\n(CBS News) The White House is signing off on a controversial new law that would authorize the U.S. military to arrest and indefinitely detain alleged al Qaeda members or other terrorist operatives captured on American soil.
\nAs the bill neared final passage in the House of Representatives and the Senate on Wednesday, the Obama administration announced it would support passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains slightly watered-down provisions giving the military a front line role in domestic terrorism cases.<\/p>\n
The administration abandoned its long-held veto threat due to changes in the final version of the bill, namely that in its view, the military custody mandate has been “softened.” The bill now gives the President the immediate power to issue a waiver of the military custody requirement, instead of the Defense Secretary, and gives the President discretion in implementing these new provisions.<\/p>\n
“We have concluded that the language does not challenge or constrain the President’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the American people, and the President’s senior advisors will not recommend a veto,” the White House statement said.<\/p>\n
The detainee provisions are just one part of the annual NDAA authorizing $662 billion in federal defense spending next year…. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n Military Given Go-Ahead to Detain US Terrorist Suspects Without Trial<\/strong> 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”.<\/p>\n The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n The legislation’s supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay. But the law’s critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.<\/p>\n “It’s something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. “It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States<\/a> has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent.”<\/p>\n There was heated debate in both houses of Congress on the legislation, requiring that suspects with links to Islamist foreign terrorist organisations arrested in the US, who were previously held by the FBI<\/a> or other civilian law enforcement agencies, now be handed to the military and held indefinitely without trial…. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Obama has dropped his threat to veto the bill <\/a>and is now expected to sign it into law. Remember \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it was Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s White House that demanded the law apply to U.S. citizens in the first place.<\/p>\n The bill which would codify into law the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens is about to be passed and sent to Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desk to be signed into law, even as some news outlets still erroneously report that the legislation does not apply to U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The House on Wednesday afternoon approved the rule for the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), setting up an hour of debate and a vote in the House later this afternoon,\u00e2\u20ac\u009dreports the Hill<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mainstream news outlets like The Hill, as well as neo-con blogs like Red State<\/a>, are still pretending the indefinite detention provision doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t apply to American citizens, even though three of the bill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s primary sponsors, Senator Carl Levin, Senator John McCain, and Senator Lindsey Graham, said it does during speeches on the Senate floor.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d remarked Graham. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And when they say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI want my lawyer,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 you tell them, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcShut up. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a lawyer.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d… Wait for it.. wait wait… feel that? that was the Founders rolling in their graves! WH OKs Military Detention of Terrorism Suspects (CBS News) The White House is signing off on a controversial new law…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[344,11,31,580],"tags":[3813,3814,3815,3812,2878,2879,3810,3816,223,3811,3809],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRead More at CBC News<\/a><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2011\/12\/15\/1323923480371\/Guant-namo-Bay-008.jpg?resize=460%2C276\" "\\"gitmo\\"")
Civil rights groups dismayed as Barack Obama abandons commitment to veto new security law contained in defence bill
\nBarack 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 toGuant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nRead More at The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIndefinite Detention\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Bill Heads To Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Desk As White House Drops Veto Threat<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.globalpost.com\/sites\/default\/files\/imagecache\/medium\/camp_cropper_iraqi_detainees_rsz.jpg?resize=259%2C175\" "\\"Detention\\"")
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n
\nRead More at InfoWars<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"