Judge Blocks a portion of the NDAA
By louisehartmann
The highly-controversial indefinite detention provision signed into law by the President at the end of last year has been ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. District court judge in New York. The provision allows the military to detain anyone indefinitely if they are suspected of associating with terrorists – whether they realize it or not.
But that law was challenged by a group of journalists and whistleblowers – including Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, and Daniel Ellsberg – who argued the law violated the First Amendment – since journalists often come in contact with terrorist organization and thus under the law could be subject to detention. On Wednesday night, Judge Katherine Forrest agreed with the plaintiffs in the case, ruling that the law is unconstitutional – violating the First Amendment rights of the press and the Fifth Amendment right of due process.
Meanwhile, as a new version of the NDAA is being debated in Congress, brave members on both sides of the aisle are arguing that there should be no indefinite detention provision in it, invalidating the previous NDAA. We need to return to the values our nation was founded on, which include bravery and due process – and not fear and medieval imprisonment techniques.
Comments
#2
On pure principle, no, it should not be dropped. Article 3 Section 2 prohibits a judge from doing so.
#3
Naomi Wolf, Guardian UK
Naomi Wolf writes, "One brave judge is all that lay between us and a law that would have given the president power to detain US citizens indefinitely."
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#4
Are you referring to judicial review?
#5
Pres. Obama worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Now he signs NDAA into law.
He should have know better then anyone else what the ramifications of this Law would do and the abuses it would or could cause. To say that he would not abuse it maybe holds some truth to what he said, but he cannot guarantee that others would not abuse it.
Now to support this Law. I believe that every person in the land should be held accountible with this law, including Lawyers Congress, Senators, Fox News CNN, ABC, CBS and a lot of news reportors also. To include past presidents and their staff
But thankfully we have one Judge out of the thousands that listened and has ruled to at lease this one point.
Maybe just maybe if we put a lot of these people in prison forever then maybe someone might think just for one moment the next time they decide to trample on the rights of others and sign or vote into Law a Law that futhers the erosion of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Now they will be voting again on this Law, will be better or ...... I think that it will be the same old ...... as usual
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By webmaster
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Bravo. Since the multi-national corporations that run our congress probably are not driven by fear, do we know what the profit motive might be for indefinite detention and medieval imprisonment. Might it be the corps fear the people they are detaining might tell the truth?