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The problem isn't the NDAA. It's Public Law 107-40, the original 2001 Al Qaeda AUMF. Here's the problematic language:

    (a) IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use all necessary
    and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons
    he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist
    attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such
    organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of
    international terrorism again the United States by such nations,
    organizations or persons

Compare to the 1991 AUMF for the first Gulf War:

    (a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized, subject to subsection
    (b), to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations
    Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve
    implementation of Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664,
    665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677.
     
    (b) REQUIREMENT FOR DETERMINATION THAT USE OF MILITARY FORCE IS
    NECESSARY- Before exercising the authority granted in subsection (a),
    the President shall make available to the Speaker of the House of
    Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his
    determination--
     
    (1) that the United States has used all appropriate diplomatic and
    other peaceful means to obtain compliance by Iraq with the United
    Nations Security Council resolutions cited in subsection (a); and
     
    (2) that those efforts have not been and would not be successful in
    obtaining such compliance.

It is hard to get much worse than that. The NDAA doesn't make it worse; in fact, by putting pen to paper and outlining specific circumstances in which the US can use its military to detain people, it ostensibly makes it better (it is hard to imagine making the 2001 or 2003 AUMF better without repealing it and starting over, though).

The Alex Jones take on the NDAA would be that it's a huge executive overreach and a sign that the current administration favors an overt authorization of Latin American-style "disappearings" of suspected terrorists. Apart from the 2001-2003 context those febrile rants exclude, there is also the fact that the House and Senate GOP wanted the 2012 NDAA to expand the powers available to the executive to combat terrorism.

It is also possible to be disquieted by detention and due process provisions in a war powers act while simultaneously understanding the context in which a reasonable person could assert them. For example, without some provision for detaining US citizens abroad, how would you lawfully handle any armed conflict with the Taliban? There are more than 300MM Americans. Some of them will win the lottery, and others will in fact fly to Pakistan to train with militants, as has already happened repeatedly. US military forces will eventually encounter them in armed conflict. In every war, there is always going to some due process concern regarding the handling of possible US citizens taking up arms to fight alongside our opponents.

The Al Qaeda AUMF is ridiculously overbroad and needs to be fixed. But the NDAA, a utility bill that happens every year to fund the military, is not a re-ratification of that act, nor does it create a civil liberties regime in the US comparable to that of China.

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Notice that the 2001 AUMF, which was written in a panic, authorizes arbitrary force with no mitigating effort required not only against nations but against "organizations" and "persons", and continues to authorize those efforts so long as they might prevent future acts of terrorism. It is hard to get much worse than that. The NDAA doesn't make it worse; in fact, by putting pen to paper and outlining specific circumstances in which the US can use its military to detain people, it ostensibly makes it better (it is hard to imagine making the 2001 or 2003 AUMF better without repealing it and starting over, though).

The Alex Jones take on the NDAA would be that it's a huge executive overreach and a sign that the current administration favors an overt authorization of Latin American-style "disappearings" of suspected terrorists. Apart from the 2001-2003 context those febrile rants exclude, there is also the fact that the House and Senate GOP wanted the 2012 NDAA to expand the powers available to the executive to combat terrorism.

It is also possible to be disquieted by detention and due process provisions in a war powers act while simultaneously understanding the context in which a reasonable person could assert them. For example, without some provision for detaining US citizens abroad, how would you lawfully handle any armed conflict with the Taliban? There are more than 300MM Americans. Some of them will win the lottery, and others will in fact fly to Pakistan to train with militants, as has already happened repeatedly. US military forces will eventually encounter them in armed conflict. In every war, there is always going to some due process concern regarding the handling of possible US citizens taking up arms to fight alongside our opponents.

The Al Qaeda AUMF is ridiculously overbroad and needs to be fixed. But the NDAA, a utility bill that happens every year to fund the military, is not a re-ratification of that act, nor does it create a civil liberties regime in the US comparable to that of China.

I'm the one bringing up Alex Jones, as a way of being derisive about people who equate the US and China on the auspices that "the US has made policy mistakes and China has made policy mistakes so what's the difference?". I'm sorry that I accidentally implied that you, specifically, were regurgitating Infowars points.

I don't care, except for two things. First, when people bring up the NDAA, they set off a "someone's wrong on the Internet" sensor that, as a nerd, I am unable to suppress. Second, as much as Internet psuedo-activists do not want to hear this, the "NDAA" issue is in fact a corner case in US policy. Indefinite detention of political dissidents in China is not a corner case. It is a daily fact of life, as it is elsewhere in the world.

You can make millions of dollars spinning conspiracy theories about the evils of the government and big corporations in America, and the reality is, nobody really cares. Try doing that in Russia; see how long it takes for you or your coworkers to end up dead.