AMERICAN CONSTITUTION OVERRIDEN

welp

I guess those in power missed McCarthyism and wanted it back. Except now we will suspect people of "colluding in terrorism" instead of "being Communist".

i mean those dirty liberties, who really needed em anyway

Honestly, there is nothing positive that can be said about this. It's pretty clear that both our Legislative and Executive branches (yes, including Obama) do not give a flying shit about our civil liberties now. (I don't know about our Judicial branch yet - hopefully they are quite a lot more sensible...)

Kentona, this has been happening ever since the Waco Massacare and The Ruby Ridge attack; It just has become more obvious, that is all. After all, why would the media report a disappearance here and there to the public, and if they did the story would just be altered to make the man and/or his family into criminals that were to be detained for various minor charges.

The more literal interpenetration to this provision would be more like such: As a American citizen, you have the normal rights, unless the government deems otherwise for any reason at all and then you are the same as the other criminals. After such, you will receive the same treatment as they deem fit, for you and your family.

This country has more imprisoned people then even china, all following this recent idea of safety over freedom. America is not the land of the free.
In reality, this provision makes America into a police state, where even if you raise your voice in protest, well... Here comes the arm, and off to prison or even to the gallows with you.

So, as long as a active revolt does not take place in the states, allowing the government to usher in the classic police state, complete with roadblocks and needs for authorization to go from state to state, we can continue to live in this false freedom with "terrorists" being whisked away in the night. It is just like Disney World, in where they comfort you and make you believe that anything is possible, but if you do anything wrong even once, you will find yourself in a new place, a more brutal face to the happy land.

We are not free. They say they are our hope. They say they will keep us safe. They demand our respect, while troding over the promises they have made with wicked lies rolling off of their tongues.

The United States of America, is no longer the land of the free.

Edit: Yes, this is a developing Facist Dictatorship, and every day it becomes worse...

I don't pretend to have a complete understanding of this topic, because I have yet to see any coverage of it from a remotely unbiased source. It SOUNDS really bad, but all coverage I've seen of it has been a) written from the perspective of the far left and b) obvious yellow-journalism and panic mongering. I say this, by the way, as a liberal, as someone who fully supports Occupy Wall Street, etcetera. Obviously I don't support this bill, since it is easily construed as another baby-step towards fascism, but I don't think that it's a giant flying leap there and I don't think that it's the end of the world.

It is entirely possible that I'm being naive, but I like to think I'm being kind of grounded and rational here.

Reading that article, I see that the bill defines covered persons specifically as:

a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.

Unless I am somehow misreading that, which is entirely possible, why are we so worried about this being used against random American citizens for protesting or voicing dissent? They do not fall into the category of "persons who were a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in blowing up our dudes". Honestly, skimming the article I don't see anything in the bill that supports these powers being used against anyone but Muslim fundie terrorists.

Which, incidentally I'm kind of fine with, because as the movie Red State puts it "because fuck these people".

I think that the NDAA is not good, but I think it's largely a "moral panic" type phenomenon that's causing it to be interpreted as the absolute dissolution of all of our American writes and civil liberties. If the issue is one of it setting a precedent, then I'm not sure how being able to suspend the rights of US Citizens working for the Taliban sets a precedent for anything. It seems like a hell of a leap from US Citizens working for the Taliban to all US citizens.

tl;dr to me the Patriot Act was much scarier and that happened ten years ago. But I could be wrong. I'm not a political scholar. So if anyone can explain why I'm wrong, I guess I'll just have to accept the fact that I have one more serious thing to worry about.

I just think you're all being a little bit...dramatic? I hate being in the position of "wait guys, it's not that bad" as that's really not very punk or revolutionary of me at all, but I don't know...I have a lot of faith in America not to suck any worse than a certain level of sucking. Maybe too much faith.

author=Max McGee
Unless I am somehow misreading that, which is entirely possible, why are we so worried about this being used against random American citizens for protesting or voicing dissent? They do not fall into the category of "persons who were a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in blowing up our dudes". Honestly, skimming the article I don't see anything in the bill that supports these powers being used against anyone but Muslim fundie terrorists.

I think the problem here is that they're never required to prove you were connected to Al-qaeda or even charge you with anything. They can literally arrest you for any reason and hold you forever without any due process. That's why people are up in arms.

From wikipedia:

All persons arrested and detained according to the provisions of section 1031, including those detained on U.S. soil, whether detained indefinitely or not, are required to be held by the United States Armed Forces. The requirement does not extend to U.S. citizens. Lawful resident aliens may or may not be required to be detained by the Armed Forces, "on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States."

From the bill:

15 (b) APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES CITIZENS
16 AND LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—
17 (1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS.—The require
18 ment to detain a person in military custody under
19 this section does not extend to citizens of the United
20 States.
21 (2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—The require
22 ment to detain a person in military custody under
23 this section does not extend to a lawful resident
24 alien of the United States on the basis of conduct
25 taking place within the United States, except to the
1 extent permitted by the Constitution of the United
2 States.

Have a nice day, people! ...The title of this thread sucks, btw.

author=alterego
From the bill:

15 (b) APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES CITIZENS
16 AND LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—
17 (1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS.—The require
18 ment to detain a person in military custody under
19 this section does not extend to citizens of the United
20 States.
21 (2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—The require
22 ment to detain a person in military custody under
23 this section does not extend to a lawful resident
24 alien of the United States on the basis of conduct
25 taking place within the United States, except to the
1 extent permitted by the Constitution of the United
2 States.

This is classic weasel wording. Look again.

"The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States."

This says they aren't required to detain such people. It doesn't say they can't detain you.

Honestly I'm pretty sure they can already do this and there's no a whole hell of a lot anyone can do about it, so basically I don't think this bill changes anything.

I heard somewhere a few things that could be considered "suspected terrorist behavior". One of them was if your house contains 7 days worth of food(among other common things like owning guns). I'd say the danger lies in what can legally be justified as "suspect behavior".

Wonder what the Supreme Court would say about this?