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28.12.2011, 17:38
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| | | Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year _2012
Indefinite Detention without trial: Section 1021
plus
Requirement for Military Custody: Section 1022
= theoretically at least, something close to a formula for martial law on USA soil, no?
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28.12.2011, 17:55
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012?
It's nothing more than the same authorizations already available to the president under terms of Martial Law, but now written into a public bill that becomes an "act" just in time for the election year.
Hmmm, I wonder why politicians would want to be seen as getting "tougher" on terrorism in an election year..
This American is not worried, it's the same road being paved over again. If anyone thinks that any government in the world does not have such contingency plans for Martial Law action in the event of internal conflict they are simply kidding themselves.
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29.12.2011, 14:29
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? | Quote: | |  | | | It's nothing more than the same authorizations already available to the president under terms of Martial Law, but now written into a public bill that becomes an "act" just in time for the election year. | | | | | But it's there now, codified in law. | Quote: | |  | | | This American is not worried, | | | | | But you live in Vaud | Quote: | |  | | | If anyone thinks that any government in the world does not have such contingency plans for Martial Law action in the event of internal conflict they are simply kidding themselves. | | | | | IANAE, much less a lawyer, but normally declaration of Martial Law is a temporary situation that invokes/ implies temporary powers. NDAA 2012, sections 1021 and 1022 are active now. I am not aware of the USA being under Martial Law right now. I also gather that this act seems to allow the USA Army to take action against USA citizens on USA soil. This appears to have been illegal since the Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878.
This morning I actually read sections 1021 and 1022 and to be honest it wasn't obvious to me what the blogosphere was making such a fuss about. For example SEC. 1022 (b)(1): (my emphasis) | Quote: |  | | | (1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS.—The requirement to detain
a person in military custody under this section does not extend
to citizens of the United States. | | | | | and SEC. 1021 doesn't mention citizens of the USA at all. More digging unearthed this opinion, apparently written by a lawyer. http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/thre...ill/singleton/
So it looksl ike it boils down to a legal argument/ opinion.
The controversial sections themselves:
From http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-1...2hr1540enr.pdf pp 265 - 267: | Quote: |  | | | SEC. 1021. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF
THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS
PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY
FORCE.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Congress affirms that the authority of the
President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to
the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40;
50 U.S.C. 1541 note) includes the authority for the Armed Forces
of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection
(b)) pending disposition under the law of war.
(b) COVERED PERSONS.—A covered person under this section
is any person as follows:
(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided
the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,
or harbored those responsible for those attacks.
(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported
al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged
in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,
including any person who has committed a belligerent act or
has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy
forces.
(c) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—The disposition of a
person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may
include the following:
(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until
the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for
Use of Military Force.
(2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States
Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009
(title XVIII of Public Law 111–84)).
(3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent
tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.
(4) Transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country
of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.
(d) CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section is intended to limit
or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the
Authorization for Use of Military Force.
(e) AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed
to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of
United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States,
or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United
States.
(f) REQUIREMENT FOR BRIEFINGS OF CONGRESS.—The Secretary
of Defense shall regularly brief Congress regarding the application
of the authority described in this section, including the organizations,
entities, and individuals considered to be ‘‘covered persons’’
for purposes of subsection (b)(2).
SEC. 1022. MILITARY CUSTODY FOR FOREIGN AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS.
(a) CUSTODY PENDING DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in paragraph (4), the
Armed Forces of the United States shall hold a person described
in paragraph (2) who is captured in the course of hostilities
authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force
(Public Law 107–40) in military custody pending disposition
under the law of war.
(2) COVERED PERSONS.—The requirement in paragraph (1)
shall apply to any person whose detention is authorized under
section 1021 who is determined—
(A) to be a member of, or part of, al-Qaeda or an
associated force that acts in coordination with or pursuant
to the direction of al-Qaeda; and
(B) to have participated in the course of planning or
carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the
United States or its coalition partners.
(3) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—For purposes of this
subsection, the disposition of a person under the law of war
has the meaning given in section 1021(c), except that no
transfer otherwise described in paragraph (4) of that section
shall be made unless consistent with the requirements of section
1028.
(4) WAIVER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY.—The President may
waive the requirement of paragraph (1) if the President submits
to Congress a certification in writing that such a waiver is
in the national security interests of the United States.
(b) APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES CITIZENS AND LAWFUL
RESIDENT ALIENS.—
(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS.—The requirement to detain
a person in military custody under this section does not extend
to citizens of the United States.
(2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—The requirement to detain
a person in military custody under this section does not extend
to a lawful resident alien 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.
(c) IMPLEMENTATION PROCEDURES.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 60 days after the date
of the enactment of this Act, the President shall issue, and
submit to Congress, procedures for implementing this section.
(2) ELEMENTS.—The procedures for implementing this section
shall include, but not be limited to, procedures as follows:
(A) Procedures designating the persons authorized to
make determinations under subsection (a)(2) and the
process by which such determinations are to be made.
(B) Procedures providing that the requirement for military
custody under subsection (a)(1) does not require the
interruption of ongoing surveillance or intelligence gathering
with regard to persons not already in the custody
or control of the United States.
(C) Procedures providing that a determination under
subsection (a)(2) is not required to be implemented until
after the conclusion of an interrogation which is ongoing
at the time the determination is made and does not require
the interruption of any such ongoing interrogation.
H. R. 1540—267
(D) Procedures providing that the requirement for military
custody under subsection (a)(1) does not apply when
intelligence, law enforcement, or other Government officials
of the United States are granted access to an individual
who remains in the custody of a third country.
(E) Procedures providing that a certification of national
security interests under subsection (a)(4) may be granted
for the purpose of transferring a covered person from a
third country if such a transfer is in the interest of the
United States and could not otherwise be accomplished.
(d) AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed
to affect the existing criminal enforcement and national security
authorities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or any other
domestic law enforcement agency with regard to a covered person,
regardless whether such covered person is held in military custody.
(e) EFFECTIVE DATE.—This section shall take effect on the
date that is 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act,
and shall apply with respect to persons described in subsection
(a)(2) who are taken into the custody or brought under the control
of the United States on or after that effective date. | | | | | | | The following 3 users would like to thank BeastOfBodmin for this useful post: | | 
30.12.2011, 16:46
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? I came across this story. I think USA citizens should be concerned... http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=9382 Rights No More The war on terrorism has increased the need to protect vigilantly our civil liberties. In July 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice held a celebration at which it handed out honors and praises to federal agents and lawyers involved in the prosecution of the Lackawanna Six. It should have handed out indictments instead, because those prosecutors - or at least some of them - violated their oaths to uphold the Constitution in order to coerce six soccer-playing young men from Lackawanna, New York, with no criminal records, into accepting long jail terms, well out of proportion to their alleged crimes.
The six - all Arab Americans in their early 20s, five of whom were born here - were charged in federal court in the Western District of New York with providing aid and support to a terrorist group, before September 11, by attending camps in Afghanistan, learning about weapons, and listening to Muslim clerics preach hatred toward the United States.
They were charged with listening to others - including, in the case of one of them, Osama bin Laden himself - talk about causing America harm and with training for some undefined jihad, even though they said that once they arrived and met the people in the camps, they wanted nothing to do with it. The government actually told a federal judge that since the clerics being heard by the six were preaching violence, the six had committed crimes of violence.
The court rejected that argument out of hand. After reviewing the evidence against the six, the judge wrote that these defendants - like all defendants - are guaranteed due process, and that federal courts should do more than just pay lip service to the guarantees of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; they should enforce them.
“We must never adopt an ‘end justifies the means’ philosophy,” the judge wrote, “by claiming that our Constitutional and democratic principles must be temporarily furloughed or put on hold in cases involving alleged terrorism in order to preserve our democracy. To do so would result in victory for the terrorists.”
But within mere yards of where this fair judge sat when he wrote those words, the government lawyers who once swore to uphold the Constitution were plotting to put it on hold.
According to a lawyer for one of the six - himself a former federal prosecutor - the government lawyers implicitly threatened the six during plea negotiations that if they did not plead guilty, if they did not speak up as the government wished, if they did not cooperate in their own prosecutions, if they insisted on their due process rights, the government would declare them to be enemy combatants.
In that case, the so-called defenders of the Constitution threatened, the six would have no due process rights, no trial, no lawyers, no charges filed against them, and they would receive solitary confinement for life. There is no reported case in American history in which a court allowed a defendant to be told that his insistence on due process would result, not in prosecution and conviction, but in punishment without trial. It has always been the case that when entering a guilty plea - and when negotiating for that plea - the defendant’s fears of punishment were limited to that which the law provides. Today, for the government to threaten that the punishment can be increased by fiat by the president after the crime has been committed is not only unconstitutional, it is tyrannical. Liberty: Void Where Prohibited It is only a warped view of American history, culture, and law that could seriously suggest that constitutional rights are discretionary - that any president can strip a person of his due process rights. Let’s be clear: There is no Supreme Court case supporting or authorizing presidential enhancement of punishment, and the Justice Department knows that. So if it is constitutionally impossible for the government to strip a person of his due process rights, why did the lawyers for the Lackawanna Six let their clients plead guilty and accept six-to-nine-year jail terms? Because they knew that the government had suspended rights before and gotten away with it. They knew that the president had actually declared three people to be enemy combatants and kept them locked up without charges and away from their own lawyers. And before the Supreme Court stepped in, he appeared to be getting away with it. | | The following 2 users would like to thank leonie for this useful post: | | 
30.12.2011, 22:51
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012?
Clinton passed the same kind of laws in 1996 giving the executive branch the right to use the US military against US citizens in the case of an up rising or coup d'etat. After the Branch Davidian thing exploded in the face of the FBI and ATF the White House created its own rules to seperate itself from any laws that would be put in place to protect US citizens from the government.
So in reality this new thing has been done before, only with different legal words. | Quote: | |  | | | | | | | | | | This user would like to thank Zuger for this useful post: | | 
04.01.2012, 08:40
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012?  The Absolute Moron’s Guide to the New Military Detention Laws http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/01...tion-laws.html | | This user would like to thank leonie for this useful post: | | 
04.01.2012, 11:40
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? | Quote: | |  | | | But you live in Vaud  | | | | |  Ahhh yes, the nutters across the pond can put into 'law' whatever they like...I'm staying here
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04.01.2012, 11:47
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012?
I'm more worried about what the US can do to a US Citizen abroad than what they can do to a US Citizen inside its borders.
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04.01.2012, 12:35
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? | Quote: | |  | | | | | | | |
to me, the important bits of the article quoted above:
"Obama actually threatened to veto the legislation at first, but after the language was softened enough that he could essentially ignore it, he signed it. Also, it was embedded in the National Defense Authorization Act, a larger bill that funded the military, and he couldn't very well appear as if he didn't want to fund the military, especially in an election year in which the GOP will likely try to portray him as some kind of peacenik. But if he's not going to use it, then it's all good — no harm no foul.
Except that the next president might not have a problem with detaining American citizens indefinitely, and now that the bill is law, he or she will have the explicit authorization to do so."
so basically, obama has done what he has had to do over and over... made the least worst decision to be pragmatic.
i do believe he wont abuse this, but what happens when we get some dumbass palin bachmann perry type in the whitehouse (which at the rate the US seems to be stupidifying itself seems basically inevitable at this point) who doesnt have a problem with it?
there are so many things which could under certain circumstances be branded "terrorism".
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04.01.2012, 12:42
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012?
Yes, JFK ruined life for us in many senses. No has the balls to repeal the rules and laws he put into place | Quote: | |  | | | I'm more worried about what the US can do to a US Citizen abroad than what they can do to a US Citizen inside its borders. | | | | | | 
04.01.2012, 13:52
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? | Quote: | |  | | | there are so many things which could under certain circumstances be branded "terrorism". | | | | | Did you see a link in the article which points to this site? http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terr...h-us-questions Terror conviction rate high in US, with questions. ..... "There is now a massive, self-perpetuating counterterrorism machine in the United States," said Jonathan Turley, a Georgetown University law professor who defended alleged jihadist Ali Al-Timimi in northern Virginia. "They'll take a conventional case and they will turn it into some grotesque overexaggerated claim of terrorism."..... This reminds me so much of the "enemy of the people" convictions back in the USSR... | | This user would like to thank leonie for this useful post: | | 
04.01.2012, 14:09
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012?
This probably is an off-topic. I have seen in the news today that Obama have signed a bill to accelerate TSA screening for active military personnel. Special rules not for children, elderly or sick but for the military. Doesn't make much sense in terms of security either. The tragic statistics is that 5 active-duty troops attempt suicide each day and one in three returning troops are being diagnosed with serious post-traumatic stress symptoms. http://thehill.com/blogs/transportat...tary-personnel
Last edited by leonie; 04.01.2012 at 15:49.
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04.01.2012, 14:13
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012?
Thats not as bad as the DST strategy of allowing terror suspects to go to North Africa on vacation, and then they all strangely disappear soon after. Since 2001 there have been up to 1000 per year! Also, since 2010 the US has once again pushed Iraq to conduct mass executions of terror suspects. From 2003 to 2008 there were 174 executions in Iraq under the government. Starting in 2010 the number of executions has exploded to 4,000+ per annum because of the jump in, One trial only, mass executions of terror suspects, at the urging of the US Govt.
You think things have gotten out of hand in the US? Over-seas its a different league all together. | Quote: | |  | | | Did you see a link in the article which points to this site? http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terr...h-us-questions Terror conviction rate high in US, with questions. ..... "There is now a massive, self-perpetuating counterterrorism machine in the United States," said Jonathan Turley, a Georgetown University law professor who defended alleged jihadist Ali Al-Timimi in northern Virginia. "They'll take a conventional case and they will turn it into some grotesque overexaggerated claim of terrorism."..... This reminds me so much of the "enemy of the people" convictions back in the USSR... | | | | | | | The following 2 users would like to thank Zuger for this useful post: | | 
04.01.2012, 15:37
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? | Quote: | |  | | | This probably is an off-topic. I have seem in the news today that Obama have signed a bill to accelerate TSA screening for active military personnel. Special rules not for children, elderly or sick but for the military. Doen't make much sense in terms of security either. The tragic statistics is that 5 active-duty troops attemp suicide each day and one in three returning troops are being diagnosed with serious post-traumatic stress symptoms. | | | | | There's a trusted traveler program being implemented for people who want expedited clearance through TSA. They should have to register for that program, maybe with a reduced fee. But there's no reason they should be given a "class" above the other Citizens of the United States, many of whom have also served honorably.
An Iraq veteran also shot and killed a US Park Ranger. The vet is suspected of either having PTSD and/or ties to violent street gangs. Just because someone is active duty and/or a veteran doesn't mean he or she is a trustworthy person.
__________________ I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies. - Pietro Aretino
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04.01.2012, 16:03
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? | Quote: | |  | | | Thats not as bad as the DST strategy of allowing terror suspects to go to North Africa on vacation, and then they all strangely disappear soon after. Since 2001 there have been up to 1000 per year! Also, since 2010 the US has once again pushed Iraq to conduct mass executions of terror suspects. From 2003 to 2008 there were 174 executions in Iraq under the government. Starting in 2010 the number of executions has exploded to 4,000+ per annum because of the jump in, One trial only, mass executions of terror suspects, at the urging of the US Govt. | | | | | I didn't know about this. Will try to find information about it, thanks. | Quote: |  | | | You think things have gotten out of hand in the US? Over-seas its a different league all together. | | | | | No I think in the US the scope is still extremely small.
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04.01.2012, 16:39
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| | | Re: Should USA Citizens Be Concerned About The NDAA 2012? | Quote: | |  | | | I didn't know about this. Will try to find information about it, thanks. | | | | | The Economist has listed most of this data. You can try to find out from there first.
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