http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6ThanSzG_w
This is a video explaining this act, the later part of this video is an opinion on this act. This act allows domestic terrorist investigations to be carried out by the military. This allows people to be thrown into jail without due process and is an obvious violation to our constitutional rights. Yet somehow, this bill PASSED THROUGH CONGRESS WITH A SHOCKING MAJORITY IN BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE. House passed the bill 283 to 136, and the senate 86 to 13. How a piece of legislation so blatantly violating our rights passed through Congress is beyond my ability to explain. For further information, read the link below.
http://theintelhub.com/2011/12/16/the-end-of-america-house-and-senate-pass-final-version-of-ndaa/
Monday Morning Open Thread: Another Monday, Another Show
53 minutes ago
7 comments:
There seems to be some bias towards the right in your sources (the Fox news clip seems to emphasize the president's part, the article seems to be a little anarchistic), but I still agree. Law enforcement was left as a generally local government thing to keep state and federal governments from having too much power over the people. Still, I don't hear too many stories about the PATRIOT Act and I doubt we will hear too much about this one (unless it gets to the Supreme Court, which it and the PATRIOT Act should). If the president does indeed use the full powers granted in this bill, there would be too much popular support against it, as too many rights will be violated for dealing with a questionable threat.
Although the military may have "good intentions" for the passing of this act, I still believe it shouldn't have been passed at all. I'm surprised that it passed with a majority that big. It clearly violates our Due Process rights under the 14th Amendment. Furthermore we could possibly be sent to Guantanamo Bay for having items in our household that makes us "appear" to be terrorists, such as a high stock in food? Unless it's rather obvious that we are terrorists, C'mon Son! I also agree with Joseph on the topic of Media coverage. I doubt it would get much publicity and even if it did get coverage at a minimum, there would be a lot of opposition against it.
Our right to Due Process is vital in our freedom as US citizens. It is time to educate others about this, and protect our rights.
I think people are misinterpreting the NDAA, causing controversy out of nothing. Here is a video which talks about the bill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJRtQ0ZCF-Q
Conspiracy theories such as this cause controversy and create misinformation which sadly creates even more mistrust towards the government. But doesn't it seem a little unlikely that congress is passing a law that will take away citizen's civil liberties? After all, us voters are the ones that vote them into office. I'm not saying that government should be blindly trusted, but even the most hardened cynics have to agree that the U.S. has little intention to establish totalitarian rule. Section 1021, the highly disputed aspect of the NDAA, does not infringe on habeas corpus (its in the constitution!). Section 1021 merely "codifies" a prior ruling (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld) that a "U.S. citizen has due process rights and the ability to challenge their detention in U.S. federal courts" if they are detained by the military. The "detaining" aspect of section 1022 (which had been revised after president Obama threatened to veto the bill) that many people are worried about is also baseless. It specifies that detainment of specified threats apply to "foreign Al Qaeda terrorists" and supporters of the terrorist effort. I'm still unsure about the extent that detention of American citizens goes, but I hope this clarifies it a bit. It is apparent that this bill has been misinterpreted, which is understandable as even members of congress have incorrect assumptions about the bill, but it definitely doesn't seem as terrible as some make it out to be.
Sources:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/22/dont-believe-the-rumors-about-the-2012-national-defense-authorization-act/2/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/22/the-national-defense-authorization-act-explained/
Well, Vinh, I think the problem here is that the NDAA says that the US is a war zone, allowing the military to operate here, not just overseas. Then there's the fact that "suspected terrorists" could be anyone that complains against the government or checks out a sketchy book at the library.
As for the "how could our government do this sort of nonsense" issue, remember that they're going off of what they think is right, not what's popular. I mean, look at that issue wit the budget garbage - the congresspeople early crashed the government, which did not go over well with voters (although maybe they though it would have, given the type of people voters have been known to elect...).
I remember hearing the republican candidates discussing something like this, and I think that all of them besides Ron Paul strongly supported using the military in the US, which is basically what this law does. And in the debate, Ron Paul made some good points over this proposal. For example, he pointed out that the war on terrorism isn't even a real war. Not only has congress not declared war (and are still authorizing troop usage), but the whole thing is closer to a war on drugs, or war on poverty. I don't think it's necessary to declare the US a warzone, allowing military killings and whatnot, for a war against a concept.
Why can't we just address the cause of terrorism and not the symptoms of it?
If we tried to understand why these "terrorists" exist then most of these bills removing our basic rights (NDAA, Patriot Act, etc.) would have been non-existent."Terrorists exist because they hate our liberty and freedom" is not an answer.
We could have avoided 9/11. We could have avoided the Iraq War. All we needed to do was stop policing the Middle East. We don't need to fund our global presence.
I think pert of the problem with terrorism is that different people are always going to have differing opinions. No matter what someone in power does, someone is going to be angry at them, for one reason or another. Though I agree that policing the middle east has probably exasperated these issues, I think that ceasing policing will only shift the warfare from being against the US to being against other middle-easterners. I think the real problem is that some people are willing to go all out for what they believe in, even when it's unpopular, and that type of extreme individuality/egocentrism/stubbornness of belief is the real cause of the problem (in addition to the obvious lack of regard for human life). But changing people's beliefs can cause all sorts of other problems, so the solution isn't that simple.
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