(Article changed on February 14, 2013 at 15:05)
A threat to our right to bear arms seems to get a lot of people from all sides of the issue very plugged in and outraged. Nothing has been done to regulate the Second Amendment to the Constitution yet, but imagine what the People would do, if the Congress and the President just did away with all gun rights for all Americans?
Congress and The President have done away with First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, by a law passed in 2012 called NDAA or National Defense Authorization Act. There is very little outcry that We the People have lost our right to free speech, free press or the right to peacefully assemble, granted in the First Amendment. We have lost the protection of the Fifth Amendment. We can now be deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law. We have lost our most basic Miranda rights, and rights to habeus corpus. Most Americans are not following the details in this case that affect our very freedoms, and what defines us as American. Who cares?
Well, 29 year old Trey Walter Kindred cares. Last week, Trey hopped a bus from Virginia at 3:00 am, so that he could be a witness to the appeals case for Chris Hedges et al vs. Barack Obama NDAA hearing at the Federal Court of Appeals in New York City.
Trey is a concerned citizen. "I have been following the NDAA trial for the last year. I didn't know that I could attend the trial until I saw a page through the Occupy group on Facebook, inviting people to come and show solidarity. I didnt just want to be here. I feel like it is my duty to be here as an American."
Trey arrived at the court house early in order to get inside and a good position from which to bear witness to this historical trial.
"I wanted to show my support for Chris Hedges in any way, shape or form. NDAA is a travesty for Civil Rights. Obama is betraying the People."
Similar to many people in Trey's age demographic, he and his friends voted for Barack Obama in 2008.
Trey said, "Obama ran on things like, denouncing George Bush for signing the Patriot Act, and holding prisoners in indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay. But then Obama signed the Patriot Act himself. He didn't free anyone from Guantanamo. He didn't stop the torturing.
What he did in fact do, was take the Patriot Act, pump it full of steroids and sign it into the bill called NDAA. He didn't write it, but he signed it.
It isn't just Obama. He is part of a large, evil system; but because he takes part in that system, that makes him just as evil."
The attorney Carl Mayer, suing Obama on the grounds that this bill is unconstitutional, argues that the language in a bill is what defines the law. Section 1021 provides sweeping powers of detention through incredibly vague and undefined terms.
If a U.S. Citizen is arrested, he or she must be given his or her Miranda rights. NDAA speaks of "capturing" citizens, an undefined term, and overturns hundreds of years of domestic law. It permits the U.S. military to seize U.S. citizens, to hold them in military facilities including offshore penal colonies, until the end of hostilities, whenever that is, with no right to due process of any kind. Never has the U.S. military had the authority to arrest a U.S. citizen while civil law still exists, until NDAA.
Trey said, "I learned that I could go to the hearing through the Occupy Movement. I'm not on the street screaming about injustices, but I consider myself to be part of Occupy. All Americans are. This is the only way things are going to change for US.
I thought our country was going through tough financial times. How is it even financially responsible to enforce NDAA all over the world, as the U.S. seems to become self imposed international law by these kinds of actions? The NDAA is a travesty to all humanity on the planet. Now we really are the World Police."
Conservatives, Liberals and Progressives alike should stand in outrage against the autocracy established in this bill. What happens in the outcome of this appeals case matters not only in current politics and law, but matters as a stepping stone to future infringement of our liberties in the U.S.. There is a huge force of anti privacy laws being passed now. Will we be Americans like Trey Walter Kindred, and stand up for our individual freedoms and fight for our Constitution? Or will we sit silently, out of fear or lack of attention to these issues, and allow our silence to be the consent of our undoing?
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