National Defense Authorization Act Effectively Ends Right to Trial

[mostlymad]

I really wish people took the NDAA more seriously, but around here, the assumption is that if you keep your nose clean, nothing bad can happen to you. If anyone is even suspected of some sort of terrorism, these dolts that live around me think the accused must be terrorists and should get the worst punishment available. There is no such thing as "proving guilt." Suspected guilt is enough to satisfy these people. And if a godless liberal like me or some of my loved ones gets sent out, all the better. There's no making them see the abuse inherent in the proposed NDAA.

[theruiner]

First of all, it's incredibly stupid for them to think their rights being taken away is a good thing in any way, shape or form. Second of all, it can happen to them, but they're too stupid and short-sighted to see it. Third, it's incredibly frightening and shows a lack of humanity to only care about oneself, and to have the attitude of, "Yeah, well, it won't happen to me, so what do I care?" And the entire idea that no one would be falsely accused, that as soon as someone is accused of something they must automatically be guilty, shows a lack of intelligence and common sense that is, frankly, pretty scary.

In other words, people are stupid. And there are a lot of stupid people in this God damn country.

[mostlymad]

First of all, it's incredibly stupid for them to think their rights being taken away is a good thing in any way, shape or form. Second of all, it can happen to them, but they're too stupid and short-sighted to see it. Third, it's incredibly frightening and shows a lack of humanity to only care about oneself, and to have the attitude of, "Yeah, well, it won't happen to me, so what do I care?" And the entire idea that no one would be falsely accused, that as soon as someone is accused of something they must automatically be guilty, shows a lack of intelligence and common sense that is, frankly, pretty scary.In other words, people are stupid. And there are a lot of stupid people in this God damn country.

Remember when Bush was getting a 30% approval rating? Well, I'm pretty sure at *least* 3/5 of those who approved lived in NKY. (Dreaming of the day I leave this nightmare behind.)Arguing with them is like talking to someone under water. "Security" and "Iraq invasion" go hand in hand with allowing the guvmint to do as they please to people they automatically assume were involved in "the killing of 3000 of my people."I sometimes wonder what is in the water.

[Magtig]

Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial (WIRED)

Here’s the best thing that can be said about the new detention powers the Senate has tucked into next year’s defense bill: They don’t force the military to detain American citizens indefinitely without a trial. They just let the military do that. And even though the leaders of the military and the spy community have said they want no such power, the Senate is poised to pass its bill as early as tonight.
There are still changes swirling around the Senate, but this looks like the basic shape of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act

. Someone the government says is “a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an associated force” can be held in military custody “without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Those hostilities are currently scheduled to

end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects.

But far more dramatically, the detention mandate to use indefinite military detention in terrorism cases isn’t limited to foreigners. It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”An amendment that would limit military detentions to people captured overseas failed on Thursday afternoon. The Senate soundly defeated a measure to strip out all the detention provisions on Tuesday. So despite the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge, and for the lifespan of an amorphous war that conceivably will never end. And because the Senate is using the bill that authorizes funding for the military as its vehicle for this dramatic constitutional claim, it’s pretty likely to pass.

Senate Rejects Amendment Banning Indefinite Detention (ACLU)

TheSecretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI and the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the NDAA are harmful and counterproductive, and the White House has issued a veto threat

over the provisions.

Even if Obama vetoes this, as he has threatened, the fact that it's even coming to a vote is a clear indication of how completely disease ridden, if not almost completely dead, our civil liberties are in this country.

[Magtig]

Dammit. I didn't see that ruiner posted this in Random General Headlines -the Random Stupidity of the headlines section- which this clearly is not. Can we just post random stupid news in there instead of important issues? Catch all threads suck.

[Pillfred]

Ya my buddy was talking to me about this the other day and at first i thought how is this different that the patriot act, as i understood it from what i could from reading it that it basically already gave them the right to do this anyway. I now see this just puts it out there plain as day and shit's all over everyone indiscriminately now. The most striking thing for me was a quote from some senator about how terrorists are bad blah blah we need this to keep people safe. Are these people really that afraid of the boogy man? It's really fucking sad that it even got this far, if Obama doesn't veto this shit, i won't even know what to think.

[halloween]

Fucking chills down my spine, so goddamn sickening.

it's 2011 people, not 1984..

[orestes]

Dammit. I didn't see that ruiner posted this in Random General Headlines -the Random Stupidity of the headlines section- which this clearly is not. Can we just post random stupid news in there instead of important issues? Catch all threads suck.

Done.

I'm still getting the hang of new mod tools but I think posts in both threads merged well.

[Magtig]

Done.

I'm still getting the hang of new mod tools but I think posts in both threads merged well.

Nice! Thank you, Daphne, it's very seamless.

[theruiner]

Dammit. I didn't see that ruiner posted this in Random General Headlines -the Random Stupidity of the headlines section- which this clearly is not. Can we just post random stupid news in there instead of important issues? Catch all threads suck.

Yeah, I thought about starting a new thread, but I wasn't sure if it was warranted. Guess it was.

You know what really pissed me off about this, though? I posted this on FB and only one person shared it. One. I've got about 70 friends on there and everyone else effectively ignored it. Now, I'm sure there were a decent amount of people that didn't see it, but there had to have been some who did and just shrugged and moved on. I don't know what it takes to get someone's attention and get them to spread information if "you could be thrown in jail indefinitely with no trial" isn't good enough.

[Pillfred]

All thats left is for the military to declare america unfit to govern itself and that they need to take control and set things right. "Excuse me Mr. President, we have reason to believe you may be a terrorist were taking you and all your staff in." I know that sounds almost as crazy as that bill but it is a real possibility.

[mostlymad]

Until those who are capable of ignoring this issue and those who actually think the government would never, ever arrest and indefinitely detain an innocent person actually lose people they love and/or respect, this will be something they choose to avoid thinking about. After all, if it was that bad, won't somebody else take care of it for us? (Note, that last bit there is snark about the attitude I have heard many times.)

[Magtig]

Yeah, I thought about starting a new thread, but I wasn't sure if it was warranted. Guess it was.

You know what really pissed me off about this, though? I posted this on FB and only one person shared it. One. I've got about 70 friends on there and everyone else effectively ignored it. Now, I'm sure there were a decent amount of people that didn't see it, but there had to have been some who did and just shrugged and moved on. I don't know what it takes to get someone's attention and get them to spread information if "you could be thrown in jail indefinitely with no trial" isn't good enough.

I think it's actually better when a board like this is just a tiny bit more messy and freewheeling. We should have ALL the random headlines, including random celebrity headlines, posted individually and mixed in with the rest. It's more cross promotional, and encourages discussions that can be a little bit more tangential, funny, unexpected, etc. In other words, it's cross promotes varying interests, which usually results in increased discussion. I may generally ignore celebrity headlines, but if they're posted individually something might catch my attention, for example. The same thing works in reverse: someone who generally likes celebrity headlines sees something a little more serious that hits closer to home, and they read it. Catch-all threads suck all of this life out of any given forum. If a useless thread is posted, it either gets removed or no one discusses it, and it sinks. /meta crap that probably belongs somewhere else

As far as your other point goes, the same thing happened when the Patriot Act was passed. This problem of cultural nearsightedness is frustratingly ubiquitous. How do we get people to care about important things like this when they aren't being directly affected in a negative way right now? How do we get people to realize that putting money into things like the space program will make us leaders in technology and innovation down the road, when the positive result is unforeseen and latent (even though tons of modern technology came from that exact source)?

[Wretchedest]

^^^ There was a time at the end of the last board, where catch-all threads were really starting to kill it. People were almost afraid to make new threads for subjects and it prevented a lot discussion I think.

I'm also shocked that I don't seeing a lot of people talking about this. On one hand, I doubt it will see much abuse. I don't think the government is planning to "enslave" us per se. On the other hand it is an abonable abandonment of something that's supposed to make the States so wonderful. It's really sad.

The scary part is that no one seems to care that much...

[theruiner]

I'm also shocked that I don't seeing a lot of people talking about this. On one hand, I doubt it will see much abuse. I don't think the government is planning to "enslave" us per se. On the other hand it is an abonable abandonment of something that's supposed to make the States so wonderful. It's really sad.

The scary part is that no one seems to care that much...

I don't think it will really be abused, either, but one time is too many.

And yeah, the apathy of a lot of the population is really disheartening.

[Magtig]

^^^ There was a time at the end of the last board, where catch-all threads were really starting to kill it. People were almost afraid to make new threads for subjects and it prevented a lot discussion I think.

They weren't almost afraid, they were completely afraid. It didn't help that a bunch of people would belittle anyone for posting new threads.

..I doubt it will see much abuse.

I doubt that it will see anything but widespread abuse.

[theruiner]

They weren't almost afraid, they were completely afraid. It didn't help that a bunch of people would belittle anyone for posting new threads.

This is true.

I doubt that it will see anything but widespread abuse

Good point.

[october_midnight]

[The Becoming]

This is scary. I did some research. Apparently the Secretary of Defense has the ability to waive required detention. So i take it that means anybody can be detained? Also, the DoD states that having missing limbs, weatherproofed weapons, and more than seven days worth of food can make you a suspected terrorist. Anybody want to buy some steaks off of me?

[mostlymad]

This is scary. I did some research. Apparently the Secretary of Defense has the ability to waive required detention. So i take it that means anybody can be detained? Also, the DoD states that having missing limbs, weatherproofed weapons, and more than seven days worth of food can make you a suspected terrorist. Anybody want to buy some steaks off of me?

Perhaps many people around me are more prone to being detained than these people believe themselves to be. Plenty of hunters with a couple deep freezers with their hunts stored for months and waterproof weapons. It's quite sad what we overlook, by distraction or willfully not wanting to see the bad.

[orestes]

So it looks as though Obama may not veto the bill. FUCK.

[theruiner]

This shitty New York Times article doesn't even mention the provision about detaining American citizens. It does mention there are changes to the earlier bill? Was that provision taken out? Shitty article from shitty newspaper doesn't say, but they didn't mention it at ALL, so I'm wondering if it was. Anyone know?


Edit: According to the ACLU, it's apparently still in there.

[halloween]

So it looks as though Obama may not veto the bill. FUCK.

this is so so so so so so so so so so so wrong.

[mfte]

[waffel]

This along with the SOPA and IP bill is going to make a very interesting year. I've posted a live link to the congressional hearings about SOPA and this bill on facebook and no one seemed to care. I find surprising there isn't more general uproar from the public since all of these bills can effect us greatly (especially since most people I know with get music/videos from "other" sources).

[halloween]

Yeah, people like to wait until it's too late to start doing shit. If it passes, i can't imagine it wouldn't cause massive uproar. If not from the US, hopefully from the rest of the world as this will affect them too in very inappropriate ways. This refers to both National Defense Authorization Act and Stop Online Piracy Act.

My eye lid and upper lip has been twitching nonstop since i've been overloading myself with information about these stuff, and getting so scared and angry.

[DF118]

If you want a laugh, you should consider heading across to Senetor Rob Portmans Facebook page. He's being completely ripped apart. I like this post:

Senator...the minute...the very second...an officer orders me to detain one of my fellow citizens without proof of wrongdoing I will disobey that order as it is unconstitutional and against my oath. As a military member I am obligated to disobey unlawful orders and there is NO law that is above the Constitution of our nation other than the law of God. I work for the American people, protecting their freedoms and lives...not for the government...a government that is also obligated to live by our Constitution. The implications of this act are far reaching and the language is NOT strong enough to protect the Bill of Rights, especially with this administration that wishes to stifle the free speech of those who disagree with it. Very easy for them to shut dissenters up under the guise of this act...labeling anyone who speaks out against it's policies as a terrorist...something President Obama's DHS has already done to anyone who is conservative, pro-life, pro-2nd amendment, a veteran and a Christian. I defend the CONSTITUTION from ALL enemies foreign and DOMESTIC...and I will be damned if I will have you tell me that someone is a domestic terrorist based on nothing. I do not serve a dictatorial nation nor a monarchy.
I believe you, and our representatives in the House owe us all an explanation...as you work for US...not the other way around.

[sublimaze]

http://www.politicususa.com/en/ndaa-breitbarted

Interesting article. We've been had by the same pick-and-choose-the-info-we-want-you-to-hear from the media that we've accused the government of doing.

[mfte]

http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pr...VD/PPSIM832/PR

[halloween]

Even though it doesn't apply to US citizens, i still think it's wrong. We should be treating all people with the same rights, regardless of nationality because damn it, that's what it's all about in the end, people and our inherent rights.

Oh well..