National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012.
Even when asked for assurances an amendment failed
An amendment intended to forbid the indefinite detention of U.S. citizen the amendment was rejected by a vote of 38-60.
Personally I would have rejected it because I believe everyone is entitled to a fair trial and due process.
Well at least two out of three of my State's representatives voted against this piece of garbage. I agree with many that it has not added any powers not previously usurped by the Bush administration, it does however enshrine it into one piece of legislation.
At least when McCarthyism was rampant the menace was vaguely understandable since the threat of mutually assured destruction was conceivable, we are under no such threat today; no matter how loudly Pamela Geller wails.
It brings one line in a song we have all sung at one time or another back to mind.
"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave"
Really?
Our bravery has brought us in a mere decade:
The Patriot Act in all its many versions and variously hyperbolic-patriotic titles and fear mongering.
The Homeland Security Act 2002 which improved on the governments ability under the Patriot act to justify "reasonable belief" to mean anything they deemed it to be.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 that usurped what many of us believed to be our fundamental right of habeas corpus.
NSPD-51 which is all fine and dandy if you trust whoever is in office explicitly.
Not to mention two bloody and pointless wars. No doubt, when the dust settles, we will soon be calling Iraq a hotbed of Muslim extremism.
We have the wonderful term "collateral damage" to redefine blown apart innocents thanks to the ultimate in never ending war scenarios "the war on terror" and the proliferation of predator drones. You too can blow up your "enemies" from the peace and quiet of your own dictatorial palace ring MIC-PRED-ATOR now.
Well, I suppose we did get Bin Laden for all the pain, loss of life, economic waste for our loss of liberty. It was all worth the price, we won didn't we?
Don't you just love the fuzzy protected feeling that you get when you read these various documents? Don't you just love the warm glow you get when you are called "a traitor" when you object to any of them, just like the time we called our wars of revenge and convenience idiotic?
To Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Peter Welch I send my thanks and support, as for Senator Patrick Leahy, I'm tempted to quote Dick Cheney.
As for the promised, now reneged, presidential veto for all the wrong reasons, I will defer comment as it would likely get me banned.
It all seems to boil down to, who you define to be a "threat" and who is doing the defining.
My question remains, who do you trust enough?
As with the "War on Terror" it is whom you define at any given time is doing the terrorizing and that depends where you are sitting at that time.