Yesterday, the Senate passed a bill that includes provisions on detention that I found simply unacceptable. These provisions are inconsistent with the liberties and freedoms that are at the core of the system our Founders established. And while I did in fact vote for an earlier version of the legislation, I did so with the hope that the final version would be significantly improved. That didn't happen, and so I could not support the final bill.
The bill that passed on Thursday included several problematic provisions, the worst of which could allow the military to detain Americans indefinitely, without charge or trial, even if they're captured in the U.S.
At their core, these provisions will radically alter how we investigate, arrest, and detain individuals suspected of terrorism. What's more, they could undermine the safety of our troops stationed abroad, and they introduce new and unnecessary uncertainty into our counterterrorism efforts.
But before I get into the details of why I opposed these detainee provisions, I think it is important to recognize that September 11th irrevocably and unalterably changed our lives. I was in Minnesota that terrible day. A number of Minnesotans died -- in the towers, in the air, and at the Pentagon. In New York in the months following the attacks, I attended the funerals of brave firefighters and law enforcement officers who sacrificed their lives to help rescue Americans from the towers. I can't shake those images from my mind, and I am guessing like many of you, I won't ever be able to erase the horrors of September 11th from my head.
But it is exactly in these difficult moments, in these periods of war, when our country is under attack, that we must be doubly vigilant about protecting what makes us Americans.
The Founders who crafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights were careful to draft a Constitution of limited powers -- one that would protect Americans' liberty at all times -- both in war, and in peace.
As we reflect on what this bill will do, I think it is important to pause and remember some of the mistakes this country has made when we have been fearful of enemy attack.
Most notably, we made a grave, indefensible mistake during World War II, when President Roosevelt ordered the incarceration of more than 110,000 people of Japanese origin, as well as approximately 11,000 German-Americans and 3,000 Italian-Americans.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed into law the Non-Detention Act to make sure the U.S. government would never again subject any Americans to the unnecessary and unjustifiable imprisonment that so many Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans had to endure. It wasn't until 1988, 46 years after the internment, when President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, that the government formally acknowledged and apologized for the grave injustice that was done to citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry.
These were dark, dark periods in American history. And it is easy today to think that is all behind us.
But I fear the detention provisions in the bill forget the lessons we learned from the mistakes we made when we interned thousands of innocent Japanese, Germans, and Italians.
With this defense authorization act, Congress will, for the first time in 60 years, authorize the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without charge or trial, according to its advocates. This would be the first time that Congress has deviated from President Nixon's Non-Detention Act. And what we are talking about here is that Americans could be subjected to life imprisonment without ever being charged, tried, or convicted of a crime, without ever having an opportunity to prove their innocence to a judge or a jury of their peers. And without the government ever having to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
I think that denigrates the very foundations of this country. It denigrates the Bill of Rights. It denigrates what our Founders intended when they created a civilian, non-military justice system for trying and punishing people for crimes committed on U.S. soil. Our Founders were fearful of the military--and they purposely created a system of checks and balances to ensure we did not become a country under military rule. This bill undermines that core principle, which is why I could not support it.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, and this wasn't the way to mark its birthday.
I KNOW it denigrates every sacrifice by every loyal American who would much rather have lived and instead died on the field of battle! I'm utterly certain that this is a treasonous piece of SABOTAGE of everything that America has stood for, notwithstanding all the liars, thieves and self-serving political and social manipulators who have slithered, bought, lied, manipulated, stolen their way into power. Being humans, we cannot make anything perfect, including our own discernment, so we err. Allowing those who wrote this and signed it into law to remain in power, even as much power as a dog-catcher has, in our government is also bordering on treason. How much warning do we require before we learn that such people are doing all they can, legal or not, to turn America into the opposite of what we've always been told it was, or at least what it was supposed to be? The Declaration of Independence tells us what we are to do in this situation; the Constitution empowers it. The Founders warned us, and made the tools we would need. Everyone in Congress who voted for this MUST be recalled! Then we need to get to work and return the Law to what it was designed to be before it becomes indistinguishable from any other dictatorship's.
Ian
Whats this all about? hmmm
http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/2011/12/indefinitedetentionbs.html
Lie #1. There is no such thing as an “Indefinite Detention Bill”. To imply there is means you’re also implying that Obama can veto such a thing without killing the entire NDAA. He can't.
Lie #2. Obama did not announce his intention to sign the “Indefinite Detention Bill” and for Greenwald to claim it’s “embedded” in the 2012 NDAA is an obfuscation, if not an outright falsehood, because it implies a possibility for him to veto just that “bill.”
Lie #3. “Until the end of the hostilities” does not necessarily mean “indefinite detention.” It’s entirely possible, even likely, that Obama will declare an end to al Qaeda within the next year, and he has already all but declared an end to hostilities against the Taliban. In fact, if we oversee an election of Democrats in 2012, and they declare both “wars” at an end, guess what happens?
Lie #4. As you can see when you read both d) and e) in section 1021 above, the “bill” does NOT expand the scope of the AUMF, and explicitly does NOT expand it.
Lie #5. The “bill” DOES explicitly exempt US citizens from its provisions.
From the outside and even from inside it's looking and feeling more and more like pre-war Germany. Our economy is militarized (we spend as much on defense every year as the rest of the world combined, including China), our last president was just convicted of crimes against humanity and other war crimes, and will now be arrested on sight in many parts of the world. Etc. Scary stuff.
"There are moments in America when our freedoms depend on the willingness of a President to act firmly and decisively to sustain our fundamental values; moments that decide the course our nation takes for years to come.
This is one of those moments. Tell President Obama you’re counting on him to veto indefinite detention and uphold the freedoms and values America was built on."
http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/NDAA
When I read it I see language that clearly states:
1) No part of this legislation is meant to overrule existing law (eg the Bill of Rights, Habeus Corpus etc)
2) US Citizens (and Lawful Resident Aliens) are exempt from military detention.
This bill is not pretty, but neither are Senators and Congressmen who've been blocking Gitmo transfer of prisoners since 2009 thereby keeping it open.
On the other hand it is not the Constitutional killer people claim it is- and if it is then it can be stricken down by the courts.
The same courts that have proven that they support the 1% and not the 99%, Oh how very true that is !
Click on vote details.
Scroll to Minnesota and see for yourself.
Al Franken, a lying liar telling lies
I also read the relevant section so unless one of the amendment's struck it, I have no idea why they claim it will do what it does not do.
Check again -> the final vote is the one that matters.
God save us.
The timeline is here:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-1540