Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet.com writes:
The Senate is set to vote on a bill next week that would define the whole of the United States as a “battlefield” and allow the U.S. Military to arrest American citizens in their own back yard 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. 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,” writes Chris Anders of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. Under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor Monday, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill. The bill was drafted in secret by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), before being passed in a closed-door committee meeting without any kind of hearing. The language appears in sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA bill. “I would also point out that these provisions raise serious questions as to who we are as a society and what our Constitution seeks to protect,” Colorado Senator Mark Udall said in a speech last week. One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.” This means Americans could be declared domestic terrorists and thrown in a military brig with no recourse whatsoever. Given that the Department of Homeland Security has characterized behavior such as buying gold, owning guns, using a watch or binoculars, donating to charity, using the telephone or email to find information, using cash, and all manner of mundane behaviors as potential indicators of domestic terrorism, such a provision would be wide open to abuse. “American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?” asks Anders. The ACLU is urging citizens to call their Senator and demand that the Udall Amendment be added to the bill, a change that would at least act as a check to prevent Americans being snatched off the streets without some form of Congressional oversight.
Rand Paul (I'm so glad he's a Senator) pushes back...
James Madison, father of the Constitution, warned, “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become instruments of tyranny at home.” Abraham Lincoln had similar thoughts, saying, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” [...]
My well-intentioned colleagues ignore these admonitions in defending provisions of the 2012 defense authorization bill pertaining to detaining suspected terrorists.
Their legislation would arm the military with the authority to detain indefinitely - without due process or trial - suspected al Qaeda sympathizers, including American citizens apprehended on American soil.
I want to repeat that. We are talking about people who are merely suspected of a crime. We are talking about American citizens.
If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay. This should be alarming to everyone because it puts every single American citizen at risk. [...]
S1867 was passed in the senate by a vote of 93 to 7. Even in the statist paradigm of democracies, republics, and dictatorships, let no man claim that America is the land of the free.
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
Why does he have to misattribute a good quote to Lincoln?
Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the younger Dr. Paul's efforts, but the elder Dr. Paul would never do that.
Actually, in some Ron Paul 08 campaign placards I have (or had, I don't know where they are now) to seem optimistic they had 4 dark horse candidates on them to show how someone who at the time was almost never heard of became president, and Lincoln was one of them. I was actually thinking about this a few days ago. Was just a marketing tactic to bring attention to Paul.
I missed that from his 08 campaign apparently. Thanks for telling me Bert:)