Good news, everyone! Update on the NDAA.
Don't get excited. That's not likely to last.
Everything I've seen about this suggest that the judge made some extremely perplexing mistakes and decisions.
1) While she states that, "[t]he government has not stated that such conduct ... does not fall within § 1021(b)(2)," this is only because she rejected such a statement. The government did make a narrow statement (referring only to the conduct described in the court findings) after the preliminary injunction. She only took into account the lack of a statement before that first ruling, ignoring their later (and actual) position.
2) She largely ignores DC circuit precedent. While the DC rulings are not binding on her court, they do define the current state of detention law as applicable to the AUMF. Given the government's main argument was that the current AUMF detention authority -
as shaped by DC case law - is functionally identical to the NDAA detention authority, her ignoring DC court rulings is dismissing the government case by definition.
3) The few DC court rulings she does mention seem to have been read wrongly.
Take this example.4) She completely ignores the Feinstein Amendment, which states;
Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
Again, this was the government's position in the case,
directly written into the law in question. Her dismissal of this section was without any good justification.
5) Her ruling isn't especially clear as to it's extent. The government, as policy, views AUMF and NDAA detention as functionally identical. Does striking down one and saying people can't be detained under the NDAA also mean people can't be detained under the AUMF, or does it mean that people can be detained in exactly the same (supposedly unconstitutional) manner under the previously tested and judicially described AUMF detention scheme? She doesn't address this at all.
There is more, but I'm off for booze.