At what point will the American people realize that the net result of all the actions of our political class in Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary since the turn or the century is to walk us faster and faster down the path away from a Rule of Law under a Constitution and Bill of Rights, into the gaping maw of the police state?
The American Sheeple appear to be more concerned about shopping on Black Friday or watching the latest so-called “reality” show on television, than about the fact that their civil liberties are no longer being chipped away, they are being demolished in chunks with each passing day.
This is what a bill introduced in the Senate will do, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The legislation has the potential to in fact appear to turn the military into a domestic arm of selective arrest and internment of American Citizens for whatever passing reason seizes the fancy of the whoever is in power at the moment.
After the Civil War, the Posse Comitatus laws were passed, intended to if not ban the use of military in domestic law enforcement, at least insure that the military was used only under strict Constitutional guidelines. The GOP has sought to weaken this stricture repeatedly, just as they have sought to abolish adherence to Habeas Corpus, one of the oldest lynch pin principles in western law insuring against unjust imprisonment.
All in the name of National Security and protecting our liberties from the terrorists. Of course.
Here is the Washington Post report on the legislation.
Senate panel pushes ahead with defense bill over White House objections on terror suspect plan
Here is what the ACLU has to say on the legislation.
While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself.
Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and if any president can send the military anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial.
The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.
The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.
[Here is link to ACLU petition against the specific legislation: Urge the Senate to Oppose Indefinite Military Detention]
The answer on why now is nothing more than election season politics. The White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act are harmful and counterproductive. The White House has even threatened a veto. But Senate politics has propelled this bad legislation to the Senate floor.
But there is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values.
In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”
Ah. Die Heimat (Homeland). Seig Heil.
The specific aspects of Heimat — love and attachment to homeland — left the idea vulnerable to easy assimilation into the fascist “blood and soil” literature of the National Socialists since it is relatively easy to add to the positive feelings for the Heimat a rejection of anything foreign, that however is not there necessarily. It was conceived by the Nazis that the volk community is deeply rooted in the land of their heimat through their practice of agriculture and their ancestral lineage going back hundreds and thousands of years. The Third Reich was regarded at the deepest level as the sacred heimat of the unified volk community—the national slogan was One Reich, One Volk, One Führer. Those who were taken to Nazi concentration camps were those who were officially declared by the SS to be “enemies of the volk community” and thus a threat to the integrity and security of the heimat
