On May 16th, federal judge Kathleen Forrest granted a preliminary injunction to plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against Barack Obama and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), striking down those sections of the Act that provide the president the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without benefit of their 5th and 6th Amendment rights. Under the terms of the Act, Obama had been given exclusive authority to direct members of the US military to arrest and imprison anyone he believed to have “substantially supported” al Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces.” When pressed by plaintiff’s attorneys about the practical extent of this authority, government lawyers admitted “…the NDAA does give the president the power to lock up people like journalist Chris Hedges and peaceful activists,” admitting that “…even war correspondents could be locked up indefinitely under the NDAA.” And when asked by the judge what it meant to be an “associated force”, Obama’s lawyers “…claimed the right to refrain from offering any clear definition of [the] term, or clear boundaries of the president’s power under [the] law.” In short, it is the federal government’s scheme that the Act remain so vague that a corrupt and power-hungry Administration may imprison virtually anyone it considers a threat to its pursuit of absolute power.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 09:47:48 +0000
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