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Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Sat Dec 31, 2011 at 03:33:46 PM EST
Tags: indefinite detention, Guantanamo (all tags)
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President Obama today signed into the National Defense Authorization Act, which contains the controversial and objectionable provisions on indefinite detention and restrictions on transfers of detainees from Guantanamo. He issued a signing statement with it that doesn't ameliorate the damage.

The ACLU says:

While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations.

[More...]

“President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”

In addition to allowing indefinite detention without charges or trial,

The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations. It also restricts the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of his first acts in office.

More on the bill here:

Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

Also see Glenn Greenwald on the biggest myths about the bill. And Georgetown Law Prof David Cole in the New York Review of Books.

The world is our battlefield, according to the U.S. Just shameful.

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    Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law | 31 comments (31 topical)

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    A proud moment in a continuing tradition... (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by Mr Natural on Sat Dec 31, 2011 at 05:20:19 PM EST
    of American Presidential Duplicity.

    And now for another tradition, Angry Black Sycophant's spin on this, Obama's latest treachery.

    Already... (none / 0) (#25)
    by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Mon Jan 02, 2012 at 09:58:17 AM EST
    ...

    in poster form.

    .

    Parent

    norris morris (none / 0) (#26)
    by norris morris on Tue Jan 03, 2012 at 05:06:44 PM EST
    This is totally unconstitutional and it opens
    the door for the worst mischief against our democratic principles.  Any future leader can do real damage to our rights for a fair trial and charges.

    Obama has finally put the finishing touch on his terrible lack of leadership and clueless behavior.

    Parent

    TREACHERY AND COWARDICE (none / 0) (#30)
    by norris morris on Wed Jan 04, 2012 at 06:39:12 PM EST
    Obama tried to weasel on this as he's done about most everything else.  NY Review of Books blog has a good take on this shameful destruction of Due Process.

    Parent
    This law is an unconstitutional outrage (5.00 / 8) (#2)
    by shoephone on Sat Dec 31, 2011 at 06:33:35 PM EST
    and Obama's signing of it is utterly rephrensible.

    Exactly the kind of thing I feared and expected after his ridiculous performance art over FISA in summer of 2008.

    Marcy Wheeler discusses the worst part (5.00 / 4) (#8)
    by Anne on Sat Dec 31, 2011 at 09:36:09 PM EST
    of the signing statement:

    Sections 1023-1025 needlessly interfere with the executive branch's processes for reviewing the status of detainees. Going forward, consistent with congressional intent as detailed in the Conference Report, my Administration will interpret section 1024 as granting the Secretary of Defense broad discretion to determine what detainee status determinations in Afghanistan are subject to the requirements of this section. [Marcy's emphasis]

    And yet, in spite of the fact that Section 1024 includes no exception for those detained at Bagram, Obama just invented such an exception.

    Section 1024 was one of the few good parts of the detainee provisions in this bill, because it would have finally expanded the due process available to the thousands of detainees who are hidden away at Bagram now with no meaningful review.

    As if the Act wasn't bad enough, the signing statement just makes it worse.

    Seriously, if you close your eyes, can you tell the difference between Bush and Obama?  

    Yeah, me neither.


    Parent

    a comment by (none / 0) (#29)
    by Jeralyn on Tue Jan 03, 2012 at 05:59:41 PM EST
    Norris Morris in response to this has been deleted for improper racial comments. The commenter is warned not to repeat or he/she will be banned.

    Parent
    So, it doesn't comfort you that he (none / 0) (#6)
    by oculus on Sat Dec 31, 2011 at 09:07:28 PM EST
    made a signing statement?  Me neither.  

    Parent
    I know people have their ... (5.00 / 6) (#5)
    by Robot Porter on Sat Dec 31, 2011 at 08:12:25 PM EST
    tortured (pun intended) reasons for voting for Obama in 2012.  But I cannot see any reason that a progressive could support a president who signed this.

    It is among the worst and most unconstitutional bills ever signed into law by a president.

    What's a fact pattern where this will make a (none / 0) (#10)
    by jpe on Sun Jan 01, 2012 at 06:06:07 AM EST
    difference?  Under current law, the US can detain people that are substantial supporters of al-Qaeda.  In what sort of fact pattern could someone be detained post-signing versus pre?

    Parent
    Wrong! (5.00 / 2) (#11)
    by Robot Porter on Sun Jan 01, 2012 at 07:40:33 AM EST
    From Greenwald's piece:

    Myth #2: The bill does not expand the scope of the War on Terror as defined by the 2001 AUMF

    This myth is very easily dispensed with. The scope of the war as defined by the original 2001 AUMF was, at least relative to this new bill, quite specific and narrow. Here's the full extent of the power the original AUMF granted:

        (a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

    Under the clear language of the 2001 AUMF, the President's authorization to use force was explicitly confined to those who (a) helped perpetrate the 9/11 attack or (b) harbored the perpetrators. That's it. Now look at how much broader the NDAA is with regard to who can be targeted:

    Section (1) is basically a re-statement of the 2001 AUMF. But Section (2) is a brand new addition. It allows the President to target not only those who helped perpetrate the 9/11 attacks or those who harbored them, but also: anyone who "substantially supports" such groups and/or "associated forces." Those are extremely vague terms subject to wild and obvious levels of abuse (see what Law Professor Jonathan Hafetz told me in an interview last week about the dangers of those terms). This is a substantial statutory escalation of the War on Terror and the President's powers under it, and it occurs more than ten years after 9/11, with Osama bin Laden dead, and with the U.S. Government boasting that virtually all Al Qaeda leaders have been eliminated and the original organization (the one accused of perpetrating 9/11 attack) rendered inoperable.



    Parent
    courts have found that the aumf (none / 0) (#12)
    by jpe on Sun Jan 01, 2012 at 09:47:43 AM EST
    supports the detention of those that substantially support al-q or taliban.  So if we assume for the sake of argument that the scotus would uphold the circuit court on this, then at a minimum it's not obvious the ndaa expands detention authority.

    Parent
    You're still wrong ... (5.00 / 2) (#13)
    by Robot Porter on Sun Jan 01, 2012 at 10:11:05 AM EST
    (read all of Greenwald's piece, all the case law, and consider the treatment of John Walker Lyndh) but it's a weird argument even if you were right.

    It's like saying "Plessy vs. Ferguson" was okay because it didn't really change anything.  It's an odd netherworld logic that many Obama supporters engage in.  And it shows no respect or understanding of the Constitution.

    And if the Constitution doesn't matter to you, we have no common ground on which to have a conversation.  If supporting Obama is more important than supporting the Constitution, then you want a different type of Government than I do or the one we supposedly still have.  

    Parent

    Liberals Disconnect About Obama (5.00 / 0) (#31)
    by norris morris on Wed Jan 04, 2012 at 07:11:05 PM EST
    It's impossible for me to understand the current liberal position of defending Obama on this reprehensible action against Due Process and clear violation of our Constitution.

    There seems to be no moral position that Democrats who voted for this heinous act can defend. Yet the Obamabots are all out for him no matter how duplicitous and wrongheaded Obama's action has become. The death of Due Process is ok?

    Where are the liberals to defend our constitutional rights?  Have any of these mouthpiece propogandists taken a good look at what Obama has signed into law? Read The New York Review Of Books blog about this.  Hardly a right wing blog