Think that President Obama will stand by his word and veto the
legislation that will allow the government to detain American citizens
without charge or trial? Think again....continues below...

Video released: Jan 1st, 2012

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Jan 1st, 2012 RT
The Obama administration has insisted that the president will veto
the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, a bill that
passed through the Senate last week. Under the legislation, the United
States of America is deemed a battlefield and Americans suspected of
committing a terrorism offense can be held without trial and tortured
indefinitely. Despite the grave consequences for citizens and the direct
assault on the US Constitution, the act managed to make it through both
halves of Congress but President Obama says he won’t let it become a
law.

According to Senator Carl Levin, however, Americans should
be a bit more concerned about what the president’s actual intentions
are. Levin, who sits on the Armed Services Committee as chairman, has
revealed to Congress that the Obama administration influenced the
wording of the act and shot down text that would have saved American
citizens from the indefinite imprisonment and suspension of habeas
corpus.
(Click image above for video of Senator Levin's speech)


Senator Levin told Congress recently that under the original wording of the
National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens were excluded from
the provision that allowed for detention. Once Obama’s officials saw
the text though, says Levin, “the administration asked us to remove
the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not
be subject to this section.

”Specifically, the section that Obama asked to be reworded was Section 1031 of the NDAA FY2012, which says that "any person who has committed a belligerent act" could be held indefinitely.

“It
was the administration that asked us to remove the very language which
we had in the bill which passed the committee…we removed it at the
request of the administration,” said Levin. “It was the administration which asked us to remove the very language the absence of which is now objected to.

”John
Wood of Change.org writes that President Obama proposed a veto of
Section 1032 of the NDAA, which does not pertain to the detention of
American citizens. Rather, that section deals with the use of the US
military in taking custody of suspected criminals. Section 1031, which
actually deals with the indefinite imprisonment of Americans, remains
not only unopposed by the Obama administration, but the president has
made sure that the law specifically includes Americans, urging Congress
to redraft the legislation with increasingly confusing wording that
makes the legalization detrimental to America.

President Obama could sign off on the legislation as early as this December 13 if he
chooses not to exercise his veto power. The bill, which includes
budgetary provisions for the US military, comes at a price-tag several
billion dollars cheaper than the president had asked for of Congress.

Original post:
http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-detention-defense-levin-635/



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December 31, 2011 aclu.org
WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.

“President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”

The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations. It also restricts the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of his first acts in office.



Original post:
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law