The American colonies fought a revolutionary war to get out from under the tyrannical rule of King George III. Given the power of the U.S. president to assassinate U.S. citizens and hold then indefinitely without trial, we seem to have created a modern King George III. Writing in Salon on December 16, 2011, Glenn Greenwald has done an outstanding job of dissecting the two major pieces of legislation on indefinite detention: the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Both President Bush and President Obama have argued that the AUMF gives them the implicit power to detain indefinitely and to use force widely. Greenwald says that "the Obama administration justifies the ongoing bombing of Yemen and Somalia and its killing of people based on the claims that they are support groups that did not exist at the the time of 9/!!." Contrary to this broad interpretation of the AUMF, which the courts have generally accepted, Greenwald argues that the AUMF specifically confined the president to use force against those who: 1) helped perpetuate the 9/11 attack; or 2) harbored the perpetrators.
What the NDAA has done is broaden and codify into law the AUMF. Section 1021 of the NDAA defines "a covered person" as "a person who was part of or substantially supported al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." Once more, Section 1021 (b) empowers the president to detain anyone "accused" of the acts in question, without trial, until the end of the hostilities.
Section 1021 further reads: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States." This section would seem to restrict detention to those captured or arrested overseas; however, Section 1022 muddies the waters, as it states that anyone who is a member of a targeted group as defined above, or participates in the planning or carrying out of an attack, must be held in military custody (absent a presidential waiver) pending disposition under the law of war. Glenn Greenwald reads 1022 as making detention of a U.S. citizen optional, at best. Senator Diane Feinstein reads it the same way, as she tried to get enacted an amendment to make it crystal clear that indefinite detention would not apply to a U.S. citizen. He attempt to amend was defeated, as was an amendment to delete the offending sections from the NDAA.
President Barack Obama had vowed to veto the NDAA if it came to him with language authorizing the military to indefinitely detain persons. When he agreed to sign it, he said that the bill had been sufficiently changed to remove the objectionable language. He hasn't identified the changes nor has the media pressed him on it. The main attempts to amend the bill on the Senate floor were defeated. It would seem, then, that President Obama accepted language that he had said would necessitate a veto.
The weirdest scene on the Senate floor was when Senator Carl Levin was arguing that it was the Obama administration, not him as a main sponsor, who didn't want U.S. citizens excluded from the scope of the bill.
No comments:
Post a Comment