National Defense Authorization Act

Chris Hedges ~ Fighting The Militarized State

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TruthDig  March 31 2014

Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges

The Barack Obama administration, determined to thwart the attempt by other plaintiffs and myself to have the courts void a law that permits the military to arrest U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and indefinitely detain them, has filed a detailed brief with the Supreme Court asking the justices to refuse to accept our petition to hear our appeal. We will respond within 10 days.

“The administration’s unstated goal appears to be to get court to agree that [the administration] has the authority to use the military to detain U.S. citizens,” Bruce Afran, one of two attorneys handling the case, said when I spoke with him Sunday. “It appears to be asking the court to go against nearly 150 years of repeated decisions in which the court has refused to give the military such power. No court in U.S. history has ever recognized the right of the government to use the military to detain citizens. It would be very easy for the government to state in the brief that citizens and permanent residents are not within the scope of this law. But once again, it will not do this. It says the opposite. It argues that the activities of the plaintiffs do not fall within the scope of the law, but it clearly is reserving for itself the right to use the statute to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely.”

The lawsuit, Hedges v. Obama, challenges Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It was signed into law the last day of 2011. Afran and fellow attorney Carl Mayer filed the lawsuit in January 2012. I was later joined by co-plaintiffs Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, journalist Alexa O’Brien, Tangerine Bolen, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir and Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla.

U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York, in a rare act of courage on the American bench today, declared Section 1021(b)(2) unconstitutional. The Obama administration immediately asked Forrest to lift her injunction and thereby put the law back into effect until it could appeal her decision. She rebuffed the government’s request. The government went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to ask it to stay the district court’s injunction until the government’s appeal could be heard. The 2nd Circuit consented to the request. The law went back on the books.

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Another 9/11 Anniversary And The Mutant War On Terror

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TruthstreamMedia  September 4 2013

Truthstream Media.com

Can you love your country without loving your government?

The Star Spangled Banner, America’s national anthem, refers to our country as, “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. Both claims were called into question a long time ago.

The anniversary of September 11 will soon be upon us again, and as a nation, we find ourselves embroiled in continuous turmoil, ramping up the elusive War on Terror that sprang from the events that shook the country that day back in 2001. In the years since, Americans have stood by and witnessed a continual erosion of their freedoms — from the Patriot Act’s attack on our Fourth Amendment, to the militarization of our police in an ever expanding police state, to the nationwide expansion of so-called ‘free-speech zones’ under George W. Bush, to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which can disappear and indefinitely detain American citizens suspected of terrorism without charge or public trial, to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) massive expansion that includes unseen no-fly lists and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) irradiating and molesting people and their children at airports, to the revelations that the National Security Administration (NSA) is collecting data on every single American citizen — and all in the supposed name of our safety.

Our government has gone so far as to deem 100 miles inland from any U.S. border to be a Constitution-free zone, with dozens of internal DHS checkpoints dotting the scenery. Papers, please?

Founding father Benjamin Franklin warned us about trading our freedom for the pretense of security. We did not listen.

As September 11th approaches once again a dozen years later, where do we as Americans find ourselves now? Continue reading →

Daniel Ellsberg ~ NDAA Indefinite Detention Provision Is Part Of “Systematic Assault On Constitution” [Video]

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Democracy Now February 6 2013

Citizenship in the United StatesA lawsuit challenging a law that gives the government the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens is back in federal court this week.

On Wednesday, a group of academics, journalists and activists will present oral arguments in court against a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizing the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial.

In a landmark ruling last September, Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York struck down the indefinite detention provision, saying it likely violates the First and Fifth Amendments of U.S. citizens.

We’re joined by Daniel Ellsberg, a plaintiff in the case and perhaps the country’s most famous whistleblower. Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, exposing the secret history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Chris Hedges ~ The Final Battle

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TruthDig | December 23 2012

Over the past year I and other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg have pressed a lawsuit in the federal courts to nullify Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This egregious section, which permits the government to use the military to detain U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers, could have been easily fixed by Congress. The Senate and House had the opportunity this month to include in the 2013 version of the NDAA an unequivocal statement that all U.S. citizens would be exempt from 1021(b)(2), leaving the section to apply only to foreigners. But restoring due process for citizens was something the Republicans and the Democrats, along with the White House, refused to do. The fate of some of our most basic and important rights—ones enshrined in the Bill of Rights as well as the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the Constitution—will be decided in the next few months in the courts. If the courts fail us, a gulag state will be cemented into place.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, pushed through the Senate an amendment to the 2013 version of the NDAA. The amendment, although deeply flawed, at least made a symbolic attempt to restore the right to due process and trial by jury. A House-Senate conference committee led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., however, removed the amendment from the bill last week.

“I was saddened and disappointed that we could not take a step forward to ensure at the very least American citizens and legal residents could not be held in detention without charge or trial,” Feinstein said in a statement issued by her office. “To me that was a no-brainer.”

The House approved the $633 billion NDAA for 2013 in a 315-107 vote late Thursday night. It will now go before the Senate. Several opponents of the NDAA in the House, including Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., cited Congress’ refusal to guarantee due process and trial by jury to all citizens as his reason for voting against the bill. He wrote in a statement after the vote that “American citizens may fear being arrested and indefinitely detained by the military without knowing what they have done wrong.”

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The Reptilian-Jesuits’ Five-Step Program For Destroying A Country

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William Garner | December 23 2012

Get Dean’s excellent book Who Really Owns Your Gold. It’s definitely worth the read ~ G

Great DepressionThe Reptilian-Jesuits have a tried-and-true five-step program for destroying a country from within. It’s worked in every single country they’ve controlled and ultimately destroyed.

One would think that We The People would’ve gotten wind of this Five-Stepper by now:

Demoralizing a public with depressing news in the mainstream media, plunging the nation into serious debt using controlled and manipulated recessions and depressions, low-income jobs and high unemployment, evermore controlling new laws and regulations that are increasingly intrusive to all citizens.

Destabilizing a population by pitting groups against each other, i.e. Democrats vs. Republicans or pro-choice vs. anti-abortion or gun owners vs. anti-gun citizens, in pitched battle. And when they can’t corral those elusive holdouts who subscribe to no party or religion or group, The Reptilian-Jesuits create even further “false and controlled opposition,” i.e. those people and groups who purport to be friends of We The People and who allegedly oppose the Reptilian-Jesuits Axis, echoing their pro-We The People sentiments in high public places. The grim reality is that those final holdouts among We The People are cleverly being pulled into a black hole of false security by all the false and controlled opposition.

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