The National Defense Authorization Act was signed into law December 31st of 2011 by President Obama. It has created a slew of controversy for the way it enables the federal government to detain American citizens indefinitely without a trial. Its troubling to say the least that such a monumental Bill was slid into law while people were busy ringing in the new year. But this sort of posturing used to pass such a significant piece of legislation is certainly not unprecedented.
Why should people care about this? It wasn’t that long ago that Augusto Pinochet was rounding up citizens in Chile and putting them in prison. Chile was a very evolved society in the 1970s with lots of writers and intellectuals and lots of individuals that were critical of the government. These intellectuals were “disappearing” in vast numbers under the Pinochet regime. But the scary part is that the disappearance and kidnapping of citizens in Chile was done by the government under the rationale of protecting the citizens from foreign threats.
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Wikipedia says: “The Rettig Report concluded 2,279 persons who disappeared during the military government were killed for political reasons or as a result of political violence, and approximately 31,947 tortured according to the later Valech Report, while 1,312 were exiled. The latter were chased all over the world by the intelligence agencies. In Latin America, this was made in the frame of Operation Condor, a cooperation plan between the various intelligence agencies of South American countries, assisted by a United States CIA communication base in Panama. Pinochet believed these operations were necessary in order to “save the country from communism”. In 2011, commission identified an additional 9,800 victims of political repression during the Pinochet regime. This led to the total number of victims being revised to approximately 40,018, including 3,065 killed.”
The NDAA Bill is eerily similar to the tools used to imprison innocent people in Chile. It’s easy to say “that would never happen here”, but its important to ask why our government is demanding powers that it claims it will not use. Even if people still believe in Obama what happens when a Mitt Romney or a Sarah Palin or a Newt Gingrich gets these powers?
The really stange irony of this Bill is that it affords new freedoms that many Americans didn’t think we wanted or needed: the freedom to have sex with animals. No joke, the Bill has a provision that seems to have flown under the radar making a long standing ban on beastiality legal.
The National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision to repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Article 125 of the UCMJ makes it illegal to engage in both sodomy with humans and sex with animals. It states: “(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense. (b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”
Now we at OK! Here is the Situation are no prudes, but who in the military is having sex with animals and needed this right to be spelled out by the government? The irony of this Bill is that it usurps the rights of citizens in a big way, allowing them to be indefinitely detained for virtually any criticism of government, and yet it affords new freedoms that are odd to say the least.
NDAA is so aggressive in its suppression of Constitutional freedoms that the National Lawyers Guild has come out in opposition of the Bill enumerating their concerns as follows.
“1. United States Constitution’s Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 which enshrines the privilege to petition for habeas corpus;
2. United States Constitution’s Article 3, Section 3 which provides those charged with treason heightened due process protections;
3. United States Constitution’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure;
4. United States Constitution’s Fifth Amendment prohibition of deprivations of liberty without due process;
5. United States Constitution’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy and public trial, to knowledge of the charges, to the assistance of counsel and to confront witnesses;
6. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the United States has signed, and which holds that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile” (Article 9); those who are arrested are entitled to a fair and public hearing by an impartial tribunal (Article 10), and all those charged with a penal offense are presumed innocent, and have the right to a public trial and all of the guarantees necessary for a defense (Article 11); and
7. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States has ratified, and which provides in article 9 (1): “Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.”
As always the devil is in the details of this Bill and in the ambiguity of the language. The Bill reinforces the President’s authority to detain any person “who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces,” under the law of war, “without trial, until the end of hostilities.” It’s become pretty clear that hostilities will exist indefinitely and it does not clearly define “who” can be arrested. It’s section 1021 and 1022 that the media has focused on. These sections have been criticized as being a violation of constitutional principles and of the Bill of Rights. The Bill has been aggressively opposed by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, and received criticism from The New York Timesand other media.
Clearly, this is a situation of rather epic proportions that can’t be covered in one blog. I encourage people to research this Bill carefully and vocalize your response.
