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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Monday, December 3, 2012

Victory - Senate repeals Fascist NDAA



A Small Victory  -  Democrat Senate repeals portion of NDAA that allows the military to imprison you without a trial.
  • Huge public pressure pushed both parties in the Senate into supporting the Constitution after they voted last year to abolish your right to a trial by jury.
  • The ball is now in the court of a GOP House that last year also voted to abolish your right to a trial by jury.


A reprise of last year’s war in Washington over whether or not Americans can be indefinitely detained without trial is occurring already. The Senate has approved a measure that voids parts of the 2012 NDAA, but the White House says they plan to veto.

Just hours before lawmakers in the US Senate overwhelming voted in favor of an amendment that will challenge controversial provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, the Obama administration cited seemingly unrelated sections of the annual Pentagon spending bill as the reasoning behind a planned veto.

Last year, staffers working directly under Comrade Barack Obama said they’d recommend the commander-in-chief reject the 2012 NDAA because of certain provisions that provided the Executive Branch the power to indefinitely hold any US citizen in military prison for mere suspicious of ties to terrorism reports RT News - USA.

Despite his office’s assurance that the NDAA would not be authorized as written, Obama signed his name to the bill on December 31, 2011, all the while acknowledging that he had reservations about the sections that stripped away habeas corpus from US citizens. Even still, the White House has been adamantly fighting in federal appeals court for the right to continue having the ability, despite a district judge having already called that part of the act unconstitutional.

Now as next year’s bill is being scrutinized in Congress, lawmakers in the Senate this Thursday agreed to pass by a vote of 67 to 29 a measure sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) that applied civil liberty protections to US persons who could be detained under the current NDAA.




Chris Hedges challenges NDAA in court
A few months ago the case against the National Defense Authorization Act was presented to a judge in New York. One of the plaintiffs in the case has decided to sue the Obama administration claiming that by simply doing his job he could be arrested and detained indefinitely due to the nature of his work, reporting. Chris Hedges, columnist for TruthDig, joins us to explain how his day in court went.




Senator Feinstein defends the Bill of Rights
Yes she is a Leftist, but bravo to Feinstein for standing up for Constitutional freedom.




"An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention,” the senator’s amendment reads.

"I know this is a sensitive subject, but I really believe we stand on the values of our country, and the value of our country is justice for all," she told her colleagues on the Senate floor.

Constitutional Federalist Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), an avid critic of the NDAA, said the passing of Feinstein’s amendment has signaled a “victory” in a year-long effort to keep indefinite detention without charge or trial off the books.


“Let’s don't play any games with any aspect and really believe that any Supreme Court in the United States, whether appointed by a Republican or a Democrat, is going to say that an American citizen does not have a right to trial by jury,” he said.

Now with the Senate’s approval of Sen. Feinstein’s amendment, the indefinite detention provisions from the 2012 NDAA stand a chance of being stripped off next year’s bill. Citing completely unrelated reasons, though, the Obama White House said that the president is not likely to accept the defense bill in its current form.

Before Sen. Feinstein’s amendment was approved this week, the most recent revision of the 2013 NDAA including a passage reaffirming every American’s right to habeas corpus. The complete defense bill must successfully pass through Congress before Pres. Obama can sign it. In all, the bill outlines spending for the Department of Defense during the next fiscal year and is crucial for figuring out expenses for the entire military complex. Presidents Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush have each vetoed an NDAA during their administrations.






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