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Due process, civil protections, and judicial fairness became null and void. Presidents may order anyone arrested and imprisoned for life without charge or trial. Abuse of power replaced rule of law protections.
It's US statute law. It violates international and constitutional provisions. It's one step closer to full-blown tyranny. Administration lawyers claim US citizens are legitimate targets. Presidential authorization alone is needed.
Inviolable rights no longer apply. Protesting imperial lawlessness, social injustice, corporate crime, government corruption, or political Washington run of, by and for rich elites can be criminalized.
So can free speech, assembly, religion, or anything challenging America's right to kill, destroy and pillage with impunity. America's less safe to live in than ever. There's no place to hide anywhere.
On December 19, Russia Today headlined "NDAA 2013 - Indefinite detention without trial is back."
It never went away. Senator Dianne Feinstein's amendment claimed to limit military detention. It nominally exempted US citizens and permanent residents apprehended domestically.
It did more harm than good. It hardened indefinite detention. It legalized detaining students with visas, tourists, immigrants and others indefinitely.
It left citizens and permanent residents vulnerable. If arrested, it authorized due process. NDAA mandates military commissions. Civil ones aren't allowed. Kangaroo justice is certain.
Feinstein's amendment made bad 2012 legislation worse. Habeas rights were denied. Freedom took another body blow. Police state harshness hardened. Presidential diktat authority was endorsed.
Weeks earlier, senators approved it. On December 18, Senator Carl Levin said "language of the Senate bill was dropped." He stopped short of explaining more.
On December 19, lawmakers removed her amendment. Deceptive language replacing it said:
NDAA "shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus or to deny any Constitutional rights in a court ordained or established by or under Article III of the Constitution to any person inside the United States who would be entitled to the availability of such writ or to such rights in the absence of such laws."
Is means no one entitled to habeas "availability" shall be denied it. Anyone authorities arrest is assumed ineligible.
On September 12, Southern District of New York federal Judge Katherine B. Forrest blocked Obama's indefinite detention law.
She called it "facially unconstitutional: it impermissibly impinges on guaranteed First Amendment rights and lacks sufficient definitional structure and protections to meet the requirements of due process."She added that:
