Welcome to 2012 and the dystopian world of the NDAA [UPDATE]

feel the hope...? feel the change...?



from raw story...

Even though President Barack Obama made closing Guantanamo one of his core campaign promises in the lead-up to the presidential election in 2008, that promise now appears to be “nearly impossible” to fulfill thanks to provisions in the new laws, Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, explained.

[...]

“It has no real geographical limitation, it has no temporal limitation,” he said, summarizing key provisions in the NDAA. “It basically puts into law, into permanent law, the ability to indefinitely detain, outside of a constitutional justice system, individuals the president picks up anywhere in the world that the president thinks might have some connection to terrorism. The United States Congress, with the support of the president, has now put into law the possibility of indefinite detention, where the entire world, including the United States, is a battlefield.”

But more than just giving the presidency more power to imprison terror suspects, the NDAA also strikes at Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo by limiting the executive’s authority to transfer prisoners.

“[There are] really dangerous provisions here that would make it nearly impossible to close Guantanamo,” Azmy explained. “Congress has forbidden from transferring or releasing any detainees from Guantanamo to their home countries or third countries willing to take them as refugees unless the Defense Department can meet this exceedingly onerous certification requirement. Basically, before anyone can be released, the Defense Department has to certify that the individual will not engage in any hostile acts when they are returned — something that the Defense Department cannot certify, which is why the FBI and [Defense Secretary] Leon Panetta vigorously opposed these provisions.

“The effect of that will make it virtually impossible to move people out of Guantanamo. Congress is basically shutting all of the detainees in.”

Azmy added that while Obama did add a signing statement which promises not to indefinitely detain without charge any American citizen, nothing in the law would “prevent President Romney from doing precisely the opposite.”

“This legislation puts into law, into a legal architecture, authority for the president to do things that no president has ever been authorized to do before. It’s a scary day for civil liberties if we depend on the graces of the executive not to use power the Congress has given them.”

president romney... god almighty... kinds seems like that's where we're heading, doesn't it...? otoh, having obama re-elected for a second term doesn't sound much better...

[UPDATE]

occupy wall street is planning to protest the ndaa today in nyc...

January 3rd will be a spontaneous show of people power in reaction to Obama’s treasonous signing of the National Defense Authorization Act. Not only does this act violate our first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth amendments, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but this Act was signed quietly this past New Years Eve violating what little trust remained between the people and their established government. We see what’s happening here, and we will not stand for it.

Tentative Schedule for Day of Action:

7:30AM (All Day) – OWS solidarity with the New York State Nurses Association Strike at St. Lukes (1111 Amsterdam Ave and 112th Street) and Roosevelt Hospital (1000 10th Ave and 59th Street.)
12PM – Press Conference at NYPL (Bryant Park)
2PM – Office Demonstration at Senator Gillibrand’s office (780 3rd Ave.)
3PM – Office Demonstration at Senator Schumer’s office (757 3rd Ave.)
4PM – Rally at Rockefeller Plaza
5PM – Flash check about NDAA in Grand Central for commuters.

you go, ows...!

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