Indefinite Military Detention: President Obama Waives It For Americans

Posted: 02/28/12 07:28 PM ET  |  Updated: 02/28/12 07:41 PM ET

Huff Post  By- Michael McAuliff

WASHINGTON — The White House released rules Tuesday evening waiving the most controversial piece of the new military detention law, and exempting U.S. citizens, as well as other broad categories of suspected terrorists.

Indefinite military detention of Americans and others was granted in the defense authorization bill  President Barack Obama signed just before Christmas, sparking a storm of anger from civil libertarians on the left and right.

The new rules — which deal with Section 1022 of the law — are aimed at soothing many of their gravest concerns, an administration official said. Those concerns are led by the possibility that a law that grants the president authority to jail Americans without trial in Guantanamo Bay based on secret evidence could easily be abused.

“It is important to recognize that the scope of the new law is limited,” says a fact sheet released by the White House, focusing on that worry. “Section 1022 does not apply to U.S. citizens, and the President has decided to waive its application to lawful permanent residents arrested in the United States.”

It also addresses a concern of the White House and advocates of civil law enforcement, insisting that even if a suspect is transfered to the military, the person can be shifted back if the administration believes it is important for national security.

“An individual required to be held in military custody under Section 1022 may be returned to law enforcement custody for criminal trial,” the White House summary says. “In addition, Section 1022 does not change the FBI’s authorities to respond to terrorism threats and these procedures do not apply to any individuals held in the custody of the Department of Defense, state and local law enforcement agencies acting under their authorities, or a foreign government.”

Advocates for liberties will likely find the new rules for implementing reassuring, at least while President Obama is in office. But one of their big complaints with his signing of the law is that his policies only last so long as he is in office, and they will likely step up attempts to repeal it.

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Is the American Revolution Dead?

A few years ago, on my very first day in the United States, I read these stirring words on an information plaque on Boston Common.

What do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations…This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.” John Adams

A few years later, I quoted them during a conversation over breakfast with an American couple who were visiting us in the UK while on holiday.

My father asked our guests whether the revolution was still alive, and they replied that it was.

Personally, I despair.

Below is an article posted on Op Ed News by Susan Lindauer, a U.S. Asset and one of the very first non-Arab Americans indicted on the Patriot Act, accused of acting as an “Iraqi Agent” for opposing the War. She was imprisoned on Carswell Air Force Base for a year without a trial.

The Patriot Act: When Truth Becomes Treason

Susan Lindauer | Op Ed News | May 26, 2011 at 21:19:59

Many Americans believe they understand the dangers of the Patriot Act, which Congress has vowed to extend 4 more years in a vote later this week. Trust me when I say, Americans are not nearly frightened enough.

Ever wonder why the facts about 9/11 never got exposed? Why Americans don’t fathom the leadership fraud surrounding the War on Terror? Why Americans don’t know the 9/11 investigation failed? Why the “Iraqi Peace Option” draws a blank? Somebody has known the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden— or his grave–for the past 10 years. But nobody’s talking.

In significant part, that’s because of the Patriot Act— a law that equates free speech with sedition. It’s got a big agenda, with 7,000 pages of Machiavellian code designed to interrupt individual questioning of government policy. In this brave new world, free speech under the Bill of Rights effectively has been declared a threat to government controls for maintaining “stability”. And the Patriot Act has become the premiere weapon to attack whistleblowers and dissidents who challenge the comfort of political leaders hiding inconvenient truths from the public. It’s all the rage on Capitol Hill, as leaders strive to score TV ratings, while demagoguing their “outstanding leadership performance” on everything from national security to environmental policy.

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Dennis Kucinich appeals to Tea Baggers ~Patriot Act Defeated

US House defeats anti-terrorism powers extension
By Olivier Knox AFP – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — The US House of Representatives rejected a nine-month extension of counter-terrorism surveillance powers at the heart of the Patriot Act adopted after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

With the three provisions set to expire February 28, lawmakers voted 277-148 in favor of legislation to renew them until December 8, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed under House rules.

The surprise vote came amid a bitter battle over how long to extend the intrusive powers at the core of the signature legislative response to the terrorist strikes nearly 10 years ago, and with what safeguards.

The provisions allow authorities to use roving wiretaps to track an individual on several telephones; track a non-US national suspected of being “lone-wolf” terrorist not tied to an extremist group; and to seize personal or business records seen as critical to an investigation.

US President Barack Obama, wading into the fray, pressed lawmakers to extend those authorities — which supporters say fill key gaps in the fight against extremists — through December 2013.

Obama “strongly supports extension of three critical authorities that our nation’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies need to protect our national security,” the White House said in a statement.

The rest of the story

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Tea Partiers Help ACLU, House Dems Stop Patriot Act Renewal

Tea Partiers Help ACLU, House Dems Stop Patriot Act Renewal

TPM Muckraker

Susan Crabtree and Ryan J. Reilly | February 9, 2011, 9:27AM

The American Civil Liberties Union’s Michelle Richardson didn’t know where things stood ahead of the House’s vote expended certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act last night.

“I have no special inside knowledge on how this is going to shake down, but we’re certainly going to be watching it closely,” she told TPM ahead of the Tuesday night vote.

The big mystery was how the Tea Party-backed members would break on the first national security vote in the new Congress — and whether the libertarian leanings of members from the right could align with concerns about government overreach on the left. Richardson said they’d be “seeing if the small government beliefs that have been espoused also apply in the national security context.”

In the end, 26 Republicans broke with their leadership to oppose the bill, which still gained a majority of votes (227 to 148) but didn’t pass.

While the bill to extend certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act had the support of the White House, it was a coalition of Democrats and Republicans that stopped the legislation from reaching the two-thirds vote needed under the House’s expedited procedures. The extension could still pass with a simple majority under a different process.

Under the provisions that are set to expire, the government is allowed to set up roving wiretaps, track foreign citizens who might be acting alone in plotting attacks and gain easy access to certain types of business records.

HERE

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Obama Has To Hold Bush Accountable

Obama Has to Hold Bush Accountable for the Laws He Broke

By Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation. Posted January 16, 2009.

Obama cannot let former Bush administration officials get away with breaking the law without violating his own oath of office.

President Obama, on his first day in office, can make a number of changes that will mark a clean break with the Bush presidency. He can, and should, issue an executive order revoking any prior order that permits detainee mistreatment by any government agency. He should begin the process of closing Guantánamo, and he should submit to Congress a bill to end the use of military commissions, at least as presently constituted. Over the coming months he can pursue other reforms to restore respect for the Constitution, such as revising the Patriot Act, abolishing secret prisons and “extraordinary rendition,” and ending practices, like signing statements, that seek to undo laws.

While these steps are all crucial, however, it is not enough merely to cease the abuses of power and apparent criminality that marked the highest levels of George W. Bush’s administration. We cannot simply shrug off the constitutional and criminal misbehavior of the administration, treat it as an aberration and hope it won’t happen again. The misbehavior was not an aberration — aspects of it, particularly the idea that the president is above the law, were present in Watergate and in the Iran/Contra scandal. To fully restore the rule of law and prevent any repetition of Bush’s misconduct, the abuses of his administration must be directly confronted. As Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen — recently tapped by Obama to head his Office of Legal Counsel–wrote in Slate last March, “We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation’s past transgressions and reject Bush’s corruption of our American ideals.”

What we need to do is conceptually simple. We need to launch investigations to get at the central unanswered questions of Bush’s abuse of power, commence criminal proceedings and undertake institutional, statutory and constitutional reforms. Perhaps all these things don’t need to be done at once, but over time–not too much time–they must take place. Otherwise, we establish a doctrine of presidential impunity, which has no place in a country that cherishes the rule of law or considers itself a democracy. Bush’s claim that the president enjoys virtually unlimited power as commander in chief at a time of war–which Vice President Dick Cheney defiantly reasserted just last month–brought us perilously close to military dictatorship.

MORE HERE

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