" would bolster judgment. However, as Russia Today reports, a lone appeals judge bowed down to the Obama administration late Monday and reauthorized the White House's ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or due process. [more]
No surprise at all...... ITS PART OF HIS PLAN!!!!! (If he gets re-elected NO ONE SHOULD BE SURPRISED EITHER)
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