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

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted Tuesday to keep a controversial provision to let the military detain terrorism suspects on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial -- prompting White House officials to reissue a veto threat.

The measure, part of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, was also opposed by civil libertarians on the left and right. But 16 Democrats and an independent joined with Republicans to defeat an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that would have killed the provision, voting it down with 61 against, and 37 for it.

"I'm very, very, concerned about having U.S. citizens sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the Senate's most conservative members.

Paul's top complaint is that a terrorism suspect would get just one hearing where the military could assert that the person is a suspected terrorist -- and then they could be locked up for life, without ever formally being charged. The only safety valve is a waiver from the secretary of defense.

"It's not enough just to be alleged to be a terrorist," Paul said, echoing the views of the American Civil Liberties Union. "That's part of what due process is -- deciding, are you a terrorist? I think it's important that we not allow U.S. citizens to be taken."

Democrats who were also concerned about liberties compared the military policing of Americans to the detention of Americans in internment camps during World War II.

"Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who offered another amendment -- which has not yet gotten a vote -- that she said would correct the problem. "We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge."

Backers of military detention of Americans -- a measure crafted by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) -- came out swinging against Udall's amendment on the Senate floor earlier Tuesday.

"The enemy is all over the world. Here at home. And when people take up arms against the United States and [are] captured within the United States, why should we not be able to use our military and intelligence community to question that person as to what they know about enemy activity?" Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said.

"They should not be read their Miranda Rights. They should not be given a lawyer," Graham said. "They should be held humanely in military custody and interrogated about why they joined al Qaeda and what they were going to do to all of us."

In criticizing the measure, White House officials said that it would cause confusion and interfere with a counterterrorism effort that has been remarkably successful since Sept. 11, 2001 -- across two administrations. Read more at link above.

This just in ~ Still time to call the House members and White House...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/01/military-detention-us-citizens_n_1124534.html

Senate Kills Effort To Ban Indefinite Military Detentions Of U.S. Citizens

WASHINGTON -- Senators compromised Thursday on a bill that attempts to spell out the military's right to detain Americans indefinitely, killing a bid to bar the practice but passing an amendment that says current laws on the matter stand.

The provision in the National Defense Authorization Act aimed to codify a string of court cases and current anti-terrorism practices involved in the capture and treatment of terrorism suspects. It initially opened what opponents saw as the prospect of letting the military haul away any citizen about whom it had suspicions.

The new amendment specifies that the current practices may not change, although it also says explicitly that the military can pursue Americans at home.

"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," says the compromise amendment, which passed 99 to 1.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) was the lone opponent.

The passage may head off a showdown with the White House, which had threatened to veto the entire bill on the grounds that the section on detentions tied the hands of counterterrorism officials in law enforcement and the military.

The White House did not immediately weigh in on the new measure.


Left unresolved by the new language is just exactly what is constitutional when it comes to detaining American citizens in the United States. But opponents of the original provision said at least it would remain up to judges, not politicians.

"To this day the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether it is constitutional to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured in the United States. Some of my colleagues see this differently, [but] the language we've agreed on makes it clear," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who had been adamantly opposed to giving the military what he saw as greater reign over Americans at home.

"The Supreme Court will decide who can be detained; the United States Senate will not," Durbin said.

The deal was cut by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), among others, but Feinstein still insisted on a vote for her own amendment that would have explicitly barred the military from detaining U.S. citizens without hearings or a trial. It failed 45 to 55.

Senators who favor giving the military explicit power in the U.S. said the new amendment allows the country to use whatever means it needs to to keep America safe.

"The threats we face as a nation are growing. Homegrown terrorism is going to become a greater reality, and we need to have tools," Graham argued. "Law enforcement is one tool, but in some cases holding people who have decided to help al Qaeda and turn on the rest of us and try to kill us so we can hold them long enough to interrogate them to find out what they're up to makes sense."

"When you hold somebody under the criminal justice system you have to read them their rights right off the bat," Graham added. "Under the law of war you don't because the purpose is to gather intelligence. We need that tool now as much as any time, including World War II."

Earlier, Feinstein made an impassioned plea for preserving American freedoms.

"This constant push that everything has to be militarized .... I don't think that creates a good country," Feinstein argued. "Because we have values. And due process of law is one of those values. And so I object, I object to holding American citizens without trial. I do not believe that makes us more safe."

The overall Defense bill passed Thursday night 93-7, but it will now have to be meshed with a differing version in the House. As part of the detention compromise, Feinstein extracted a promise from Senate leaders that they would insist on the Senate's new language remaining in the final product. It could change, however.

The American Civil Liberties Union found the compromise troubling, and said the president should still veto the bill because even with the no-change language, the measure sets in stone the military's ability to operate inside the U.S. borders.

"The bill is an historic threat to American citizens and others because it expands and makes permanent the authority of the president to order the military to imprison without charge or trial American citizens," said ACLU senior legislative counsel Christopher Anders in a statement.

"The final amendment to preserve current detention restrictions could turn out to be meaningless and Sens. [Carl] Levin [Micigan Democrat] and Graham made clear that they believe this power to use the military against American citizens will not be affected by the new language," Anders said. "This bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent. If it becomes law, American citizens and others are at real risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial."

Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for the Huffington Post.

And I received this from the Natural News newsletter yesterday


NaturalNews Insider Alert ( www.NaturalNews.com ) email newsletter


Dear NaturalNews readers,

In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America.

This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a "battleground" upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.

It's being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn't apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill it essentially says it can apply to Americans "if we want it to."

Even WIRED magazine was outraged at this bill, reporting:

...the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/senate-military-detention/

The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the "legitimate assassination" of U.S. citizens on right here on American soil!

If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we've been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America -- no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.

Read my red alert warning on this urgent development at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034291_SB_1867_war_on_terror.html

... and watch this urgent interview with Alex Jones of InfoWars.com at:
http://www.infowars.com/stewart-rhodes-crossroads-ndaa-bill-is-pure-treason/


The mainstream media is engaged in a shameful and conspiratorial news blackout of this entire issue:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-medias-blackout-of-the-national-defense-authorization-act-is-shameful-2011-12

... and even the ACLU is outraged about this potential law:
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/senate-rejects-amendment-banning-indefinite-detention


Are you getting all this? Do you realize America is about to be overrun by our own military?

The rule of law is about to be utterly destroyed. No due process. No legal representation. Not even a right to know what you're being charged with when you are (indefinitely) detained.



This is an urgent time for action to protest the overreaching military police state in America. Immediately call your representatives in Washington and urge your House members to reject this bill in the reconciliation phase with the Senate. Call the office of the President and urge Obama to veto this bill if it is passed by both houses.

Call your local newspapers and protest this outrageous and traitorous attempt to nullify the entire Bill of Rights.

Do not be fooled by the trolls and disinfo agents who claim this bill does not apply to U.S. citizens -- a fact which has already been established without question. If this is signed into law, military humvees will roll down the streets in U.S. cities, with gunpoint checkpoints, illegal arrests, secret torture operations and the outright murder of U.S. citizens right in their own home towns.



In observing all this, you might ask WHY is this happening right now? Why would the U.S. Senate deliberately nullify the Bill of Rights and seek the authorize military action on the streets of U.S. cities?

The answer, my friends, will not comfort you: A global economic collapse is coming, and once started, it will likely unleash a wave of social unrest and rioting that could burn many U.S. cities to the ground. The U.S. Senate is probably trying to rush authorization of the military to operate in American cities before the economic collapse arrives, thereby placing troops deep within the roughest U.S. cities where they stand a chance at halting the runaway riots that are sure to materialize when peoples' life savings vanish as the banks collapse.

Keep reading NaturalNews.com for updates on this situation. We will continue to cover the Eurozone economic crisis as well as this Senate bill 1867, which is not yet law. Our last-ditch hope would be for Obama to veto it. We'll issue a red alert if that action is needed...

And remember, folks, the Bill of Rights protects us all -- liberals, conservatives, libertarians, agnostics, Christians, Jews, everybody! If you lose the Bill of Rights, you lose America and all the freedoms many generations have fought for. Right now protecting the Bill of Rights is perhaps the single most important thing we can do for our collective futures.

All of us who have been screaming about the importance of the U.S. Constitution have been trying to protect YOU from exactly this kind of scenario. The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights is to limit the power of government so that this kind of Senate action is never allowed.

http://www.naturalnews.com/

To every Senator who votes in favor of the $662 billion-dollar National Defense Authorization Act a.k.a. "U.S. is a Battlefield" bill, which gives the military a right to raid the homes of U.S. citizens and detain them indefinitely without charges, rights to a lawyer, or habeus corpus:

You are committing treason directly against the American people! We do not fear signing this petition, because if we live in fear, we will have lost. This is a way of peacefully standing up and saying we will not let a small group of politicians take away the rights and freedoms of 300,000,000+ people!

We the People are holding you accountable and saying, "We will not let this happen." This legislation goes directly against the U.S. Citizens Bill of Rights written by our Founding Fathers. It is the basis of the country and no one is allowed to dissolve these rights!

Americans, stand up for our country and what is right! Impeach every single Senator who votes to destroy the Constitution!

The Senators did commit Treason with that We the People need to hold them accountable and say "We will not let this happen."

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/892/petition-to-impeach-all-senators-who-voted-for-us-is-a-battlefield-and-to-detain-us-citizens-without/#show

lol, did you see Carol?

signatures: 10,776
signature goal: 10,000

already

Powerful Op-Ed: The U.S. government has gone rogue
December 2, 2011

From SHTFplan:

... The American dynamic was meant to be different. For the first time in history, a group of people organized an administrative body which was predicated upon the will of the general populace and not the will of the incorporated elite.

The Constitution was the first legal document designed to LIMIT the power of government, not endlessly exonerate it. Though many in our modern age have become completely ignorant of its original intent, the Constitution and its written protections allowed for the first decentralized government of the Western world, if not the entire world. A government which was specifically tasked with shielding the rights of the individual beyond the desires of the mindless "majority," or the normally influential aristocracy.

Obviously, we have strayed far and away beyond the schematics set forth by the founding fathers.

Let us finally be honest with ourselves and say it out loud; our government is not Constitutional! It has become a mutation. A monstrosity. A malformed creature given birth by the oozing genetic material of mad social scientists hell bent on dominating the building blocks of our political life. It is a thing to be abhorred, not admired, and certainly not to be trusted.

The statement above may be confusing to those who have relegated their concerns to the immediate. If one is free to walk about the streets, keep a job, have a drink, and settle in front of his television for hours on end, then what is there to be worried about? If he is not directly affected by the ill notions of men in far off banks and capitols, then why care at all? If the pain of government criminality only strikes people from "other" cultures, or other walks of life, why be concerned?

For those who actually suffer from this brand of idiocy, I can only relate the unwarranted role that our government has assumed within our society and hope that they begin to realize how extraordinarily unsafe they really are...

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Powerful_Op-Ed%3A_The_U.S._government_has_gone_rogue/16835/0/0/0/Y/M.html
Read full article: http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/when-governments-go-rogue_12012011

U.S. Says Americans Are MILITARY Targets in the War on Terror … And Says that Only the White House – and Not the Courts – Gets to Decide Who Is a Legitimate Target

Source: Washington's Blog

December 2, 2011 - As everyone realizes by now, Congress’ push for indefinite detention includes American citizens on American soil. As Huffington post notes:

The debate also has left many Americans scratching their heads as to whether Congress is actually attempting to authorize the indefinite detention of Americans by the military without charges. But proponents — led by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee — say that is exactly what the war on terror requires. They argued that the bill simply codifies precedents set by the Supreme Court and removes uncertainty, which they said would better protect the country.

Here is John McCain justifying sending Americans to Guantanamo:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/U.S._Says_Americans_Are_MILITARY_Targets_in_the_War_on_Terror_…_And_Says_that_Only_the_White_House_–_and_Not_the_Courts_–_Gets_to_Decide_Who_Is_a_Legitimate_Target/16834/0/0/0/Y/M.html

And see this.

(As Emptywheel and Glenn Greenwald note, the White House has believed for many years that it possessed the power to indefinitely detain Americans. See this, this, this, and this.)

But that’s not all.

The government can also kill American citizens. For more than a year and a half, the Obama administration has said it could target American citizens for assassination without any trial or due process.

But now, as shown by the debates surrounding indefinite detention, the government is saying that America itself is a battlefield.

AP notes today:

U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida, top national security lawyers in the Obama administration said Thursday.

***

The government lawyers, CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson … said U.S. citizens do not have immunity when they are at war with the United States.

Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.

The courts in habeas cases, such as those involving whether a detainee should be released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, make the determination of who can be considered an enemy combatant.

You might assume – in a vacuum – that this might be okay (even though it trashes the Constitution, the separation of military and police actions, and the division between internal and external affairs).

But it is dangerous in a climate where you can be labeled as or suspected of being a terrorist simply for questioning war, protesting anything, asking questions about pollution or about Wall Street shenanigans, supporting Ron Paul, being a libertarian, holding gold, or stocking up on more than 7 days of food. And see this.

And it is problematic in a period in which FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”, and even former Secretary of Homeland Security – Tom Ridge – admitst hat he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection.

And it is counter-productive in an age when the government – instead of doing the things which could actually make us safer – are doing things which increase the risk of terrorism.

And it is insane in a time of perpetual war. See this, this, this and this.

And when the “War on Terror” in the Middle East and North Africa which is being used to justify the attack on Americans was planned long before 9/11.

And when Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser told the Senate in 2007 that the war on terror is “a mythical historical narrative”. And 9/11 was entirely foreseeable, but wasn’t stopped. Indeed, no one in Washington even wants to hear how 9/11 happened, even though that is necessary to stop future terrorist attacks. And the military has bombed a bunch of oil-rich countries when it could have instead taken out Bin Laden years ago.

As I noted in March:

The government’s indefinite detention policy – stripped of it’s spin – is literally insane, and based on circular reasoning. Stripped of p.r., this is the actual policy:

If you are an enemy combatant or a threat to national security, we will detain you indefinitely until the war is over

It is a perpetual war, which will never be over

Neither you or your lawyers have a right to see the evidence against you, nor to face your accusers

But trust us, we know you are an enemy combatant and a threat to national security
We may torture you (and try to cover up the fact that you were tortured), because you are an enemy combatant, and so basic rights of a prisoner guaranteed by the Geneva Convention don’t apply to you

Since you admitted that you’re a bad guy (while trying to tell us whatever you think we want to hear to make the torture stop), it proves that we should hold you in indefinite detention

See how that works?

And – given that U.S. soldiers admit that if they accidentally kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants – it is unlikely that the government would ever admit that an American citizen it assassinated was an innocent civilian who has nothing at all to do with terrorism.

Multiple links at http://www.blacklistednews.com/U.S._Says_Americans_Are_MILITARY_Targets_in_the_War_on_Terror_…_And_Says_that_Only_the_White_House_–_and_Not_the_Courts_–_Gets_to_Decide_Who_Is_a_Legitimate_Target/16834/0/0/0/Y/M.html

White House Threatens Veto Of Indefinite Detention Bill
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/white-house-veto-indefinite-detention_n_1126399.html

First Posted: 12/ 2/11 05:25 PM ET Updated: 12/ 2/11 07:20 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Accusing the Senate of "political micromanagement" of national security, the White House Friday stood by its threat to veto a defense bill over controversial military detention provisions.

The National Defense Authorization Act passed Thursday by the Senate contains a section that spells out the military's power to detain Americans indefinitely without trial and mandates military detention for some terrorism suspects.

The White House warned last month that senior advisers would recommend a veto, saying the detainee provisions could restrict the ability of law enforcement to combat terrorism and "make the job of preventing terrorist attacks more difficult."

It also contended that rather than clarifying the rules, the bill was adding uncertainty to the difficult legal landscape around detentions. Civil libertarians and many senators opposed to the detainee section charged that the bill was trampling Americans' basic rights to due process.

The Senate sought to soothe the objections Thursday night by adding an amendment that says the provision will not affect current law on detainees.

It won almost unanimous passage in the Senate, but the compromise was not sufficient for the White House.

"Republican and Democratic administrations ... have said that the language in this bill would jeopardize our national security by restricting flexibility in our fight against al Qaeda," spokesman Jay Carney said in his daily briefing Friday. "By ignoring these nonpartisan recommendations -- including the recommendations of the secretary of defense, the director of the FBI, the director of national Intelligence and the attorney general -- the Senate has unfortunately engaged in a little political micromanagement at the expense of sensible national security policies.


"So our position has not changed," Carney added. "Any bill that challenges or constrains the president's critical authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the nation would prompt his senior advisers to recommend a veto."

A former Bush administration official echoed Carney.

"I sympathize with what the sponsors are trying to do," said John Bellinger, a partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter who served as legal adviser to the State Department and the National Security Council. "But these provisions go far beyond anything the Bush administration either did, or would have tolerated."

Bellinger was referring specifically to the two sections in the bill that mandate military detention and heavily restrict where and how terrorism detainees must be imprisoned, as well as rules for moving them.

"Those are the kind of micromanagement of the president's military and law enforcement authority that the Bush administration opposed adamantly ... particularly when it came to prosecuting the war with al Qaeda," Bellinger said.

Bellinger also warned that the detainee provision could threaten the ability of U.S. officials to get cooperation from allies who are likely to object to indefinite detentions, and could therefore be unwilling to provide information that leads to people being captured.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee who managed the bill, was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

MIchael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post.

Good grief! Their reasons for vetoing this Bill absolutely suck!! What happened to plain old freedom/rights for the American people??

Indeed~ it's like Alice Through The Looking Glass~ everything is upside down!

And THANKS for the heartfelt "Welcome Back", Sanicle

Conscious Thought and Intention is all thats left...

Even so, the globalists plan is behind a good 10 years. I plan on active resistance for another 10 years.

http://RTR.org | Danny Panzella sits in for Gary Franchi and reports on the treasonous act committed by the US Senate by passing the Indefinite Detention Bill. Panzella also reports on Wall Streets Private Army and the Big Brother Banksters.