Our gov't. wants to make sure they can lock you up without a trial.
As reported yesterday, "The White House has filed an appeal in hopes of reversing a federal judge's ruling that bans the indefinite military detention of Americans because attorneys for the president say they are justified to imprison alleged terrorists without charge.
It appears that the fight against tyranny and oppression creates some interesting alliances on both sides. On January 13, 2012 a group of plaintiffs that include socialist and anarchist Noam Chomsky, political activist Daniel Ellsberg, the U.S. Day of Rage, and others filed a suit in the United States District Court, in and for the Southern District of New York, challenging the Constitutionality of the controversial sections of the NDAA. They asked the court for “preliminary and permanent injunctive relief with respect to one section, (indeed one page) of that voluminous legislation: Section 1021″ (of the NDAA). The case was heard by Manhattan federal court Judge Katherine Forrest.
The defendants of this case were names as Barack Obama (individually and as a representative of the United States), Leon Panetta, John McCain, John Boehner, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor.
Despite any sentiments that might be evoked by the identity, social and political views of the plaintiffs, even the most conservative among us would be hard pressed to argue with the merits of their lawsuit. The NDAA shreds the Constitution, and these plaintiffs took legal action to stop it. Those are simply the unbiased facts of the matter, all which apparently are of little interest to the Obama-pandering corporate media. But wait, it gets better.
After an expedited discovery process, an evidentiary hearing was held on March 30, 2012. The federal judge in this matter is All of the plaintiffs showed up in person at that hearing except one, who provided testimony by sworn declaration pursuant to previous authority granted by the court. No one from the government offered any testimony, provided any documentation, or made the slightest noise at the hearing.
Manhattan federal court Judge Katherine Forrest ruled in May that the indefinite detention provisions signed into law late last year by US President Barack Obama failed to 'pass constitutional muster' and ordered a temporary injunction to keep the military from locking up any person, American or other, over allegations of terrorist ties. On Monday, however, federal prosecutors representing President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta filed a claim with the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in hopes of eliminating that ban."
In section 1021 of the NDAA, the president’s authority to hold a terrorism suspect “without trial, until the end of the hostilities” is reaffirmed by Congress. Despite an accompanying signing statement voicing his opposition to that provision, President Obama quietly inked his name to the NDAA on December 31, 2011. In May, however, a group of plaintiffs including notable journalists and civil liberty proponents challenged section 1021 in court, leading to Judge Forrest to find it unconstitutional one month later.
"There is a strong public interest in protecting rights guaranteed by the First Amendment," Forrest wrote in her 68-page ruling. "There is also a strong public interest in ensuring that due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment are protected by ensuring that ordinary citizens are able to understand the scope of conduct that could subject them to indefinite military detention."
At the time Judge Forrest made her injunction, attorney Carl Mayer told RT on behalf of the plaintiffs that, although he expected the White House to appeal, “It may not be in their best interest.”
“There are so many people from all sides of the political spectrum opposed to this law that they ought to just say, 'We're not going to appeal,’” Mayer said. "The NDAA cannot be used to pick up Americans in a proverbial black van or in any other way that the administration might decide to try to get people into the military justice system. It means that the government is foreclosed now from engaging in this type of action against the civil liberties of Americans."
If you're new to this whole thing — that's okay, the major U.S. television networks appear to be running an actual blackout on this court case today.
The NDAA's indefinite detention provisions go far beyond that noble goal. Once you allow for imprisonment without trial on suspicion alone — a practice we see in some of the most oppressive regimes on Earth — you create a VERY slippery slope where anyone who disagrees with the government, anyone who attends a peaceful afternoon protest or politically-minded cookout, and anyone who sleeps with a TSA agent's ex-girlfriend might be at risk of unimaginable injustice. It also creates a chilling effect within the media. Our journalists are lazy enough without letting them know that covering controversial issues could result in their black-bagging and imprisonment. They'll stop doing journalism altogether.
Americans shouldn't have to fear their own government. They shouldn't have to fear being taken in the night. Things like right to trial and due process are at the very bedrock of our way of life. I'd like to see it stay that way.http://www.businessinsider.com/historic-ndaa-battle-underway-tv-networks-silent-2012-8
http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-indefinite-detention-forrest-070/
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/6542#more-6542
US Attorneys. refuse to assure judge that they're not Already detaining Americans under NDAA.
By Tangerine Bolen:
In the March hearing, the US lawyers had confirmed that yes, the NDAA does give the President the power to lock up people like journalist Chris Hedges and peaceful activists like myself and other plaintiffs. Government attorneys have stated on record that even war correspondents could be locked up indefinitely under the NDAA. Judge Katherine Forrest had ruled for a temporary injunction against an unconstitutional provision in this law – after government attorneys refused to provide assurances to the court that plaintiffs and others would not be indefinitely detained for engaging in first amendment activities. Twice the government has refused to define what it means to be an “associated force”, and it claimed the right to refrain from offering any clear definition of this term, or clear boundaries of power under this law. This past week’s hearing was even more terrifying: incredibly, in this hearing, Obama’s attorneys refused to assure the court, when questioned, that the NDAA’s provision – one that permits reporters and others who have not committed crimes to be detained without trial -- has not been applied by the US government anywhere in the world -- AFTER Judge Forrest’s injunction. In other words, they were saying to a US judge that they could not or would not state whether Obama’s government had complied with the legal injunction that she had lain down before them.
I, like many in this fight, am now afraid of my government. We have good reason to be. Due to the NDAA, Chris Hedges, Kai Wargalla, the other plaintiffs and I are squarely in the crosshairs of a “war on terror” that has been an excuse to undermine liberties, trample the US Constitution, destroy mechanisms of accountability and transparency, and cause irreparable harm to millions. Several of my co-plaintiffs know well the harassment and harm that they incur from having dared openly to defy the US government’s narrative: court testimony included government subpoenas of private bank records of Icelandic Parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir, Wargalla’s account of having been listed as a ‘terrorist group”, and Hedges’ concern that he would be included as a “belligerent” in the NDAA’s definition of the term – because he interviews members of outlawed groups as a reporter – a concern that the US attorneys refused on the record to allay. Other advocates have had email accounts consistently hacked, and often find their electronic communications corrupted in transmission – some emails vanish altogether – a now-increasing form of pressure that supporters of state surveillance and intervention in the internet often fail to consider.
I’ve been surprised to find that most people, when I mention that I am suing my president, Leon Panetta, and six members of Congress (four Democrats and four Republicans), thank me – even before I explain what I’m suing them over! And when I do explain the fact that I and my seven co-plaintiffs are suing over a law that suspends due process, threatens first amendment rights and takes away the basic right of every citizen on this planet to not be indefinitely detained without charge or trial, their exuberance shifts, and a deeper gratitude shines through their newly somber demeanors. But this fight has taken a personal toll on many of us, including myself. This winter, as I led the campaign to amend this lawsuit and was working over 80 hours per week to get everything ready, I suddenly ended up in the emergency room, and have subsequently endured six months of a debilitating neurological illness. Thus, I have relied on an international team of volunteers, whose courage and energy has led them successfully to garner support for a lawsuit that is an attempt to restore our most fundamental of liberties.
My government seems to have lost the ability to tell – and, perhaps, even to know -- the truth about the Constitution any more. I and many others have not. We are fighting for due process and for the First Amendment; for a country we still believe in; and for a government that is still legally bound to its Constitution.
http://dailycloudt.com/voice/358/us-attorneys-refuse-to-assure-judge-that-they-are-not-already-detaining-citizens-under-ndaa
Last Friday, US Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced HR 6357, a bill which aims to ‘prohibit the extrajudicial killing of United States citizens’ by the federal government. In other words, in the Land of the Free, they need to pass a law to prevent the government from indiscriminately murdering its own citizens.
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/us-government-proposes-law-making-it-illegal-for-them-to-kill-you_08092012