President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2011
WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.
“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. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”
Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.
“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”
The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations. It also restricts the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of his first acts in office.
December 31, 2011
WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.
“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. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”
Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.
“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”
The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations. It also restricts the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of his first acts in office.
Have you people NO clue at all? It passed the Senate by 87 votes - AFTER most of the changes Obama had demanded had been put in it - so it's utterly veto proof. Even if he'd vetoed it it would be the law. Period. If he'd vetoed it then tens of thousands of American troops, their families, and their vendors would not have been paid and their compensable items not compensated. It would have meant NOTHING that Obama said no EXCEPT that it would have really screwed things for a lot of people dependent upon the REST of the Act. After all, the NDAA was but a tiny portion of it. The rest of the Act was about other things, and of course Obama DOESN'T HAVE a line item veto so was faced with an all or nothing choice on something which he would ultimately lose anyway.
ReplyDeleteI think you're the one without a clue, as evidenced by the fact that you seem to think that the president opposes any part of this bill except that it purports to tell him what he can and cannot do.
ReplyDeleteCleverly designed and carefully worded, the NDAA's detention authority is still just a codification of existing "homeland security" laws, which were passed amid the post-9/11 chaos. WE were asleep at the switch. This "detention authority" travesty should have been stopped dead in it's tracks 10 years ago. That authority has already been exercised and upheld by the appellate court. Now, specifically blessed by Congress, it is SET in CONCRETE.
ReplyDeleteThe President's words, signing statement and "serious reservations" have no force or effect on the detention authority that WE, the people, have unconstitutionally granted to Mr. Obama.
Read the intentionally vague, ambiguous and circuitous wording of the provisions in the NDAA over and over again, and realize that WE, the people, have been had. This detention authority is intended to be used against U.S. citizens. The final draft could have clearly and unequivocally prohibited "indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without due process", (as does the Constitution), but IT DOESN'T. It WILL be misused, and the President's feigned disapproval is an insult to the American people.
Those who feel comfortable with this legislation simply don't understand what has been forfeited, why it was done 10 years after 9/11, and who sponsored it. But the dawn of understanding nears.
Ok, so how will this work out? Does someone have to be detained, and then you ACLU guys can sue? OK, I'm down with that, how does one volunteer to be the test case?
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court won't touch it until there's an actual "case or controversy" - a constitutional requirement that obligates a putative plaintiff to have suffered injury in fact. Even then the Court may defer to the war powers of the Commander in Chief.
ReplyDeleteTo think Obama taught Constitutional Law ... shameful stuff.
When did Obama feign disapproval of detaining US citizens? His early threat of veto was when the bill didn't allow him to detain citizens and set up a procedure which might slightly annoy those who choose to follow that procedure.
ReplyDeleteFurther, Obama has not done anything to slow the detention and torture which W started. Obama is a soft-shoe neocon. He will receive no mercy.
ON NYE 2011, the US Gov't officially declared a mutiny and is now at war with its bosses, the people it purports to serve.
What prevents the US military from detaining citizens of other countries in their countries "extra judicially" in this context.
ReplyDeleteFor example my country is allied with the US and the military build many bases here. But we have no bill of rights and our country sucks the US government's butt.
So basically does this mean some jackboot from the US military can knock on my door and send me to GITMO because I did something they don't like (maybe even #occupy in my own country?)?
Or is this bullshit just applying to US citizens overseas, in which case, any people I have ever known who ever gave a shit about human rights could be jackbooted to GITMO even if they are also dual citizens?
What kind of fucked up shit is this?
I hope this is the topic of your first Salon post of the new year.
ReplyDelete@CFWard57 ..and therein lies a fundamental problem with our system of government; when members of Congress can slip things in bills meant to hold hostage a segment of people/businesses to get what they want on other things. The people have become way too accepting of this instead of insisting on pure bills/votes, even at the cost of great sacrifice by those being held hostage.
ReplyDeleteWe must clean house in the next 3 elections. We need to clean out the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. We need statesmen in our legislature and our executive branch, not politicians. It will take 3 election cyles to get the U.S. back on track, if we have the will to do it.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, watch SOPA. If SOPA is passed we will probably never return to the rule of law, at least not without civil war.
I don't wish civil war on my children or my grandchildren, and that's the inevitable result of fascism within the federal government. The suffering will be great.
If we want to head of several generations of abject misery, then we must return to the Rule of Law immediately.
Why doesnt the aclu try to get people out of jail instead of interfering with the treatment terrorist
ReplyDeleteI read Ex Parte Quirin closely. Specifically the paragraphs beginning "All the petitioners were born in Germany...", "We are not here concerned...", "By a long course of practical administrative construction..." and "Citizenship in the United States of an enemy belligerent."
ReplyDeleteI can't help but read the case to say that if there is a "war," such as the force bill known as AUMF, then unlawful combatants who are caught get military tribunals, with the only recourse to the courts is to contest unlawful combatant status.
You obviously disagree. Where do you think I go wrong?
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ReplyDelete"DESERT RAY JEWELRY said...
ReplyDeleteWhy doesnt the aclu try to get people out of jail instead of interfering with the treatment terrorist"
You freaking idiot, don't you get it??? Under this bill there is NO trial. No one will KNOW that you have been arrested and since there is NO trial, it can't be contested in the Supreme Court!
Glenn, some of these posts are spam. You can tell which ones they are because they link to commercial websites or make irrelevant points (Desert Ray, Hacker, etc.). You should delete them.
ReplyDeleteI like Annie Mouse's thinking on this whole paradigm.
ReplyDeletePadilla is the case that is being retro-actively covered by this law, because Bush could not transfer him from military to civilian due Judge Ludkte's ruling, that Roberts as appellant judge was in the loosing dissenting opinion, but once as chief got it reversed for Bush, without ruling on the issue of unlawfully being detained for 3+ years! Folks like it or not there conspiracies being committed all over to take away our rights one silver at a time!
ReplyDeleteHow is this any different from the way that people in other dictatorships/poorly governed places like North Korea, Russia, China, etc. Not happy about this development. This isn't how free countries should comport themselves!
ReplyDeleteAll of you here are guilty of thoughtcrimes, knowingly or unknowingly you are now under the watch of any and all 500+ security agencies and their 1,000,000 agents. Be forewarned. Perhaps if you remain silent the rest of your lives and devote yourself in the war against Eurasia these acts will be forgiven, perhaps not.
ReplyDeleteFrom: Obama, in Europe, signs Patriot Act extension -
ReplyDeleteWyden says that while there are numerous interpretations of how the Patriot Act works, the official government interpretation of the law remains classified. "A significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says," Wyden said.
I think it's important to add to this discussion that the Gov's classified interpretation of the Patriot Act is still unknown to the public. Obama's signing statement was merely a "Rules For Radicals" tactic of misdirection, a hallmark of his career.
Will ACLU Take the NDAA Bull by the Horns, or Just Milk the Cow?
ReplyDeleteThis week the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) set up a new NDAA pledge page that reads as follows:
"He signed it. We'll fight it.
President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. It contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision.
The dangerous new law can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. He signed it. Now, we have to fight it wherever we can and for as long as it takes.
Sign the ACLU's pledge to fight worldwide indefinite detention for as long as it takes."
http://tinyurl.com/76zzr57
I have not signed it ... yet. I suspect that once I do, I'll start receiving an indefinite stream of donation requests, all assuring me the money will go to fight the indefinite detention provisions of NDAA. I suspect that the ACLU may be gearing up to milk the NDAA issue for donations just as they have the USA Patriot Act, which a decade after passage and despite their efforts is still on the books:
http://www.aclu.org/reform-patriot-act
I don't mind the ACLU milking issues so long as they're actually making a difference on those issues. But I don't see that their efforts made much of a difference with respect to the Patriot Act. And when I asked them yesterday "What, specifically, is the ACLU going to do to defeat the indefinite detention provisions of NDAA 2012?" their answer was this:
"We are extremely active on this issue and are strategizing our best options in moving forward."
I find that answer very disappointing. The ACLU had more than enough time to "strategize" about NDAA before Obama signed it, and they should have been ready to spring into action once he did. I have recommended an effective course of action for the ACLU, which includes charging Barack Hussein Obama and all of the U.S. Senators and Representatives who voted for NDAA 2012 with Seditious Conspiracy under U.S. Code Title 18 Part I Chapter 115 Section 2384:
http://tinyurl.com/8yamv4c
Whether they follow that recommendation or not, whatever the ACLU intends to do about NDAA they better do quick. And if they want my support, they better be doing a helluva lot more than just building donor lists from online petition drives that otherwise accomplish nothing:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp
NO MORE LEFT. NO MORE RIGHT. TIME TO UNITE. STAND AND FIGHT!
IronBoltBruce via VVV PR ( http://vvvpr.com | @vvvpr )
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BUCK MCKEON is the PUNK REPUBLICAN who proposed the DETAINEE SECURITY ACT which scrapped THE BILL OF RIGHTS. THIS COWARDLY PUSS WANTED TO PULL SOMETHING REAL CHICKENSH-T THEN SKULK OFF INTO RETIREMENT.
ReplyDeleteHer company, COUNTRYWIDE, was part of the $700 BILLION BAILOUT. S/he has a vested interest in putting us in prison if we try to investigate her involvment in THE LARGEST RIPOFF OF ANY PEOPLE IN HISTORY. AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THE DETAINEE SECURITY ACT IS FOR. They'll MAKE US DISAPPEAR if we try to bring the government (i.e. the "jewish" bankers who control our government) to justice for their TREASON.
REAL CHRISTIANS and REAL AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES need to bombard this DISGRACEFUL HOMO with emails and faxes (Fax: 661-274-8744). Also, we need to get some pictures of this guy being SODOMIZED BY THE "JEWS" who (mis)run America. To be published worldwide. PATRIOTS, DO YOUR DUTY. http://mckeon.house.gov/