National Defense Authorization Act

I imagine the provisions of this Act could be used before too long.

Indefinite detention and torture act arrives at White House

RT,

22 December, 2011

Legislation that will let President Obama and future leaders of America detain and torture Americans indefinitely has made it to the White House, where it is expected to be soon signed into law by the commander-in-chief.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, of NDAA FY2012, was overwhelmingly approved by the House and Senate earlier this month. While the legislation indeed had its critics, the act was inexplicably missed by the mainstream media, who neglected to inform Americans of the dangerous blows to constitutional rights that will become a reality under the law.

The bill, which is annually updated to outline spending for the Department of Defense, contains several provisions for 2012 that will turn America, as Senator Lindsey Graham puts it, “into a battlefield.” As the US continues an open-ended war on terror, now American citizens suspected to be linked to terrorist enemies can be detained in prison indefinitely and subjected to torture tactics previously outlawed.

“What this legislation does,” lectured Senator Karl Levin earlier this month, “says from the Congress’ point-of-view, that we expressly authorize the indefinite detention” of someone deemed a threat. “We recognize the authority of this president and every other president to hold an enemy combatant indefinitely, whether they are captured home or abroad, because that only makes sense.”

“How long can you hold them? As long as it takes to make us safe,” said Graham.

The senator added that, “when you join the enemy…we aren’t worried about how we’re going to prosecute you right away.” Because of this, Miranda Rights should not be read to suspected criminals and additionally the right to an attorney is also suspended under the act.

Additionally, the president can send American-born detainees to foreign prisons and can at last legally take the offense and launch cyber wars against alleged enemy nations.

For other coverage of this by Zero Hedge GO HERE

Americans will be transferred to foreign prisons under Indefinite Detention act

RT, 

21 December, 2011

If you’re upset that congressional approval of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 can send you away to military prisons and be tortured in America, don’t worry — it could be worse.

The US could send you somewhere else.

No, really. They could. And they can. Anywhere else, too. Really.

While the bill that left Capitol Hill last week and awaits authorization from US President Barack Obama allows for the United States to indefinitely detain and torture American citizens suspected of aiding enemy forces, one provision in the bill specifies that that detention doesn’t necessarily have to occur domestically — nor does it have to be in a foreign prison run by the US.

The ongoing detention of foreign terror suspects at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has been a hot topic since the War on Terror began, with American military authorities torturing could-be criminals without ever bringing them to trial. An exposé years earlier on the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq revealed how American troops were subjecting detainees to disgusting, inhumane conditions; conditions which left some dead without ever going to trial. While Abu Ghraib has since been shut down, Guantanamo Bay continues to hold suspected criminals despite a promise to Obama to shut it down.

When the commander-in-chief inks his name to NDAA FY2012, Americans can be on their way to the same torture cells that have kept al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked terrorists for the last decade. It’s now been revealed, however, that US citizens and anyone suspected of a crime against America can be sent all over the world.

Under the legislation, the president has the power to transfer suspected terrorists "to the custody or control of the person's country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity."

China? Sure. Iran? Why not! North Korea? That’s a possibility too. David Glazier, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, tells Mother Jones that this was an authority that the president has had before, but only under the new NDAA is the legislation endorsed and insured that it could be applied to Americans.

"If the president could lawfully transfer a German prisoner of war to a foreign country, then in theory he could do the same thing with an American prisoner of war," Glazier says.

Under the Feinstein Amendment imposed under NDAA FY2012, the Democratic senator from California proposed a law which would not change “existing law” with regards to detaining Americans. As Mother Jones notes, however, the jury is still out on what exactly “existing law” is when it comes to the topic, with those suspected of hostilities against America already being imprisoned without trial — citizen and otherwise. Both US-born Bradley Manning has been under military watch, isolation and torture for nearly two years, and the same has applied to a countless number of suspected terrorists at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.

Al Franken, a Democrat senator from Minnesota, wrote in an op-ed last week that the provisions put in NDAA such as Feinstein Amendment were enough for some lawmakers to sign onto the legislation, but he said the final draft was still “simply unacceptable.”

“These provisions are inconsistent with the liberties and freedoms that are at the core of the system our Founders established. And while I did in fact vote for an earlier version of the legislation, I did so with the hope that the final version would be significantly improved. That didn't happen, and so I could not support the final bill,” wrote Franken.

American Military and Police, Where is Your Line?

NDAA: Targeting Congresspersons who voted to kidnap, black-site Americans

the Examiner,

21 December, 2011

The fast-tracked National Defence Authorization Act 2012 (NDAA FY2012) that both houses of Congress overwhelmingly voted in favor, set for President Barack Obama's signature by December 26th, empowers the government to kidnap and transfer American terrorist suspects

Targeted Individuals to foreign regimes and security forces, as it has been doing to foreigners sent to one of at least twenty-one black sites, in violation of their human rights. 

Democrat and Republican Congresspersons who voted for NDAA FY2012 will be among first targeted individuals by military, if history is a guide and the president signs the bill, as expected since he helped craft it, adding the sections that violate human rights, prompting an Occupy Wall Street soliarity groups to hold a mock rights funeral yesterday.

To read this article from the Examiner GO HERE