(1.1.12) The administration
also pushed Congress to change a provision that would have denied U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism the right to trial
and could have subjected them to indefinite detention. Lawmakers eventually dropped the military custody requirement for U.S.
citizens or lawful U.S. residents.
"My administration
will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens," Obama said in the signing statement.
"Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation." Read full story...
Statement by the President
on H.R. 1540 (12/31/11)
Today I have signed into law H.R. 1540, the “National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2012.” I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United
States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs
that must be renewed. In hundreds of separate sections totaling over 500 pages, the Act also contains critical Administration
initiatives to control the spiraling health care costs of the Department of Defense (DoD), to develop counterterrorism initiatives
abroad, to build the security capacity of key partners, to modernize the force, and to boost the efficiency and effectiveness
of military operations worldwide.
The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with
everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that
regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Over the last several years, my Administration
has developed an effective, sustainable framework for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected terrorists that
allows us to maximize both our ability to collect intelligence and to incapacitate dangerous individuals in rapidly developing
situations, and the results we have achieved are undeniable. Our success against al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents
has derived in significant measure from providing our counterterrorism professionals with the clarity and flexibility they
need to adapt to changing circumstances and to utilize whichever authorities best protect the American people, and our accomplishments
have respected the values that make our country an example for the world.
Defense bill on Obama's desk would allow suspected terrorists to be detained without trial (Seattle Times) 12/28/11 Now, however, the core of our constitutional rights are being eviscerated, and the public has barely noticed. The
National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 would permit American citizens on American soil to be arrested and held by the
U.S. military without a lawyer, without a trial and without the right to come before a judge under a writ of habeas corpus.
[“Senate passes defense bill despite Obama’s veto threat,” News, Dec. 2.]Read full story...
Stewart Rhodes, the controversial founder of the controversial "libertarian"
(declares the Huffington Post) group Oath Keepers would like to recall Montana Sens. Max S. Baucus and Jonathan Tester (Democrats)
and Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg because they voted for the National Defense Authorization Act.And in theory, Montana
law and the 10th Amendment would allow for it if only because it is not explicitly disallowed by the Constitution.
December 26, 2011 - Since 2001, tremendous power has been abdicated by Congress and transferred
by default to the executive branch. While presidents since Harry Truman have asserted war powers granted specifically to Congress,
never before has so much power rested in the hands of the president. Instead of scaling back the prior administration’s
growing hegemony on foreign policy, the Obama administration has expanded executive power, and the indefinite detention of
American citizens possible under the NDAA is the worst offense yet, violating our most basic values. Read more...
Last week, both the House and Senate passed the 2012 National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This annual bill provides critical authorities and resources for the U.S. Department of
Defense and the men and women of our Armed Forces. Due to two sections in the larger bill, which contain provisions that affirm
and clarify legal authorities for waging the war on terrorism and detaining terrorists, the 2012 NDAA has found itself the
subject of an unexpected misinformation campaign that suggests these provisions could lead to the indefinite detention of
U.S. citizens without due process.
The misinformation surrounding the 2012 NDAA is a result of the misinterpretation
of provisions included in Sections 1021 and 1022 of the act. These provisions are an important part of the 2012 NDAA and provide
vital clarity for our Armed Forces defending America around the world. Our forces have officially withdrawn from Iraq and
are on a timetable for a similar drawdown in Afghanistan. However, terrorists around the world continue to plot devastating
attacks against Americans.
Section 1021 of the 2012 NDAA solidifies the legal
authority under which our forces continue to engage the enemy. It also provides clarity that would otherwise continue to erode
as terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay challenge their detention through litigation in federal court.
Defence funding bill allows American citizens to be arrested as terrorists on home soil
and held indefinitely without trial
Chris McGreal in Washington guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 December 2011 23.34 EST
Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain
without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo
Bay.
Human rights groups accused the
president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic
policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual
rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end".
The law,
contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the "war
on terror" to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention. Read full story...
Tonight I voted “No”
on the National Defense Authorization Act By SC Congressman Jeff Duncan on December 14, 2011
Tonight I voted “No” on the National Defense
Authorization Act. I’ve sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and I take that oath very seriously. The
detainee language in this bill represents the first time Congress has explicitly granted the President the authority to hold
US citizens in military custody for an indefinite period of time. While supporters of this legislation claim to have inserted
some constitutional protections, the language added during negotiations between the House and the Senate is too vague to adequately
protect the rights of the American people. I will always support our troops, but I will not support legislation that endangers
the very Constitutional rights they are fighting to protect.
National Defense Authorization
Act Passes House, 283-136
(Politico) By JOSH GERSTEIN 12/14/11 7:55 PM EST
The National Defense Authorization Act and its controversial provisions
regarding detention of terror suspects passed the House of Representatives Wednesday night, 283-136.
The measure split Democrats right down the middle, with 93 voting in favor and 93 against legislation that President Barack Obama tactily endorsed earlier in the day by retreating from a veto threat. Though the bill passed handily just before 7:00 PM, there was a surprising amount of opposition from Tea Party faithful
and other conservative GOP members, 43 of whom opposed the legislation. (A full roll call is posted here.)
"We have ensured that as we fight terrorists around the world, we also protect
the civil liberties of Americans at home," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said in a statement
issued minutes after the vote. The measure goes on to the Senate, where an earlier version of the legislation passed 93-7.
Meanwhile, civil liberties and human rights groups were in a furor Wednesday night
over Obama's decision to drop his veto threat following changes made to the detainee-related sections of the bill.
"By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who
enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law,” Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “In
the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side.”
If
Obama does one thing for the remainder of his presidency let it be a veto of the National Defense Authorization
Act – a law recently passed by the Senate currently which would place domestic terror
investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which would open the door for trial-free, indefinite
detention of anyone, including American citizens, so long as the government calls them terrorists. Read Full Story...
12/2/11 -The United States Senate has passed its edition of a bill that would empower the military to forever detain anyone
who is considered to be part of any terrorist activity. Ninety three Senators reportedly voted in favor of the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA), while seven opposed it and none abstained. Read more...
Section 1031 of the NDAA reads: “Congress affirms that the authority
of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force … includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United
States to detain covered persons…. [including] [d]etention under the law of war without trial....” This “indefinite
detention” section hands over to the executive branch the power to have the military arrest U.S. citizens. No trial
needed. Simple suspicion would suffice. Read full story...
President Obama: Veto the Defense Authorization Act By ANDREW ROSENTHAL 11/30/11
(New Your Times)
When President Obama came into office in 2009 he promised to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp
and end the extra-judicial system that his predecessor had created to imprison terrorist suspects without trial, often without
even filing charges. He has broken that promise.
Mr. Obama failed to close down Guantanamo through a combination of
inaction and political ineptness. His administration made significant changes to President George W. Bush's military tribunals,
but at the same time left the door open to the concept of indefinite detention.
Now, Congress seems to be on the verge
of passing a law that would make indefinite detention a permanent part of the American way.
Here's what's going
on:
The Senate is debating the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a series of provisions that mandate
military interrogation and detention for any suspected member of Al Qaeda, and authorize indefinite detention of terrorist
suspects without trial. (The law is written so broadly that parts of it could also cover U.S. citizens.)
The provisions
were co-sponsored by Senators Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, both of whom should
know better. Their excuse was that some Republicans had proposed worse rules. But the smart response to that situation would
have been to block faulty legislation outright, not to make a really bad deal.
A deal, by the way, that Senator Patrick
Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said was hashed out behind closed doors without consultation
with his committee, or the Intelligence Committee, or the Defense Department, the F.B.I. or the intelligence community.
These
new policies would all but remove the F.B.I., federal prosecutors, and federal courts from the business of interrogating,
charging and trying suspected terrorists. Never mind that they have a track record of doing just that, legally and in the
open. Instead, it would put those functions in the hands of the military, which is not very good at it, and doesn't want to
do it.
Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, introduced a very sensible amendment this week, with Mr. Leahy's backing.
It would have stripped the detainee measures out of the Defense Authorization Act. That proposal was defeated on Tuesday,
61-37. Click here to see how your Senator voted. (If your Senator's a Republican, he or she almost certainly voted "no.")
The
Pentagon, the intelligence community, the Justice Department and the White House oppose the detainee rules. The people who
would have to carry out these boneheaded policies think they would actually weaken national security.
Fortunately, President
Obama has threatened to veto the Defense Authorization Act. Republicans, especially the gang competing for their party's presidential
nomination, will jump all over him if he does that.
Don't be fooled by their fear-mongering. The act does not actually
allocate money for the military. The appropriations bill does that. Mr. Obama can use his veto power without hurting the
military. In fact, our national security depends to a very real extent on him keeping his word.
