I'm just putting the question out there, not taking a position. Just yesterday it seems the claim that the government was preparing to give itself the power to sweep Americans into indefinite military detention without charge or trial, on the say-so of a nameless, faceless executive branch bureaucrat whose agenda you will never know, seemed the ultimate in tin-foil. Now not only has this come to pass, it has come to pass openly and without apology in a 93-7 vote of the U.S. Senate, by names we all know, who have blithely ignored all entreaty and seem to fear not the wrath of the people.
Republican Congressman Justin Amash has bluntly told us that skullduggery is afoot when he told The Grand Rapids Press that the S. 1867 National Defense Authorization Act's military detention provisions are “carefully crafted to mislead the public”. A lone congressman stands up to sound the alarm, falling like a tree in an empty forest. Where are the progressives? Where is Barbara Lee? Where is John Conyers?
No less staid a publication than the Christian Science Monitor recently reported:
"Legislation passed by the Senate this week and headed for the House – and a possible presidential veto – could allow the US military to detain American citizens indefinitely...A last minute amendment allows the president to waive the authority based on national security and to hold a terror suspect in civilian rather than military custody. But the bill would deny US citizens suspected of being terrorists the right to trial, subjecting them to indefinite detention, and civil libertarians say the amendment essentially is meaningless."
This is no longer anyone's tin-foil.
And so my question is, and I can't help wondering, is everything King of Conspiracy Alex Jones says, like that FEMA camps are being activated, still tin-foil? The specter of combat-booted Joint Special Operations Forces teams busting down your door at four in the morning was always quintessential Jones stuff. Now it's in the Congressional Record.
Obviously everything Jones says should be taken with a grain of salt, although in fairness some of the people he quotes and covers are whistleblowers the major media won't have, like former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds.
I'm not saying believe him, or that I do, about FEMA camps or anything else. What I'm saying is, given the Senate's tipping of the government's hand last week, accompanied by what can only be called a major media blackout which is even more disturbing, when Jones says he has received documents from government insiders showing KBR is contracting services for temporary fencing and barricades, laundry and medical services, power generation, refuse collection, catering and other services required for temporary “emergency environment” camps,all immediately after the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), shouldn't a REAL journalist take the trouble to check it out so that, true or false, it doesn't have to be coming from Alex Jones?
Then there are stories which are confirmed which seem to buttress this militarization, like this TheDaily.com report on the Pentagon giving local police departments military equipment, definitely not on primetime:
A rapidly expanding Pentagon program that distributes used military equipment to local police departments — many of them small-town forces — puts battlefield-grade weaponry in the hands of cops at an unprecedented rate.
Through its little-known “1033 program,” the Department of Defense gave away nearly $500 million worth of leftover military gear to law enforcement in fiscal year 2011 — a new record for the program and a dramatic rise over past years’ totals, including the $212 million in equipment distributed in 2010.
93 senators, led by McCain and Levin, and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said flat out, so that every senator in that chamber could hear it and not misunderstand:
“1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”
What are people going to say? "Hey, just because stormtroopers are a veto away from being able to take you away without charges or trial forever, don't be getting all tin-foil on me?"
Related post:
We Are All Really Bradley Manning Now: Senate Passes Military Detention for American Citizens.
FACT SHEET: S. 1867 NDAA Military Detention of American Citizens