Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PTTG??]

Currently in the house, a US bill allowing military arrests of more or less whoever, without trials, is making its way to law. Here's some links:

The bill

Senate Passes Bill Allowing Indefinite Detention of Americans

Senate Votes To Let Military Detain Americans Indefinitely, White House Threatens Veto

I'm looking for better sources- those ones are admittedly poor. I welcome those with better knowledge of the bill to provide more information.

Frankly, when you look at this with SOPA and PROTECT-IP and various other measures, the mere fact that these bills are unlikely to make it to the president is not reassuring. Just what is wrong with these senators that makes them hate the American public so?

Is the average voter so poorly educated that they elect clinically insane representative as a matter of course? Is there a dark ritual done to every freshman senator where they rip out his soul and feed it to Nixon's dog?

I think the seat of the problem is the current Janocracy*. The Democratic party and the Republican party are indeed different. They appeal to different groups and it is true that most likely if solely democrats were in power, the United States would be better off.

However, both sides work together to insure that certain conveniences of the modern political system remain. There has been little action to eliminate the power of the filibuster, for instance. No action by either side to make a meaningful cut in the power of lobbyists. No action taken to bring justice to banks that blatantly broke the law in 2008 and the decades before. Until CNN made a great deal of noise about it, they both made use of insider trading!

The simple fact of the matter is, you can't fix the system by doing the same thing you've been doing. People need to start voting for independents and third parties. One vote for a democrat or a republican says nothing, but one vote for an independent puts fear in the hearts of both of them.

But back to the bill, there's a chance that Obama will veto it if it makes it to his desk. This would be a surprising fluke since he has shown remarkably little backbone about using the veto power before.

*Rulership of Janus, the two-faced god

UPDATE:
The amendment to the bill that would have granted this power has been rejected 30-60. So it's only 1/3 of the senate that wants a police state. The man who proposed the amendment, Mark Udall is a democrat from Colorado.

UPDATE 2:
I have bad reading things.

[nenjin]

The 16 who voted for the harsh detainee rules were Sens. Bob Casey (Pa.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Joe Manchin (W. Va.), Clair McCaskill (Mo.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.).

WTF?! Clair McCaskill voted for this shit?! Ben Nelson, my own D senator whom I've loathed since high school, I can understand. He's a shameless insider/unreasonable defender of state privileges. But McCaskill.....that blows my fucking mind.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) emerged from the meeting -- where former Vice President Dick Cheney was in attendance -- saying his colleagues had "a spirited discussion" about Udall's amendment, and predicted nearly all Republicans would oppose the amendment, as they did.

*looks around, unsure of what's real and what's not*

On the one hand, I'm not surprised. Domestic grown terrorists have become an increasing talking point, backed up by enough feckless attackers and Americans in Al Qaeda videos, I had a feeling it wasn't long before they were going to go directly after due process of Americans suspected of terrorism.

On other other, it's like a civil liberties supporter's worst nightmare and open to the worst kind of abuse. I didn't have a ton of strong reasons to vote for Obama, but this has become one. The WH was unequivocal on their stance on this bill.....which is more than can be said of democrats.

[Zrk2]

What was all that shit about your rights you guys wrote 250 years ago? Clearly not important, right?

[Dsarker]

What's the amendment in question?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Kay Hagen voted for it, eh? I'm so shoc-

Oh. Wait. No I'm not. Kay Hagen is a moronic excuse for a leader who should never have been elected to the Senate.

[SalmonGod]

*looks around, unsure of what's real and what's not*

*discreetly places animatronic midget clown with goat legs and bat wings and brandishing a blunderbuss next to nenjin*

[PTTG??]

*looks around, unsure of what's real and what's not*

*discreetly places animatronic midget clown with goat legs and bat wings and brandishing a blunderbuss next to nenjin*

This is not a discussion about republican presidential candidates, thank you.

[mainiac]

The simple fact of the matter is, you can't fix the system by doing the same thing you've been doing. People need to start voting for independents and third parties. One vote for a democrat or a republican says nothing, but one vote for an independent puts fear in the hearts of both of them.

Why not just vote in the primaries?  If your non-sellout candidate can't win in a democratic primary, they can't win in the general election.

[nenjin]

This is not a discussion about republican presidential candidates, thank you.

Funny I don't remember mentioning them.

[Servant Corps]

I'm looking for better sources- those ones are admittedly poor. I welcome those with better knowledge of the bill to provide more information.

Couldn't you read the amendment? (It was in the Huffington Post link.)

What this amendment states is that 90 days after it is approved, the Secretary of Defense sends a report to Congressional committees about the Executive Branch's position on "covered persons" (mostly, how to detainee and prosecute them), and that after that report, Congressional committees have 45 days to submit another report on whether Congress needs to modify or expand the Executive Branch's power through new legislation.

"Covered persons" is defined as anyone other than members of the US Armed Forces who was detained due to "The Authorization of Military Force", "The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq", or "Any other Statutory Or Constitutional Authority for the Use of Military Force". (Also, it has to be consistent with the laws of war, but eh, I consider that fluff.) What this means is that this amendment only deals people who can already be detained under current US law. This bill does not give anyone any power to detain "Americans". Now, previous US laws may give the US the power to detain Americans[1], but this amendment doesn't expand the list of people that could be detained.

What it does do is that it forces the government to outline what is its current policy on "covered persons", and then allows Congress the right to propose laws to restrict or change that policy (possibly in a more restrictive fashion). And I can see President Obama vetoing this amendment (either because he wants to preserve the right of the Executive Branch to make policy or because he wants to avoid an unpopular veto). But it's not the end of the world.

[1]...which means I should look back at previous US law to see when or if the US can legally detainee citizens, but I'm too lazy to do that at the moment. Maybe later.

[SalmonGod]

I'm looking for better sources- those ones are admittedly poor. I welcome those with better knowledge of the bill to provide more information.

Couldn't you read the amendment? (It was in the Huffington Post link.)

Our issue is not with the Udall Amendment, which was voted down.  We're talking about the NDAA provision that the Udall was trying to amend.

[Servant Corps]

I'm looking for better sources- those ones are admittedly poor. I welcome those with better knowledge of the bill to provide more information.

Couldn't you read the amendment? (It was in the Huffington Post link.)

Our issue is not with the Udall Amendment, which was voted down.  We're talking about the NDAA provision that the Udall was trying to amend.

Well, blame me for assuming that people voted for something when PTGG??'s links said they voted for something when in fact they voted against something (the Udall amendment). Ugh...

Apparently there's a transcript of this debate, which in the opening paragraphs mention Sections 1031 to Sections 1034 as being important, while section 1036 deals with policy for renewing detentions (and about the government not liking them). You can look at these sections here, and I don't see any mention of expanding powers of detention. In fact, the specifically limits itself to talking about "individual detained at Guantanamo" and specifically excludes US citizens from that definition.

This current bill may be a bad idea though, but it does not appear to expand government powers over detention. It only deals with detainees at Gitmo. And the Executive Branch has a very good reason to defend its powers and veto this bill, because this bill attempts to micromanage what the government can do at Gitmo.

[SalmonGod]

Here's a better link.  See pages 359-364.  It took me a while to find that, since everyone is linking to searches on thomas.loc.gov, and those links expire after 30 minutes.

Now that I've actually read it, I'm not sure what to make of it.  Section 1031 defines "covered persons" as anyone who is a part of or has supported Al-Qaeda or The Taliban OR "associated forces engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners".  Section 1032 clarifies that United States Citizens are exempt from the requirement of military detention.  Lawful resident aliens are also exempt from that requirement, but only for acts they perform on American soil.

So I do think the internet alarm is acting a bit over-zealously here, but the definitions in these sections are still vague enough for some abuse.

And I saw absolutely no specific mention of detainees at Gitmo.

[Seamas]

[1]...which means I should look back at previous US law to see when or if the US can legally detainee citizens, but I'm too lazy to do that at the moment. Maybe later.

If I remember correctly the Sedition Act of 1917 passed under the Wilson administration opened up that precedent.  Real nasty legislation, that was - and still is - because it never went away, it still stands somewhere in the bowels of the federal law.  It's like the forebear to this generation's Patriot Act, but with much sharper teeth.  Many American dissidents were viciously silenced this way during the anti-war movement of the time, and the IWW activists and union organizers, too.  Many nonviolent US citizens had their lives seriously derailed because of the Sedition Act, spending years upon years in prison without trial.  It could happen again!

[Servant Corps]

And I saw absolutely no specific mention of detainees at Gitmo.

I looked back at thomas.loc.gov and realized I looked at an earlier, outdated version of the bill. The current version of the bill (the one's that going to the Senate) had called that section "Subtitle D—Detainee Matters", while the version I looked at (when the bill first got out of committee and was presented to the House floor) had the section named "Subtitle D--Counterterrorism".

Because thomas.loc.gov expire after 30 minutes, I'll post the full text of that in pastebin. Ugh, I really shouldn't respond as quickly as I did  before, because it means I eat my words.