Skeptics fear future administration could still incarcerate US citizens under NDAA
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Despite the fact that it was his administration that
specifically demanded the controversial ‘indefinite detention’
provisions of the NDAA be applied to Americans, President Obama has
issued a ‘Presidential Policy Directive’ that forbids the law from being
used against US citizens.
A “fact sheet” released by the White House last night
contains details of a “Presidential Policy Directive” which explains
that the administration will not seek to use the so-called ‘kidnapping
provision’ of the National Defense Authorization Act to incarcerate
American citizens without trial.
“Section 1022 does not apply to U.S. citizens, and the
President has decided to waive its application to lawful permanent
residents arrested in the United States,” states the White House fact
sheet (PDF).
Obama’s PDD contains a number of other circumstances in
which people would be exempt from indefinite detention, but the language
concerning American citizens states that to be exempt, a US citizen
must be “arrested in this country or arrested by a federal agency on the
basis of conduct taking place in this country,” meaning Americans
arrested abroad could still be kidnapped and held without trial.
The NDAA bill, which was signed into law by President
Obama under the radar on New Years Eve while he was on vacation in
Kailua, hands the federal government the power
to “allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects,
including American citizens arrested in the United States, without
charge.”
There’s no doubt that this represents a victory for
civil libertarians on both sides of the political spectrum, but skeptics
will be keen to stress that just because the Obama administration,
which could be out of office by this time next year, has indicated it
will not indefinitely detain Americans under the NDAA, doesn’t
necessarily mean that future administrations will also refrain from
doing so.
Indeed, if the administration was so concerned about the
indefinite detention provisions, why did it specifically lobby for them
to be applied to American citizens in the first place?
As we documented at the time,
shortly before the bill was signed into law, Senator Carl Levin
revealed that it was the administration which demanded the removal of
language that would have protected Americans from the ‘kidnapping’
provisions of the NDAA.
“The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to
American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved…and the
administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S.
citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section,”
said Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.Don’t expect Obama’s PDD to be the end of the matter. Senators John McCain (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) have already indicated that they will argue against exempting American citizens from indefinite detention.
“Although we have not been able to fully examine all the details of these new regulations, they raise significant concerns that will require a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee,” they said in a joint statement. “We are particularly concerned that some of these regulations may contradict the intent of the detainee provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress last year.”
In issuing the policy directive, Obama is attempting to
head off a potential states’ rights rebellion against the federal
government. With Virginia already having passed a bill in the House and Senate that nullifies the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA, Utah has introduced a resolution with the ultimate intention of doing the same, along with several other states.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com.
He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular
fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
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