"Obama’s lofty ideals of 2007, unfortunately, happen to be a matter of record. However, on New Year’s Eve last year [2012] the same Obama as President signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which granted the government the power to put US citizens in military detention indefinitely, without the usual recourse to civil courts. In particular, the law authorized the detention of anyone who had "substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or ‘associated’ forces engaged in hostilities against the US or its coalition partners."But in a lawsuit brought by internationally-renowned journalist Chris Hedges, a preeminent modern-era public intellectual Noam Chomsky, and Daniel Ellsberg [of Pentagon Papers fame] it was argued that the NDAA law was so broad that it infringed the petitioners’ First Amendment rights. After strenuous arguments to the contrary from the Obama Justice Department, US District Judge Katherine Forrest, a recent Obama appointee, granted a preliminary injunction. She wrote that the government had not argued that "activities protected by the First Amendment could not subject an individual to indefinite military detention under the NDAA. The First Amendment of the US Constitution provides for greater protection: it prohibits Congress from passing any law abridging speech and associational rights. To the extent that the NDAA purports to encompass protected First Amendment activities, it is unconstitutionally overbroad." The judge also held that the "due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment require that an individual understand what conduct might subject him or her to criminal or civil penalties. Here, the stakes get no higher: indefinite military detention - potential detention during a war on terrorism that is not expected to end in the foreseeable future, if ever. The Constitution requires specificity - and that specificity is absent from the NDAA." Obama’s Justice Department lawyers told the court that the issue was none of its business, and that, at most, courts could consider individual habeas corpus petitions after US citizens had already been detained – a line of thought the court rejected out of hand: "That argument is without merit and, indeed, dangerous . . . If only habeas review is available to those detained under NDAA, even US citizens on US soil, core constitutional rights available in criminal matters would simply be eliminated. No court can accept this proposition and adhere truthfully to its oath.""
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 21:15:29 +0000
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