Every year since 1963, the United States Congress has taken it upon itself to specify the budget and expenditures of the U.S. Department of Defense, for the upcoming year, in what is known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On December 15th, after much heated debate, Congress passed the bill for the 48th time, authorizing budget and expenditures for the year 2012. On the 23rd, President Barack Obama signed it into law.
In this latest bill, however, there's a bit of a catch.
Under the section on "Counterterrorism" (Subtitle D), the law authorizes the "detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force." The AUMF, enacted in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, authorized the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occured on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by nations, organizations or persons." This language is further clarified in the NDAA for 2012 to include, more specifically, "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 belligerant act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces."
The reason why this, what is now being called the "indefinite detention" clause, was so hotly contested by Constitutionalist representatives in Congress, is that it makes no allowance for American citizens. An amendment to exclude U.S. citizens from indefinite detention was proposed by California Senator Dianne Feinstein, but was rejected by Senate vote. A later amendment that passed, clarifies that "nothing in the NDAA is intended to alter the government's current legal authority to detain prisoners captured in the war on terror," according to Politico. Such authority, under the AUMF, includes the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens.
Under Congress' typically vague language, what this means is that not only can just about anyone, under current law, be considered a terrorist, but that anyone suspected of "belligerant acts" can now be legally arrested and detained, without trial, until the "war on terrorism" has ended. No "war" has ever been officially or legally declared on "terrorism", yet its belligerants, even if they by American citizens, shall now be treated as prisoners of war. By definition, this law puts all U.S. citizens under martial law, as it disregards the Bill of Rights, from which we have long had the impression that U.S. citizens were "innocent until proven guilty".
Few have the courage to speak out about this publically, but as Doctor, Congressman, and Presidential candidate Ron Paul explains, "the Bill of Rights has no exceptions for really bad people or terrorists or even non-citizens. It is a key check on government power against any person. That is not a weakness in our legal system, it is the very strength of our legal system. The NDAA attempts to justify abridging the Bill of Rights on the theory that rights are suspended in a time of war, and the entire United States is a battlefield in the war on terror. This is a very dangerous development, indeed. Beware."
Note that none of these laws mean that American citizens will inevitably suffer the consequences of the martial law established by them. But, the point is that they could, as now it's all perfectly legal. That's where the root of the issue lies. That's what the Bill of Right was even for--to protect this stuff from happening. But, these laws on "terrorism" effectively render the Bill of Rights null and void.
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