September 03 2013 National Defense Authorization Act - Court - Law - Military - Obama - USA the US Supreme Court is being asked to hear a federal lawsuit challenging the legal ability of the military to indefinitely detain persons under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA)... according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges... co-plaintiff in the case... attorneys will file paperwork in the coming days requesting that the high court of the country weigh in on Hedges v. Obama... determine the constitutionality of a controversial provision that has continuously generated criticism directed towards the White House since signed into law by President Barack Obama almost 2 years ago... defended adamantly by his administration in federal court in the years since... should the Supreme Court reject the plea of the plaintiffs Hedges said it could signal the... “obliteration of our last remaining legal protections...” with the inking of his name to the annual Pentagon spending bill nearly 2 years ago... President Obama awarded his military the power to imprison persons suspected of ties to terrorist groups until the vaguely-defined “end of hostilities”... journalists/ human rights workers were among those to immediately oppose the December 31 2011 signing of the NDAA... one provision in particular... Section 1021(e)... because they said the US government could manipulate the law in order to detain anyone alleged to have “substantially supported” a group that is considered an enemy of America... without trial... until the end of persistent/ consistently expanding warfare... Hedges... a long-time war correspondent for the New York Times when the suit was 1st filed in federal court in early 2012 said... “I have had dinner more times than I can count with people whom this country brands as terrorists... but that does not make me one...” in an editorial published by Hedges on he wrote that he has been detained numerous times during his decades as a foreign correspondent... in those instances was illegally held by the US government... “in those days there was no law that could be used to seize/ detain me.... now there is...” 2012 US District Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York said Section 1021 was unconstitutional... ordered an immediate stay on the provision... without delay the Obama administration filed an appeal which was honored this July 2013 when the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit sided with the White House... ruled 3-to-0 that the American co-plaintiffs could not challenge the NDAA because they lacked standing... the appellate court decided with that ruling that US citizens could not fight Section 1021 in court because... “with respect to citizens... lawful resident aliens... or individuals captured or arrested in the US Section 1021 simply says nothing at all...” Hedges wrote in his editorial opinion... “the court in essence said that because it did not construe the law as applying to US citizens/ lawful residents we could not bring the case to court...” according to Hedges/ at least one member of his legal team... the court should be clearer... opine precisely in a manner which ensures American citizens cannot be placed in indefinite military custody... attorney Bruce Afran told Hedges... “the problem is by saying there is no standing... they deprive the district court of entering an order/ saying/ declaring that the statue does not apply to US citizens/ permanent residents/ lawful residents in the US...” “we have the absurdity of the court of appeals... one of the highest courts in the country... saying this law cannot touch citizens/ lawful residents... depriving the trial court of the ability to enter an order blocking it from being used in that way... the lack of an order enables future military detentions... a person may have to languish for months... maybe years... before getting a court hearing... the appellate court correctly stated what the law is... it deprived the trial court of the ability to enter an order stopping this new law from being used...” Hedges suggested during a question-and-answer session on Reddit that the Obama administration may be defending Section 1021 so adamantly in federal court because it is already being used... if so Hedges added... negating the power provided in that provision could lead the president to be found in contempt of court... in 2012 Hedges said... “if the Obama administration simply appealed it... as we expected... it would have raised this red flag... but since they were so aggressive it means that once Judge Forrest declared the law invalid... if they were using it... as we expect... they could be held in contempt of court... this was quite disturbing... for it means... I suspect... that US citizens... probably dual nationals... are being held in military detention facilities almost certainly overseas... maybe at home...” Hedges wrote... “if Section 1021 stands it will mean that more than 150 years of case law in which the Supreme Court repeatedly held the military has no jurisdiction over civilians will be abolished... it will mean citizens who are charged by the government with ‘substantially supporting’ al-Qaida/ the Taliban or the nebulous category of ‘associated forces’ will be lawfully subject to extraordinary rendition... it will mean citizens seized by the military will languish in military jails indefinitely or in the language of Section 1021 until ‘the end of hostilities’... in an age of permanent war... for the rest of their lives... when President Obama signed the NDAA on New Year’s Eve he added a statement in which he swore he would not use the military detention provision against Americans... given recent revelations regarding his administration... however... another member of Hedges’ legal counsel told the journalist that he is not so certain that will stand true... “1st the terrorism-industrial complex assured Americans that they were only spying on foreigners... not US citizens...” Hedges quoted from another attorney on the case Carl Mayer... “then they assured us that they were only spying on phone calls... not electronic communications... then they assured us that they were not spying on American journalists... now both major political parties... the Obama administration have assured us that they will not detain journalists/ citizens/ activists..” Hedges has already been detained by the US... Hedges added... while recalling the case of Laura Poitras... an American filmmaker who also claims to have been repeatedly held... interrogated by federal officials during years of investigative work... Poitras has most recently collaborated with the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald on digesting the National Security Agency leaks attributed to former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that have aided in disproving some of the promises already made by the Obama administration as referenced by Carl Mayer... Hedges is joined in the suit by a handful of plaintiffs including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg/ writer Noam Chomsky/ independent journalist Alexa O’Brien... when the case was 1st brought before Judge Forrest 2012 O’Brien testified that federal contractors attempted to link a group she co-founded... US Day of Rage... with Islamic organizations in an attempt to discredit... perhaps detain her... O’Brien said she had interviewed former Guantanamo Bay detainees as part of her work as a journalist... feared that those conversations could be construed as giving “substantial support” to terrorist groups of “associated forces” as described in the NDAA... after President Obama authorized the NDAA... O’Brien said in court... “I am now fearful of doing the type of reporting that I have done on individuals/ organizations that are considered terrorists by the US government... my reporting has therefore been curtailed...” according to e-mails obtained by anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks that were pilfered from private intelligence firm Stratfor... government contractors attempted to connect US Day of Rage “to any Saudi or other fundamentalist Islamic movements” in late 2011 before the NDAA was autographed by Obama... O’Brien said that she later learned that her employer was asked repeatedly by US government agents for information about her involvement with US Day of Rage... the Occupy Wall Street movement... in a sworn statement filed March 12 2012 she said... “I have an actual... well-founded fear that the US Government will consider me a covered person under the NDAA... will either detain me indefinitely or subject me to a military tribunal... because of this fear I have substantially curtailed my journalistic/ political activities...” Joining Hedges/ Ellsberg/ Chomsky/ O’Brien in the lawsuit are Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir/ RevolutionTruth founder Tangerine Bolen/ Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla/ Dr. Cornel West... in the appeals ruling from July the court said... “while Section 1021 does have meaningful effect regarding the authority to detain individuals who are not citizens or lawful resident aliens... are apprehended abroad... Jónsdóttir/ Wargalla have not established standing on this record...” according to Hedges the Supreme Court only accepted around 100 of the 8,000-or-so requests it receives each year... he wrote... “if we fail... if this law stands... if in the years ahead the military starts to randomly seize... disappear people... if dissidents/ activists become subject to indefinite/ secret detention in military gulags... we will at least be able to look back on this moment... know we fought back...” rt/usa/ndaa-scotus-hedges-suit-359/
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 06:23:12 +0000
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