Have you seen the latest assault on the civil liberties of US citizens that the Senat voted on recently?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act
Before any of us little people heard much about it, the US senate overwhelmingly passed this piece of injustice. Personnaly, I am very disappointed in the Democratic party as a whole. My own Senator Kerry voted yea, as did all the other New England senators, Reed, Blumenthal, Leahy, Shaheen...even my favorite democrat Senator Franken (MN). Shame on you, senators, especially as Democrats, for betraying your country's people and founding ideology for what I'm sure boils down to either direct promises of defence contracts or peer pressure thereabouts.
President Obama has said he will veto, but there's no guarantee as complexities arise and party pressure rises.
Section 1031 b2 contains "A person...including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities...", which due to the use of the word 'belligerent' and without explicit exemption of US citizens circumvents the right to free speech as declared in the Bill of Rights. In essence, I could post something on Facebook that slams the US invasion of Iraq in favor of Islamic fundamentalist ideaology, and that exercise in free speech could be interpreted at wartime as an act to beleaguer (in 'belligerence' of) the US government or Armed Forces. They could immediately knock down my front door, detain me without formal charges or legal representation, until the arrange for me to be transferred to a US military installation in Iraq, where they could torture and/or murder me with complete impunity. Oh, they could also do this to my wife and children if the do anything construable as 'belligerent' too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrXyLrTRXso
Section 1031 b4 also states that detainees can be transferred "...to the custody or control of the person's country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity", which fully enables the US to release a detainee without trial to the control of any individual or group that is not bound by the US Constitution or US Justice system.
In such cases, a simple coordination between the US and these other parties would allow operatives of the US with the intent to see that acts of coersion, torture, brutality, and even murder are performed against the detainee, to do so with complete impunity. Allowing US citizens to be transferred to the control of any 3rd party that does not abide by the laws of the detainees' country of origin in its treatment of US citizen detainees is equivalent to suspension of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Both these sections of the bill are wholely unacceptible as is and must be rephrased to explicitly exclude US citizens, unless they have already been proven guilty of a crime applicable to the "covered persons" subsection in the bill through due process by the established US justice system.
http://usawatchdog.com/national-defense-authorization-act-indefinite-detention-bill-senate-bill-1867/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrXyLrTRXso
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act
Before any of us little people heard much about it, the US senate overwhelmingly passed this piece of injustice. Personnaly, I am very disappointed in the Democratic party as a whole. My own Senator Kerry voted yea, as did all the other New England senators, Reed, Blumenthal, Leahy, Shaheen...even my favorite democrat Senator Franken (MN). Shame on you, senators, especially as Democrats, for betraying your country's people and founding ideology for what I'm sure boils down to either direct promises of defence contracts or peer pressure thereabouts.
President Obama has said he will veto, but there's no guarantee as complexities arise and party pressure rises.
Section 1031 b2 contains "A person...including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities...", which due to the use of the word 'belligerent' and without explicit exemption of US citizens circumvents the right to free speech as declared in the Bill of Rights. In essence, I could post something on Facebook that slams the US invasion of Iraq in favor of Islamic fundamentalist ideaology, and that exercise in free speech could be interpreted at wartime as an act to beleaguer (in 'belligerence' of) the US government or Armed Forces. They could immediately knock down my front door, detain me without formal charges or legal representation, until the arrange for me to be transferred to a US military installation in Iraq, where they could torture and/or murder me with complete impunity. Oh, they could also do this to my wife and children if the do anything construable as 'belligerent' too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrXyLrTRXso
Section 1031 b4 also states that detainees can be transferred "...to the custody or control of the person's country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity", which fully enables the US to release a detainee without trial to the control of any individual or group that is not bound by the US Constitution or US Justice system.
In such cases, a simple coordination between the US and these other parties would allow operatives of the US with the intent to see that acts of coersion, torture, brutality, and even murder are performed against the detainee, to do so with complete impunity. Allowing US citizens to be transferred to the control of any 3rd party that does not abide by the laws of the detainees' country of origin in its treatment of US citizen detainees is equivalent to suspension of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Both these sections of the bill are wholely unacceptible as is and must be rephrased to explicitly exclude US citizens, unless they have already been proven guilty of a crime applicable to the "covered persons" subsection in the bill through due process by the established US justice system.
http://usawatchdog.com/national-defense-authorization-act-indefinite-detention-bill-senate-bill-1867/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrXyLrTRXso
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