Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks discusses two of the worst pieces of legislation before Congress with Glenn Greenwald.
They are the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA), on the one hand, which holds hosts responsible for any copyright infringement by anyone on their site. And the other is the provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that explicitly allow US military personnel to arrest Americans and others anywhere in the world and hold them in detention indefinitely without trial.
Cenk wouldn’t have to have this conversation if the majority of the Congress carried about our civil liberties.
“Cared”. How has this come about?
the provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that explicitly allow US military personnel to arrest Americans and others anywhere in the world and hold them in detention indefinitely without trial.
This isn’t true anymore. The “Feinstein Amendment” forbids holding American captured on US soil. From Mother Jones: The bill no longer authorizes the indefinite military detention of Americans captured in the US. That authority was removed from the Senate bill by a compromise amendment that stated nothing in the bill was intended to change existing authority on detention. While Senators such as Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) argue that the president already has the authority to do so based on the 2004 Supreme Court decision Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, that case involved an American captured in Afghanistan. The Supreme Court has not yet weighed in on the constitutionality of indefinite military detention of Americans suspected of terrorism who are apprehended in the US.
The Feinstein Amendment inserted this language:
(e) Authorities- Nothing in this section (that is, Section 1031, which authorizes the military detention) shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities, relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
So, the bill would authorize indefinite military detentions of non-United States persons captured on American soil, and it would authorize indefinite military detention of US citizens captured outside of the US, but not the military detention of US persons arrested in the US.