Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA
rt.com
rt.com
Sooner or later, my public announcement of this disgust is going to place me on a list of people that are seen as dissenters, since all of our electronic communication is now being logged for posterity. That list will at some point be renamed "terrorists".
At some point in the future (as a non-American), the United States would find it legally acceptable that I can be targeted by a drone and blown up into little pieces. Should wife, my children (one a toddler and the other a baby) happen to be present, then they will be considered "collateral damage".
I love the idea of the American dream and the spirit of free speech and the glorious constitution that you have / had in America, but I'm sorry, you've just lost me. I'm like a lover you just beat up for the first time. I've lost that sparkle of first love. I'm crying inside. I'm scared to show you that emotion, because I'm afraid you'll use it against me.
You're a bully and there is no teacher to get you back in line. You scare me.
I know this will get downvoted to hell, but I just had to splurge my mind.
Are you sure? If half of the US citizenship also expresses public disgust at the same thing, there's not much use in making a list; that list may as well be the phone book.
Only, that's not going to happen, is it?
As a foreigner, this list could prevent me entering the United States. Comments posted on Twitter and Facebook have been used as reasons to reject people from entering the US in recent times.
Remember that US citizens get different rules to everyone else. UN charters such as those on prisoner's of war, human rights and torture have been ripped up by the last two US administrations. It is pertinent to note that the US does it's brutality outside the US and generally away from the eyes of its own citizens. Other brutal regimes tend to fall quickly because they do that to their own.
As I see it from the outside, your country has been stolen from you without your knowledge. It is organisations like Wikileaks and people like Edward Snowden that have started to tell us all the truth. This is why they are so important, and so very very dangerous to the powers behind the throne.
Ok, tin foil hat time:
Imagine for a minute that Obama and Bush both entered
into power without nefarious aims. Imagine that you sit
in the Oval Office on day one of your presidency when
some guy in a black suit gets shown in.
He says "Good morning Mr President" and presents you
with a little black folder. You open the folder and flick
through the pages and pages of documents, reading it slowly.
You look up and say to the man, "Who are you? What do you want?".
The man gives you a cell phone and says, "You keep this phone
with you at all times. You do not question the person at the
other end. You do not speak about this to anyone else. You'll have
some wins as president if you play ball, but otherwise we own you".
That kind of power makes sure that politicians do their bidding. Whoever "they" are.
Ok, tin-foil hat back in the drawer...
Instead, it gets to be front page material for hours while goofy comments like this accumulate.
And this "goofy" comment was marked as "tin hat" by the author himslef, so I only took it half serious.
The scenario was intended to be completely fictional. It doesn't necesarily need to be the US and could just have likely to be somewhere like the UK. This could be 20 years down the line.
It was intended to demonstrate an extreme, where the intimate knowledge of someone's entire personal life by the state is exploitable by a malicious entity. Snowden is an example of a whistle-blower. His ex-co-workers could just as easily be blackmailers.
Maybe that's Hoover 2.0?
Someone that noone knew, a woman to be more exact, once showed up with some documents, showed some to him (without allowing him to read them all or too much), then asked: "Do you want to become mayor?"
The person I knew replied: "Yes, why not?"
The woman: "Alright. I call you later." (mind you, she never asked for his phone).
Indeed, she called, and told him that if he wanted to become mayor, to do what she told him to do, and talk with her in a certain place at a certain time.
He asked why, and tried to convince her to do it in a manner that is less weird and shady...
Then she told him: "Your call, if you want to become mayor, do as we tell you, otherwise we will choose someone else."
He gave up.
And I wonder who will win the elections next year in that town... (there are currently no obvious candidates or popular politicians, the only would that would be a automatic win is the current mayor that is already re-elected and thus cannot be a candidate at all)
And yet, that was not enough to topple the regime, that only happened later. You'll probably find that the phonebook can become very fat indeed.
They are already doing what your claiming they cannot possibly do. Its time to acknowledge that there is very little they cannot do, or worse are doing that we still haven't found out
Surely that just demonstrates poor knowledge of history? I mean, between the unethical experimentation on its own citizens of the 20th century and before, Japanese internment camps, the Gulf of Tonkin, the overthrowing of democratic governments in Iran, Iran-Contra, drone attacks for the past 7+ years, Guantanamo, the illegal invasion of Iraq, retroactive immunity for executors of some of the aforementioned...(and that's just off the top of my rather poor memory), how could your disdain have only recently arisen?
I find that a better analogy would be an uncle who gave you nice Christmas presents, so you ignored the persistent rumours that he molested your cousins. And now you're starting to receive the same treatment.
If you want to influence someone, it helps to understand their motivations. I can't conceive of what Obama has in mind with pursuing this law against resistance.
Is it not obvious to everyone the unwanted side-effects of this kind of power? Is it not obvious how much this flies in the face of the intent of the people who wrote the Constitution. Or more relevantly the Declaration of Independence? Obama is a lawyer! He's intelligent. What can he be thinking? Did he forget the purpose and spirit of the Bill of Rights as he and advisors schemed to get around its letters?
Those revolutionaries would have all been labeled terrorists today. With the King in England, any colonist would have been an enemy combatant, stripped of rights, jailed or worse arbitrarily, and who knows what else.
Whether the United States has become what we rebelled against is not the question. If nothing changes, it's only a matter of time. This country has gotten rid of slavery and overcome major hurdles of sexual and racial inequality. Let's hope we have what it takes to overcome this centralization of power and unaccountability. And that we act on it.
The eastern half thrived, and even reconquered Rome and Spain, under Justinian. This was a continuation of the exact same government, no fall from power, just a loss of some territory. They lost Rome back fairly quickly and were controlling various parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa on and off until they entered terminal decline after 12-1300 or so, and Constantinople finally fell to the Turks, with the last Emperor dying in the battle in 1452.
But they had a much harder time dealing with the huge influx of displaced Germanic tribes due to the (Mongols iirc?). The western half of the empire started down the road to things like castles and other behavior like large estates that directly fed into the middle ages. Diocletian and his division of things into dioceses also helped, but I think once they started down the path of dual Augustus/Caesar rule it was bound to fail due to the inevitable clashes of personality.
That said its a great story. A good overview of things is in the "History of Rome" podcast. http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/
Its long, but not as bad as The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. That book, the horrors.
Just before Caesar came along and get into a fight with the Senate. Congress' approval ratings are so low it really wouldn't take much for a powerful populist movement to challenge the constitutional makeup.
You might want to check folks approval ratings of their own congressperson. The overall rating is horrid, but the "mine" is generally quite good.
...Although a part of me fantasizes about the freedom which existed in Dark Ages....
This is one of the huge ironies about contemporary conservatives. They practically worship the founding fathers like gods, but they would have hated many of them if they met them today, as many were godless radical liberals.
The most extreme example of this for me was when D'Souza and other republicans accused Barack Obama of being anti-colonialist [1], specifically in the context of British occupation, and they meant that in a bad way(!) Surely if nothing else, our country was founded on the principle of opposition to British colonialism.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10...
And then, when something like this comes up, that actually does threaten our rights, crickets? Not only crickets but cooperation from the least cooperative congress possibly in history? What the fuck, guys?
First line of the article: "The Obama administration has won the latest battle in their fight to indefinitely detain US citizens and foreigners suspected of being affiliated with terrorists under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012."
Your link: "...enemy combatants, including U.S. citizens, but ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the rights of due process,"
We've got 2 issues there, 'enemy combatants' requires a bit more proof than 'suspected of terrorism', although things can be fudged like in the Bradley Manning case. Then we have the whole due process.
The 5th amendment: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
The parts about the armed forces apply to military justice for troops, when wartime discipline is invoked. It's not saying that "when you're at war it all goes out the window for ordinary citizens".
Indefinitely detaining someone based on suspicion, without a requirement of due process or a way to appeal, is quite clearly unconstitutional although I hold little hope for the current Supreme Court to overturn it.
Your right to free speech as an American citizen is only a right so far as the US government continues to respect that right. The Executive branch could come out tomorrow and start detaining anyone they cared to while stating that any criticism of the US Government is now a detainable offense, and it would be legal if the Judicial branch waved it's hands and said "We'll allow it."
Our rights may be "god given", but god cannot protect us from the tyranny of men.
History is pretty clear that what's legal is not always what's right.
The term 'rights' is also a vague one, and can be split fairly easily into those which should be considered universal and those which only apply locally -- for example, I have the right to walk across the road even where there's no designated crossing point, while in the US that would be jaywalking. That's not a universal right and certainly not a constitutionally protected one, but it's a right that's been removed from US citizens (and for good reason too, in some places). On the other hand, I would say that the right to life should be universal. The US is still largely happy with the death penalty and (per an earlier story on HN) the US Government seems to think that extra-judicial killings are fine too. They are apparently lawful under the constitution, and also threaten American citizen's rights.
More like 4.5 than 6, but also for an 8 year period starting about 8 years before that, too.
Liberals don't trust police/military, and are ok with the welfare state. They're generally pretty consistent on this, Obama's signed off on this program, but it's been opposed by many more liberals than conservatives.
Conservatives are the opposite, as evidenced by the reaction to this. When you combine their rhetoric about "Obama's Tyranny" when it comes to marginal tax rates or healthcare reform with their complete silence about things that are actually threatening, it's pathetic.
You're even doing it yourself. 'Bloating the spectrum of government power' is obfuscatory BS. Social workers and teachers don't carry guns or listen to phone calls, yet you're trying to conflate them with the security state.
Liberal Democrats are hypocrites because they spent eight years bashing George W. Bush for his expanding surveillance state--and Obama specifically spoke out against it during his candidacy--yet many of those same liberal Democrats spend their time in Washington defending the current administration's policies. They hated Bush's wars and detainment policies yet say nothing about Obama's continuation of them, the drone strikes, and the general warmongering. This administration has been one long series of broken promises and defensive Democrats. Watching Nancy Pelosi attempt to differentiate between Obama's security state and Bush's security state was mind-boggling.
If you're going to respond that liberals are opposed to all this and don't consider Obama a true liberal because of it, conservatives did the same regarding George W. Bush when his poll numbers went down too. Every time there's a problem, the person in office suddenly doesn't represent you anymore, and you distance yourselves.
Bloating the spectrum of government power refers to desensitization to the growing power the government has to collect information on citizens for its own purposes, from the healthcare database to monitoring phone calls.
I can tell which "side" you're on just from the seething way you talk about the other team. If you took a step back and looked objectively, you'd see that you both come off the same way to independents and have the same transgressions and hypocrisies.
The whole distinction between one element of a set and a whole set seems to be incomprehensible to modern liberals. E.g. the recent example of shooting an attacking black thug had been made an example of racism. Because, obviously, somebody who shoots a black person to protect his life is principally against the entire black race.
Because obviously, one person with a certain ideological bent speaks for every person with that same ideology.
By the way, you should have spoken up if you knew unequivocally that the black thug was the attacker, especially when there was absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever, besides the testimony of accused. You could have really helped your guy's case.
PS. As for your suggestion for me to speak up - luckily prosecution brought a witness who testified that TM had been attacking GZ, so no need for me to do the same.
This square peg of a criminal case was jammed into the round hole of a political issue when Obama made his statement about if Trayvon was his son. Since there are millions of people in this country whose stances on various issues consist singularly of the opposing view of whatever Obama's view on the issue is, George Zimmerman became a conservative hero.
So to paint overreaction and the abandonment of logic and reason as a tenet of liberalism is downright ludicrous.
There is no irony in disagreeing with someone you never viewed as infallible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNS4t5UCBfI. That's what.
I'm repeatedly amused at how the first words of that sentence seem to be ignored by everybody who goes on to demonize Obama. (I made them bold for emphasis.) You almost never hear criticism or blame of Congress over this.
But to your point, congress certainly warrants equal rebuke.
However, what you refer to as unwanted side-effects, are the entire point. Those side-effects, aren't side-effects, they're the goal. Obama is aggressively pursuing these powers, just as Bush did before him. It's not ignorance at work, or misplaced faith in the system; everybody at the top of the food chain understands exactly what this means.
You want to know what he's thinking? He's thinking the same thing every despot in history has thought. If this were 20 or 30 years into the future, with the way things are going, Obama would be a truly frightening monster. The next three or four presidents that come after Obama, are the ones to be afraid of; they'll start off right out of the gate with the kind of power the founding fathers would have understood to be the domain of kings and tyrants.
I think, logically, we're down to only a few options:
1. "he's lying": His stated opinions/positions don't reflect his beliefs at all.
2. "he's powerless": despite being President, he has no practical control over what is pursued, so his speeches and signing statements are essentially a plea for people and historians to not blame him for that which he cannot control.
3. "he's corrupt": Power has corrupted his ideals, and he truly believes he can fairly wield dangerous powers such as the drone kill list and suspension of citizenship/rights, despite their risks, and that having these tools available to him today is more necessary/important than denying them for fear of future abuse.
And none of those possibilities are particularly encouraging.
As for motivation, since 9/11 the course has been set to gradually implement a robust domestic counter-insurgence apparatus. So either the state anticipates otherwise unmanageable instability in the face of climate change, de-inustrialization, etc. or undemocratic changes are planned that could invite domestic insurrection.
The US is reportedly making plans for war with China (http://yalejournal.org/2013/06/12/who-authorized-preparation...), so that could be an effort requiring unprecedented austerity/authoritarianism.
Let's prevent freedom of thought, and lead the public to believe that while we actually feel threatened by the idea of communal sharing and the concept of Marxism, which we feel is harmful to the kickbacks that we receive from corporations to do what we want, Communism is actually just another word for an oppressive regime, and not a political concept derived by a highly intelligent German philosopher that has enormous benefits worldwide.
So, here's the plan: we invade 'Nam. If they're the first communist regime that actually works, the public will know we've been lying to them.
Shit, that didn't work. Okay, so there's this pretty harmless socialist dude running for office in Chile, let's call him a communist and make an example out of him. All right, let's get OUR candidate out, and-- HOLY SHIT, HE'S WON! We have succeeded. Even though Pinochet is an oppressive dictator and a mockery of democracy, let's keep him there anyway, because HE'S NOT COMMUNIST! Thank the lord. Thank, the, lord. Because he isn't communist, the public will never know that Chile is now oppressed!
So, reestablishing my point once again -- this has been going on long before 9/11, it's just that 9/11 has supercharged the process by giving the U.S. government a boost in doing so. There's a difference, though -- now we actually KNOW that the U.S. government is corrupt. It's no longer "you're with us or with the communists" or "you're with us or with the terrorists." What matters is how hard we push these people. The only way to do that is to educate. Mainstream media is a waste of time, and while Al Jazeera tends to be far more accurate and unbiased in its reporting, I don't know how well Americans will take to watching an Arabic-sponsored channel.
More high-profile names like Soledad O'Brien, and it should be enough.
If a power exists, it will be abused. Period. It's only a matter of time. That's the whole premise behind checks and balances and due process. You don't leave power in the hands of a few, but the many.
Ah yes, here we go, a great quote from "A Man For All Seasons": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9rjGTOA2NA
This way we don't get the unaccountable second term crap we see a lot of.
Things that come to mind are the absolute restriction to a two party system and the concentration on a leader figure, ie. the identification of the government with one person. But from my limited point of view both of those things are at the core of the US political identity, utterly entrenched.
Usually the president is working so that his successor will be from his chosen party. Who thinks the next president will be a Democrat? (It doesn't really matter if you think Republican is better or worse - if they are not happy people will switch.)
Because the is the President of the United States of America.
I'm building software. But who says the algorithms I develop cannot be used maliciously, just because I won't do so myself?
What the Obama administration has done with this is more akin to creating an API for future leaders to exploit the people without recourse.
Once upon a time, someone made a hammer. A year later, someone else took that hammer and used it to break someone's face in. Sad face.
Happy?
> Because the alternative is doing nothing.
If you can't make these decisions without doing either, then you don't belong in that position. As idealistic as that may be, society is far more organic than mere algorithms and functions; thus capable of being reformulated as necessary.
And right now, it's necessary.
I recognize that you believe this alternative exists. I don't. I believe every action that could be taken is wrong, including no action. I believe that one of the core properties of any system is exploitability, including legal systems.
> As idealistic as that may be, society is far more organic than mere algorithms and functions; thus capable of being reformulated as necessary.
...how many instances of "reformulation" can you name of society, as compared to systems of algorithms and functions? Changing society in a meaningful and directed manner is damn near impossible. Algorithms get reformulated hourly.
I'm not sure whether this applies much in the kinds of situations where this in particular is used, but in this country people have rights such as silence that can be circumvented because suspected terrorists are treated differently and have fewer rights - those who don't cooperate will continue to be treated as terrorists.
[1] Some people think it's worse.
If, hypothetically, there actually is a ticking bomb somewhere (this has never happened that we know of), just break the law. You'll sort it out later. If you were right, there will be a pardon, if you were wrong, you'll go to jail.
In every other possible scenario, the law should protect rights of the accused.
It's like the question in Swordfish, would you be willing to sacrifice the life of an innocent to save 10,000 people's lives? How about 2 innocents? What about 500?
Once you start to consider making those kinds of trade offs it's a very slippery slope. It seems to me the only correct answer is 0. There is no acceptable trade off to try and counter irrational actions.
> 'extraordinary renditions', were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of the host government.... The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: "Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.'"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
FTFA:
> Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA, but Mr. Obama said in an accompanying signing statement that he will not abuse these privileges to keep American citizens imprisoned indefinitely
How could this possibly not end up with someone abusing it? Without due process, the executive branch basically has carte blanche to do whatever the hell it wants. Political opponents. People you don't like. People in the media. Whistleblowers. No one has any rights any more. All it would take is for a covert agent or hacker to plant bomb making material on your computer to detain (and torture) you until you die.
Everyone knows that this is illegal. Everyone knows that this is insanely stupid. Everyone knows that this will be abused. Everyone knows that this is against the constitution.
Shit still happens anyway.
The terrorists fucking won. They've destroyed America, and they didn't even have to lift a finger to do it. We did it all on our very own.
I'm tired. So very tired.
If such actions are committed on US soil, this section will not be applicable. So this is about arresting and detaining, indefinitely, someone on foreign land. Land where the US government has no jurisdiction. Am I missing something here?
I.E. Not technically detained by the U.S. but they are detained the request of U.S. officials. It's the most flagrant (and disgusting) use of plausible deniability.
By the way. These sites in Europe were discussed, could be/are widely known, but I really do not see anyone here up in arms against these sites. On the contrary, a lot of people think of them as something good, as they are clearly there, to get rid of some nasty terrorists. And that only. And as long, as it is the poster-boy for democracy (the US) doing it and not say China, nearly (a very little exaggeration) everybody just goes along.
It is said that the enemies of the USA hate the USA for its freedom. Well, what you describe is American freedom, freedom for Americans to abuse non Americans on non American soil, with the backing of American law and power.
I have to be honest here, I too hate those freedoms.
Furthermore, Obama promises that he will not abuse the right, but he can't vouch for his successors; having such laws in place is just an accident waiting to happen.
When I was young, America was a model country. At least that's what I though at the time with my limited knowledge. I always wanted to go there and maybe live there. Now I don't think I'd go there even if I was offered money. I had met many Americans and they were all very nice, smart people. It's such a shame that they have to put up to this. But I always believed people get what they deserve in democracies. If American people really are sick of this stuff, they should act instead of sitting in front of their computers and whine about how Obama has changed.
Sure, he'll just ask someone else to do it...
Rough approximation.
As boilerplate modern republican as they come
Either way, what's scary about this it's that it's happening under normal conditions. At least if they could declare an emergency state, or officially declare the war against those "enemy combatants", because then you'd know that they may get some extra-judicial powers, but only temporary.
But you can imagine this will last forever, because US will never be at "more peace" than they are right now, and it's all because how they are acting abroad. So don't think these laws will ever change unless more people speak out against them and hold their Congress accountable for it.
Its not a NY Court, it is the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. (Its seat is in New York, but that's hardly relevant to anything.)
And, yes, they've heard of the Constitution. They apparently read it differently than you do. If you want to criticize the decision, feel free.
> Either way, what's scary about this it's that it's happening under normal conditions. At least if they could declare an emergency state
You mean like the one declared on September 14, 2001, that has been repeatedly extended since?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/11/messag...
It is something so basic and fundamental that every person here has to learn it and what it means as a child. Every politician hast to have a deep understanding of why that is so fundamentally important, else he really shouldn't be entrusted with any kind of political position in any kind of republic.
It's something that is known since the antique and has been strengthened by any bad government that appeared throughout history, so how is it that such a law (or actually anti-law) is possible and not uniformly rejected in first place?
It should be obvious, but there was never any danger of the Judicial or Legislative to have too much power for itself.
At the moment, the Supreme Court/Judiciary is being usurped by by the use of secret FISA court as a sort of rival supreme court. The Legislature is essentially viewed with contempt and lied to with impunity by by the executive(Clapper, Alexander, etc.)
While on the whole, legal standing is a good doctrine and litmus test, when it comes to laws and practices such as these, I cannot help but think we need to advocate for change to interpreting the validity of the case and the need to adjudicate on constitutional questions through legal standing alone.
This is off the cuff, but I find it very unhelpful when the Congress and President can enact and execute laws that cannot be questioned in the courts by concerned citizens unless they have been or can arguably prove legal standing. Challenging the constitutionality of laws should not require that one's rights and liberty be violated beforehand.
I wonder how many people would support another Obama term, despite existing term limits and his actions. My guess is a lot.