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US Totalitarian State Wins After All: Obama Reinstates NDAA Military Detention Provision
Just over a week ago, we wrote of the challenge to Obama's NDAA totalitarian bill. Hope remained that Chris Hedges' view of the indefinite detention as "unforgivable, unconstitutional, and exceedingly dangerous" would bolster judgment. However, as Russia Today reports, a lone appeals judge bowed down to the Obama administration late Monday and reauthorized the White House's ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or due process. On Monday, the US Justice Department asked for an emergency stay on the previous Chris Hedges'-driven order, and hours later US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier agreed to intervene and place a hold on the injunction. The stay will remain in effect until at least September 28, when a three-judge appeals court panel is expected to begin addressing the issue. It would appear the total fascist takeover of Amerika is drawing nearer by the day.
Some background:
What is ironic, is that in the ongoing absolute farce that is the theatrical presidential debate, there hasn't been one word uttered discussing precisely the kind of creeping totalitarian control, and Orwellian loss of constitutional rights, that the biparty-supported NDAA would have demanded out of the US republic. Why? Chris Hedges said it best:
The oddest part of this legislation is that the FBI, the CIA, the director of national intelligence, the Pentagon and the attorney general didn’t support it. FBI Director Robert Mueller said he feared the bill would actually impede the bureau’s ability to investigate terrorism because it would be harder to win cooperation from suspects held by the military. “The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain cooperation from the persons in the past that we’ve been fairly successful in gaining,” he told Congress.
But it passed anyway. And I suspect it passed because the corporations, seeing the unrest in the streets, knowing that things are about to get much worse, worrying that the Occupy movement will expand, do not trust the police to protect them. They want to be able to call in the Army. And now they can.
Via RT, Obama wins right to indefinitely detain Americans under NDAA:
A lone appeals judge bowed down to the Obama administration late Monday and reauthorized the White House’s ability to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or due process.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that an temporary injunction on section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 must be made permanent, essentially barring the White House from ever enforcing a clause in the NDAA that can let them put any US citizen behind bars indefinitely over mere allegations of terrorist associations. On Monday, the US Justice Department asked for an emergency stay on that order, and hours later US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier agreed to intervene and place a hold on the injunction.
The stay will remain in effect until at least September 28, when a three-judge appeals court panel is expected to begin addressing the issue
On December 31, 2011, US President Barack Obama signed the NDAA into law, even though he insisted on accompanying that authorization with a statement explaining his hesitance to essentially eliminate habeas corpus for the American people.
“The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it,” President Obama wrote. “In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”
A lawsuit against the administration was filed shortly thereafter on behalf of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and others, and Judge Forrest agreed with them in district court last week after months of debate. With the stay issued on Monday night, however, that justice’s decision has been destroyed.
With only Judge Lohier’s single ruling on Monday, the federal government has been once again granted the go ahead to imprison any person "who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners" until a poorly defined deadline described as merely “the end of the hostilities.” The ruling comes despite Judge Forrest's earlier decision that the NDAA fails to “pass constitutional muster” and that the legislation contained elements that had a "chilling impact on First Amendment rights”
Because alleged terrorists are so broadly defined as to include anyone with simple associations with enemy forces, some members of the press have feared that simply speaking with adversaries of the state can land them behind bars.
"First Amendment rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and cannot be legislated away," Judge Forrest wrote last week. "This Court rejects the Government's suggestion that American citizens can be placed in military detention indefinitely, for acts they could not predict might subject them to detention."
Bruce Afran, a co-counsel representing the plaintiffs in the case Hedges v Obama, said Monday that he suspects the White House has been relentless in this case because they are already employing the NDAA to imprison Americans, or plan to shortly.
“A Department of Homeland Security bulletin was issued Friday claiming that the riots [in the Middle East] are likely to come to the US and saying that DHS is looking for the Islamic leaders of these likely riots,” Afran told Hedges for a blogpost published this week. “It is my view that this is why the government wants to reopen the NDAA — so it has a tool to round up would-be Islamic protesters before they can launch any protest, violent or otherwise. Right now there are no legal tools to arrest would-be protesters. The NDAA would give the government such power. Since the request to vacate the injunction only comes about on the day of the riots, and following the DHS bulletin, it seems to me that the two are connected. The government wants to reopen the NDAA injunction so that they can use it to block protests.”
Within only hours of Afran’s statement being made public, demonstrators in New York City waged a day of protests in order to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Although it is not believed that the NDAA was used to justify any arrests, more than 180 political protesters were detained by the NYPD over the course of the day’s actions. One week earlier, the results of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union confirmed that the FBI has been monitoring Occupy protests in at least one instance, but the bureau would not give further details, citing that decision is "in the interest of national defense or foreign policy."
Josh Gerstein, a reporter with Politico, reported on the stay late Monday and acknowledged that both Forrest and Lohier were appointed to the court by President Obama.
As Chris Hedges said so well last week as he sued Barack Obama:
This demented “war on terror” is as undefined and vague as such a conflict is in any totalitarian state. Dissent is increasingly equated in this country with treason. Enemies supposedly lurk in every organization that does not chant the patriotic mantras provided to it by the state. And this bill feeds a mounting state paranoia. It expands our permanent war to every spot on the globe. It erases fundamental constitutional liberties. It means we can no longer use the word “democracy” to describe our political system.
The supine and gutless Democratic Party, which would have feigned outrage if George W. Bush had put this into law, appears willing, once again, to grant Obama a pass. But I won’t. What he has done is unforgivable, unconstitutional and exceedingly dangerous. The threat and reach of al-Qaida—which I spent a year covering for The New York Times in Europe and the Middle East—are marginal, despite the attacks of 9/11. The terrorist group poses no existential threat to the nation. It has been so disrupted and broken that it can barely function. Osama bin Laden was gunned down by commandos and his body dumped into the sea. Even the Pentagon says the organization is crippled. So why, a decade after the start of the so-called war on terror, do these draconian measures need to be implemented? Why do U.S. citizens now need to be specifically singled out for military detention and denial of due process when under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force the president can apparently find the legal cover to serve as judge, jury and executioner to assassinate U.S. citizens, as he did in the killing of the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen? Why is this bill necessary when the government routinely ignores our Fifth Amendment rights—“No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law”—as well as our First Amendment right of free speech? How much more power do they need to fight “terrorism”?
Fear is the psychological weapon of choice for totalitarian systems of power. Make the people afraid. Get them to surrender their rights in the name of national security. And then finish off the few who aren’t afraid enough. If this law is not revoked we will be no different from any sordid military dictatorship. Its implementation will be a huge leap forward for the corporate oligarchs who plan to continue to plunder the nation and use state and military security to cow the population into submission.
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Sad day for AmeriKa
I've held off buying my first gun until today. I am actively researching what to get first, I'm thinking shotgun then a handgun.
Any suggestions people?!
Thudbuster, handgun that uses .410 shotgun shells. Inexpensive gun, inexpensive round, concealable, no aiming necessary.
so, I searched "thudbuster" and found bicycle seats, BUT a search for The Judge handgun found THIS comment that absolutely belongs here. . .
http://www.americanrifleman.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=1526&cid=26
gotta love the internets.
If you really want to learn, Ruger 10-22 first.Then hit the range or go to an appleseed event.
Then I'd either go glock 19 or AR-15 rather than a shotgun. (An AR will be safer for home defense than a shotgun due to how hypervelocity bullets disintegrate, will be lighter, and you'll have 30 rounds to use rather than 3-5 rounds. Shotguns have limited utility: birds, deer, home invaders working alone, and low altitude microdrones.)
Thanks for the suggestions gentlemen. I've fired a few guns in the past but never purchased any, I've always been wary with children in the house. You really think a shotgun wouldn't be the most obvious "gateway" gun?! lol
The glock 19 and SW MP40 were my first handgun picks actually.
Get the Ruger .22 as suggested first. Great to learn on with no kick, easy to clean, and cheap to buy & practice with. (btw, hollowpoints in a .22 are still lethal)
And I second the AR15 acquisition too. Sweet weapon and ideal for many purposes.
Once you got those, then it's time to look at a variety of other items with more 'stopping power'.
Get some marbles and a slingshot for the children. Sounds funny but with a little practice, it's serious business.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXASb6V0O8U&feature=related
While many advocate shotguns, I would only suggest it if you're in a nortoriously gun-unfriendly state. (If you must, Mossberg 500 or Remington 870 would be the primary choices.)
In spite of incorrect folk wisdom, shotguns do need to be aimed just as much as rifles at short ranges, and carry substantial recoil that makes frequent training with them unlikely, and if it's a family, your wife may be called to shoot as well, all of which make the shotgun less suitable. (Also ignore anyone that says the sound of a shotgun chambering is somehow going to magically protect you.)
The AR is accurate, easy to shoot by virtually everyone, highly customizable, and due to how the bullets interact with obstacles, less likely to overpenetrate and endanger bystanders than either a shotgun or even a handgun. Though the cartridge for the AK-47 doesn't have those same traits, I'd still advocate an rifle (including an AK) over a shotgun, but would much more strongly advocate the AR.
Seriously, though, start with the 10-22, it's inexpensive, will provide a lot of cheap training and get your feet wet, and contrary again to popular opinion will still serve in a home defense role -- not the ideal, but pretty persuasive nonetheless. From there you can decide what's best for yourself.
You might also want to buy shares of RGR and SWHC. Gun sales are booming. Both companies are swamped with orders. Remember to do your own research.
How about Bud's???
Personal experience - Mossberg "Persuader" for home defense; Mossberg 500 for hunting. Most parts are interchangeable. They're inexpensive and reliable.
As an aside, allow me to suggest making a trip to the Carolinas to purchase your firearms - guns can be purchased at flea markets and through local sale papers without registration.
Never ask "which gun should I buy"
You'll get an endless supply of good answers! Just find a local range/dealer that allows you to rent their guns on the range and spend a day (and about $200 in ammo) shooting various semi-auto pistols (Ruger .22, any 9mm, .40 or .45), an AR-15 (.223), and a pump shotgun. Oh, and try those Judges or the S&W version (6-shots vice 5, adds .45 ACP vice just .45 LC). Then you can buy knowing what you like.
In the end, I'd recommend to go 3 if you can afford it for the purchase:
AR-15 plus a .22 conversion kit so you can plink for cheap; a semi-auto handgun that can hold at least 10 rounds, and finally choose between the pump shotgun in the full 26 or 28-inch barrel (and then spring for an additional rifled barrel to shoot slugs which between the two will allow hunting anything in North America) or the Judge-type revolver
and a damn good woodsman knife like a Swamp Rat
"We're from the government and we're here to help you. Please step into the railroad car..."
Uh, Oh! The brown shirts will be coming to get us. I should have been an Obama bundler like Corzine.
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/150781/
i can walk mein fuhrer!!!!
Small steps allowed the fascist in Germany to take over the government. Ever wonder how the citizens of Germany in the 1930's stood by and allowed Hitler's takeover to occur?
I predicted this would happen. Ever since Roy of "Siegfried & Roy" got man-handled by his tiger
Obama is merely a playback button for the shadow government.
This tells me that they are already holding Americans. Otherwise why the urgency?
Think you're right. That's how they roll.
Think you're right. That's how they roll.
Think you're right. That's how they roll.
Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
What a day! Has Mittens already stepped away from the campaign to give Ron Paul a chance?
Mittens is OVER.
But class warfare is ON. Thanks Mitt for telling EVERYONE how you and your people really feel about 47% of Americans. Now go back to your shyster friends and print some more of those USELESS AND WORTHLESS DOLLARS so you can EXPLOIT ordinary Americans and the rest of the world with your FUCKING G'DAMN FIAT PAPER.
So, please tell me again how China is the place with no freedom? I'm not saying that bad shit doesn't happen here from time to time, but at least it's been getting better. In the US? Not so much....
I cannot believe People are going to go vote as if it makes Any difference. When I click by political gatherings on TV I am in awe of the cheering, poster waving lemmings surrounding those candidates. And the media is just so bought off on what is happening to America it is pathetic and sad. How can they look at themselves in the mirror every morning.
My thoughts exactly RH and let me add, last nite as I watched the local TV news prompter-reader spewing the regurgitated story about the Middle East riots being caused by "the movie", it came to me that the anchor had not checked to see whether that story is true, nor had his editor, nor had the news director. It came across the wire, or from CBS corporate, so it must be true.
We're no better than the cattle who are actually fed chicken shit for its "nutritional value".
I may have to buy a ZH T-shirt so you guys can spot me at FEMA camp. I knooow noth-ing!
I may have to buy a ZH T-shirt so you guys can spot me at FEMA camp. I knooow noth-ing!
There is hope. A new Republican president will overturn this detention law and once again restore Amerian's right to due legal process under the constitution.
There is a clear difference in the two Party Platforms. Obama is using his powers to impose this police state detention law to ensure the military and police forces have the power to detain any American, anytime anywhere and for any length of time. The right to send any detained American to a secret torture prison where a confession of wrong doing can be extracted and then used at a military tribunal that can sentence said American to death.
Under a Romney administration these extra legal powers proclaimed by the US government will be overturned and constitutional law restored to all Americans. We need a Republican president to restore our freedoms and our rights.
I challange anyone to say differently. It is either a freedom platform under Romney or the police state platform created and enforced solely by the Obama administration.
Nobody can dispute the Republicans are planning on overturning all the extra legal police state powers that democrats have single handedly enforced on Americans against the constitutional protections we should be afforded as American citizens.
We in this democracy are afforded a clear choice to right the wrongs of an out of control government. We can vote Republican and change all those police state measures, or we can affirm those police state measures by voting Democrat. Be thankful we have this clear choice and an opportunity to self government via our votes.
Well Jack, hate to break it to ya. But the last Republican President ushered in this era and the fight "against terrorism" where anyone with a heartbeat was either a terrorist and could be detained for no reason under the "circumstances" or get a mortgage. Take your pick.
EDIT: failed to see your sarc?
Sarcasm?!
Jack Burton is the voice of reason not lunacy.
EDIT: Nevermind! :)
When has an incoming president ever rolled back an expansion of power gained under a previous administration? My first thought reading this was also - sarcasm?
..differently.now,why don't you do some reading,'stead of spreading shite?romney will enforce ndaa,per romney...troll on..
you're really very good at this Jack.
some of us know your voice, read your posts. . .
Self evident that the case I made above is the case our establishemnt powers that be would attempt to make. We ALL of course can see that the absolute opposite of what I wrote is true. Clearly some can be forgiven if they took my post at face value, there are after all ZH posters who would believe just what I wrote, and they would be deluded to think that either party offers change.
The police state was put into effect under Mr. Bush and reinforced under Obama, looking at Romney, one can guess he wil take it up a notch not dismantle it.
....there are after all ZH posters who would believe just what I wrote...
There are others of us knew you better and you had your tongue in your cheek.
"When people ask me "Have ya paid your dues Jack?" I say, Yes Sir the check is in the mail"
Jack Burton - Big Trouble in Little China.
NDAA - signed into law December 31, 2011. New years eve, half the nation is drunk or getting ready to party.
...kind of like...
Federal Reserve Act passed in The House, on December 22, 1913 (298 yeas to 60 nays, with 76 not voting)
Federal Reserve Act passed in The Senate, on December 23, 1913 (43 yeas to 25 nays with 27 not voting)
On Christmas Eve, 2009, President Obama quietly signed an executive order transferring bad bank debts to Freddie, ultimately taxpayers. at full face value.
Of all the complaints lodged against Obama, none can equal the President removing all the rights of an American citizen and imprisoning him without trial or single-handedly ordering his execution without any exhibition of public evidence.
Regardless of the danger posed by a Romney presidency on these issues, our immediate objective is to plead with Americans through their representatives to remove Obama from office immediately. He needs to resign or be removed right now. If Romney succeeds him and follows this same course, then our objective should be to have him removed. There can be no future for an America which walks the path of the Pol Pots, the Joseph Stalins, the Maos, the Hitlers, and the Caesars who became the law.
Chris Hedges increased the awareness of the totalitarian threat to America which wrought these comments here and those now spreading on the Interent; this greater awareness leads to the next step against the regime. And after that, an even stronger step.
Are the chains tight? Yes, the government could not even wait for the appeal review, an immediate stay was necessary. Has the tyranny gone deeper than most people realized? Yes.
Can it eventually be overturned? Yes. It’s either overturned by the people’s representatives or it is overturned by the people using other means.
This is truly ironic: The Afghan government is refusing to continue indefinite administrative detention with the turn over of American prisons. Maybe the Afghans should be coming the the U.S. to teach us about democracy and freedom!
"An Afghan judicial panel ruled Monday that administrative detention violates Afghan law, potentially thwarting a US plan to hand over Afghan detainees that American officials believe should continue to be held without a trial.
"President Hamid Karzai's office announced in a statement that a top-level judicial panel met earlier in the day and decided that the detention of Afghan citizens without a court trial 'has not been foreseen in Afghan laws' and therefore could not be used.
Obama = Jimmy Carter
Worse than Carter. For starters, Carter was an American.
Patriotism has morphed into Nationalism.
So-called "conservatives" now advocate big government.
Irrational fear of foreigners and "others" is rampant.
Compromising civil liberties for the illusion of safety is the norm.
Markets are manipulated for political gains.
Fascism has already arrived.
It's becoming ever clearer to me that the neo-con forces that took over America in their cabal of 2000, when Scalia decided the Florida recount would "damage" George W Bush, thus the recount should end, is still firmly in power. When in our country's history have we seen a Democractic President, and an alleged "Constitutional scholar" at that, do so much to shred the document and toss it in the round file?
I sincerely believe our votes make no difference; which party is in "control" makes no difference, because the "real" power lies beyond the electorate.
The time is coming when Americans will need to get real about tough issues such as treason and war crimes. Some of us had hope (there's that word again) that Obama would change (there's the other word) the direction Bush took us in and would actually take action against those who at the very least looked the "other way" on 9/11, then drove our country into two needless wars and inflamed the Mideast.
Obama is showing his true colors by his aggressive actions on NDAA and it should send a cold chill down your spine. It certainly does in my case.
Obama = fascist
The cultural belief that we can make things happen by thinking, by visualizing, by wanting them, by tapping into our inner strength or by understanding that we are truly exceptional is magical thinking. We can always make more money, meet new quotas, consume more products and advance our career if we have enough faith. This magical thinking, preached to us across the political spectrum by Oprah, sports celebrities, Hollywood, self-help gurus and Christian demagogues, is largely responsible for our economic and environmental collapse, since any Cassandra who saw it coming was dismissed as “negative.” This belief, which allows men and women to behave and act like little children, discredits legitimate concerns and anxieties. It exacerbates despair and passivity. It fosters a state of self-delusion. The purpose, structure and goals of the corporate state are never seriously questioned. To question, to engage in criticism of the corporate collective, is to be obstructive and negative. And it has perverted the way we view ourselves, our nation and the natural world. The new paradigm of power, coupled with its bizarre ideology of limitless progress and impossible happiness, has turned whole nations, including the United States, into monsters. -- CHedges (h/t jesse)
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/88/chris-hedges.html
...the mirror image of the law is well defined by the dead, that are not in Christ.
Gay Pride Commander of U.S. armed forces, loved by Al Q up a dead Ambassador, and that aborted God, will never secure anyone.
Hedges got set up.
doze musslims in afganastan are only fitin us cos day are jellous of are freedomes.
we have to kill all foren peeples so day can be free like us