Proofreader says: "partied on" much better than "partied only". DELETEME

>> Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law,

Could that be because Obama is totally full of shit?

I'm just asking.

Proofreader says: "partied on" much better than "partied only".

Or then again, I could wait till the coffee hits my bloodstream before posting. It's Turley who has the clanking phrasing.

http://ronswanson2012.org/

Thanks, biff!! He's got MY vote whether he wants it or not!

I wonder what those commies at the ACLU have to say about this?

"The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA."

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-law

...government is corrupt and we keep voting in people who continue the corruption.

It can't be helped, Amy. Those who get elected based on their honest and integrity inevitably get sucked in, chewed up, and spit out by the political machine, which strips them of all the honesty, dignity and integrity they ever had, thus reducing them to the same corrupt shits we're trying to get rid of. It's a vicious cycle, and the only way to break it is to totally dismantle the government and start from scratch.

And we all know that will NEVER happen.

I like to understand both sides of an issue. I do not understand both sides of this issue. After reading through a half dozen links re the issue, I am still unclear about what circumstance this new law is designed to act upon. A potential terrorist who is constructing a dirty bomb? Why would we lack the evidence to get a warrant against that person?

The U.S. Senate passed this by a 93-7 vote. They must have some idea of a circumstance which this new law is designed to act against: they must have some idea of a circumstance in which we do not have enough time or evidence to procure a warrant. Maybe they do not wish to publicize the circumstance. But, I would like to have some idea of their side of the story. I want to condemn their action. Yet, I will not condemn them - and their 93-7 vote - until I understand what they know ... which I do not know.

(Sure, pork is out now...but check out all the lawmakers who were for pork long, long, long before they were against it [read: before it went out of style with more of the voters]).

Pork was always out of style with voters...when the pork when to people in other states. But pork for the home team? Mmmmm...bring on the bacon!

Senator Ron Paul voted against the NDAA.

NAYs ---13
Cardin (D-MD)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Durbin (D-IL)
Franken (D-MN)
Harkin (D-IA)
Lee (R-UT)
Merkley (D-OR)
Paul (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Sanders (I-VT)
Wyden (D-OR)

It's rare that Durbin is right on an issue, especially when it goes against an Administration followed by a (D).

(Full Disclosure: Dick Durbin is a great guy with a big heart, but he is in sincere error on virtually every issue under the sun.)

@gcotharn: I'm with you. I cannot understand how even the most tone-deaf member of Congress could vote for a bill containing these provisions. I expect the explanation is that the rest of the bill was so critical that they didn't dare stop it - after all, Obama promises not to actually do any of this stuff...

The USA is even farther gone that I thought. Really, this is police state stuff.

gcotharn you shouldnt be allowed to vote

This isnt about warrants, this isnt about getting people picked up in a hurry - you can already be arrested for things like public nussance.

Getiing people arrested in a hurry was never a problem, and there are already a myriad of exceptions aollowing cops to get search warants after the search has already taken place.

This ids about PRISON, and holding american citizens in prison - possibly forever.

No trail
No charges
No lawyer
No verdict
No judge
No jury
No one ever informed that you are even being held

And you say 'no problem'?

You should be executed for treason and so should Obama and every single senator and congressman who voted for this

Lujip gets a standing O.

Many reporters have bought into the spin of the Obama Administration as they did the spin over torture by the Bush Administration.

That's not what I remember. The MSM was all over the Bush administration on their willingness to allow the use of physical and psychological coercion. The coverage and commentary was intense and carried on for several years. They certainly didn't buy the administration's spin on the topic. There is no equivalence between the press's treatment of Bush and that of Obama. Turley must have been high when he wrote that.

The MSM isn't covering NDAA because they don't want to harm Obama. That's it. He's their man.

As Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit is fond of stating, if you are concerned about civil liberties you should vote Republican because the press and NGO's simply will not do their job with a Democrat in the Whitehouse. Only Republican administrations face adequate scrutiny on these matters.

Hear, hear, Lujlp.

I am truly terrified at what is happening to our country.

okay, lets say it is about being imprisoned w/o being charged. Why would 93 U.S. Senators support such a thing? What circumstance do they foresee .. which we do not?

You are wrong to assert that I support this law. However, before I condemn it, I would like to understand the argument in favor of it.

Reason those in power pass the law? It gives them more power.

@ NOLA- My memories of the "debate" about torture is different. I remember the mainstream press (NY Times especially) refusing to even use the word torture. The behavior at hand was ALWAYS listed as enhanced interrogation. It was dishonest as all hell. I remember when Hitchens changed his mind concerning water boarding as an example of torture after he had it done to himself. So in that sense, there wasn't much of a debate. I'm not a big fan of Andrew Sullivan, but basically the only reason I read him for quite a few years was for his insistence on investigating US torture of suspected terrorists. He daily railed at the silence of the mainstream media about it. So, basically I remember differently.

gcotharn:

Some things are wrong no matter what arguments are used to justify them. The Holocaust. Genocide. And locking up American citizens indefinitely without apprising them of the charges against them, and giving them a lawyer and a fair trial.

I don't give a rats' ass why the moronic fools we've elected decided to pass this thing. It's wrong. And by the way, I'm a lawyer with a fair bit of expertise in constitutional law.

...see, gcotharn, there's this nifty little thing we've got here in the U.S. of A. called the Bill of Rights. And there's a little subsection of it called the Sixth Amendment you might want to look at. FYI, it wasn't supposed to be optional.

I don't recall anything about an amendment saying "if someone somewhere in the government suspects there's a snowball's chance in hell you might be somehow connected to someone or something that might be tenuously related to terrorism, or if perhaps someone in the government would like you to conveniently disappear, the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to you." Maybe I missed it.

But hell, since we've thrown the Fourth Amendment in the toilet already, I guess we might as throw the Sixth in there to keep it company, right?

Happy Fucking New Year, everyone.

Just a few things I want to point out:

First, the Supreme Court has yet to decide on if the NDAA is constitutional. I'm actually mildly optimistic that they will find it unconstitutional.

Second, while signing the NDAA was a horrible decision on Obama's part, he never said he'd veto it under any circumstance. Rather, he said he'd veto it so long as it gave the State Department the ability to indefinitely detain anyone. They changed it, he didn't veto it. The passage you quoted made it seem like he promised to veto it no matter what. This doesn't make the situation any better, it's more of an accuracy thing.

...perhaps, gcotharn, you might see why we're all worked up if we give you an example. Let's say someone decides that YOU might possibly be a terrorist. And let's assume they're wrong about that. Well, it sucks to be you, because you aren't going to get any chance to prove it. Thanks to Obama and our swell representatives in Congress, they can toss American citizens into Gitmo forever without telling them why, without giving them a lawyer, and without giving then a trial. Their family and friends may never know where they went.

Sure, it could be convenient to do this. I'm sure that's what our representatives are thinking. We can stop more homegrown terrorists and do it more quickly if we forget about all that silly due process type stuff. But what if you're not a terrorist? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to prove it? That, in a nutshell, is why our Founders thought the Sixth Amendment might be a good idea.

But, you know, this NDAA thing will save a lot of trouble, so fuck all that. We're SAFER (provided we don't disappear into a black hole).

"I'm actually mildly optimistic that they will find it unconstitutional."

I really, really, really hope you're right, Steve. Until they do, I'll be here, fuming and ranting until someone throws me into Gitmo.

@gail

93 U.S. Senators ... and you do not want to understand their argument before flatly condemning them?

All the secret police need now is a cage that will hold (a) your face and (b) a rat and you'll be selling out your loved one in a minute flat.

And what if 93 senators voted to shoot you in the head?

Ever hear the phrase Catch-22?

Gcarthan is right. It behooves us all to know exactly what is going on here. The new law appears to authorize domestic military detention for enemy combatants and then exempts citizens and legal residents to the extent they are already entitled to due process. This last point is critical because it's not a true exemption. For example a US citizen abroad could conceivably be detained by US military. Also, the exemption is only tacit. It does not explicitly say "no domestic detentions of citizens." So it doesn't currently allow detention of US citizens, but it sure does open the door a crack.

Frankly, I think it's sickening that one would even have to go through any kind of tortured legal analysis to guarantee our due process for criminal detention. This law might just have edged Kelo for "Worst Legal Development of the 21st Century."

Senator Ron Paul voted against the NDAA.

Ron Paul is a member of the House of Representatives.

Rand Paul is a Senator, and is Ron's son.

Mine would have spiders, not rats.

GCarthan -- we know the justification. They think it will fight terrorism more effectively. It's pretty obvious, actually. If you don't have to give a home-grown terrorist due process, you save a lot of time, and make life easier for the government. But yeah, sure, I'd love to grill the 93 fuckers on this one, and watch them stumble through an explanation of why it's OK to eviscerate the Bill of Rights. It would give me something to do on this frosty afternoon.

My point is that it doesn't matter. There can be no good justification for doing this. I don't care if it gets some terrorists out of the way. It also has the terrifying potential to get perfectly innocent American citizens out of the way, with no ability to defend themselves. And our entire government is based on the idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. What are we about, if not that?

And while you might be all starry-eyed "oh wow, 93 U.S. Senators! They must know better than I do!" I don't share your hero worship. They're just dudes who got elected. They're not fucking gods. They do idiotic shit all the time, and some of it is horrific and illegal. It's your kind of logic ("gee, they're our leaders, they must have a good reason for sending all the Jews away. Let's at least wait for their explanations!") that allows dictators and police states to gain traction.

The sad thing is, what the NDAA is doing is actually not new. It's just one step further down the scary road we've been taking since 9/11. And the thing that really infuriates me is that it's Obama signing it -- Obama who vowed to close Gitmo and reverse Bush's assaults on civil liberties. He's a goddamn hypocritical fraud. Not that I didn't know that before, but this really puts a bow on it.

"All the secret police need now is a cage that will hold (a) your face and (b) a rat and you'll be selling out your loved one in a minute flat."

That would be hilarious if it weren't true.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.

@Gail

It is not correct to assert that I worship U.S. Senators. I have stated, plainly, and more than once in this thread, that I suspect this law is wrongful and unconstitutional.

What does puzzle me: I spent 15 minutes working through Turley's links, then Googling, yet could not find reporting about the reasoning of the 93 Senators voted in favor of this law. I suspect this law is tailored towards thwarting specific terrorist scenario(s). Your and my suggested explanation, i.e., something to do with time, might be valid.

I reject this explanation of yours: "make things easier for the government". I do not find it reasonable that 93 Senators would so lightly cast aside the 4th Amendment.

@snakeman99

Yours is the most detailed explanation which I have read. Thank you. The vagueness, of the language of the law, is alarming. The law's apparent dependence on the good will of government is both alarming, and is exactly what the U.S. Constitution was trying to avoid.

There's no need to know the motives of 93 senators. They're all corrupt. They've tossed the 4th amendment many times before, why not one more?

It's one thing to allow indefinite detention of Americans caught in league with enemy forces as enemy combatants. It's another thing entirely to do that to Americans inside our borders that are not actively engaged in hostilities against the US.

Blowing up a terrorist leader in Yemen? Cool. Blowing up a guy someone thinks might have said something nice about Bin Laden in Ohio? Not cool.

@brian

I suspect, in this instance, the 93 Senators have tossed aside the 4th Amendment. I do not suspect they have done so for the cavalier reason of "mak[ing] things easier for the government". I suspect they had a reason which has to do with specific terrorist scenario(s), for which they believe this law is a solution.

I suspect they had a reason which has to do with specific terrorist scenario(s), for which they believe this law is a solution
I suspect the reason was that they wanted to get out of there and go home for the long weekend. This is an affront, far worse than the Bushmen ever did w/ the Patriot act. Where are the civil libertarians??

"Rand Paul is a Senator, and is Ron's son."

Yes, and I'm mortally embarrassed by my goof. Yikes.

Hopefully this tip sheet on what to expect during your ... detention ... will make up for it.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/tom-the-dancing-bug-slideshow/20111223-td111223-gif-photo-050555741.html

No mention of Room 101.

If it makes you feel better, Gog, I recently made an idiot out of myself in a political argument by repeatedly saying "Osama" rather than "Obama." Oops. Is it my fault they rhyme?

Let he who has never tripped over his own brain cast the first stone.