He said this is how it starts, the declared figleaf of legal authority to detain anyone. He acted as if he knew what comes next. His age was hard to tell, but he was obviously educated, and he spoke well despite the thick French accent. I have no opinion on whether he might be right or wrong, or if what he was saying is valid. I am relating a story about someone whom I can describe as genuine, intelligent, and sincere.

::::::::

I recently engaged in a friendly but rather unsettling conversation with a man from Algeria who became visibly upset when I told him about NDAA, the new law allowing indefinite military detention of US citizens  without charge or trial.  He said he had come here to get away from  that sort of thing, which had happened in his country and was fresh in  his mind.  His description of what happened in Algeria during its  equivalent of Argentina's "Dirty War" was chilling and he kept shaking  his head about the new law here, visibly distressed.

Basically what he said was that the next step is a large number of  people, it was 50,000 in his country he said, will disappear without a  trace.  The government will do it to instill fear in everyone else and  to show they can do it, and get away with it, so everyone else is much  easier to manage.  It will not matter whether you are rich or poor, on  the left or on the right, a university professor, a doctor, or if your  father is a rich businessman.  It simply won't matter.  Your family will  go to the police station to file a missing persons report but they will  not be able to help you.  Left or right doesn't matter, it is anyone  with strong opinions who can express them who are the threat.

Everywhere you turn there will be a brick wall.  No one knows  anything, yes it has been happening a lot, and no one can help.  It will  be as if you had never existed.

I asked him if there was some kind of historic national  reconciliation and prosecution of the criminals who did it.  He said no  one would know whom to prosecute, in the end, because even this much  later no one knew who was really behind it.  Of course it was the Army,  but not the entire Army, just certain specialized units, perhaps  segregated from the rest, led by generals whom other generals did not  challenge, perhaps out of fear that they could go to.  What the military  excels at is compartmentalizing functions and telling groups of people  only what they need to know, and keeping the rest almost as in the dark  as civilians.

In every respect it sounded like some sort of ultimate gang takeover.

I'm not kidding when I say he was upset.  He was squirming and  shaking his head.  He spoke with a thick French accent and said he was  going to Google this, since of course there has been a major media  blackout.  He said this is how it starts, the declared figleaf of legal  authority to detain anyone.  He acted as if he knew what comes next.  His age was hard to tell, but he was obviously educated, and he spoke well despite the thick French accent.  I have no opinion on whether he might be right or wrong, or if what he was saying is valid.  I am relating a story about someone whom I can describe as genuine, intelligent, and sincere.

Even more distressing, if that is possible, is the concerted campaign by minions of the traitors to the Constitution to assert that the new law does not apply to American citizens despite the detailed and concise warnings of opponents in the House and the Senate that the law does, and which Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) called "carefully crafted to mislead the public."

Rep. Tom McClinton (R-CA) on the House floor said:

I rise in opposition to Section 1021 of the underlying Conference Report (H.R. 1540, the National Defense Authorization Act).  This section specifically affirms that the President has the authority to deny due process to any American it charges with "substantially supporting al Qaeda, the Taliban or any "associated forces'" -- whatever that means.

Would "substantial support" of an "associated force," mean linking a web-site to a web-site that links to a web-site affiliated with al-Qaeda? We don't know.

McClintock then said:

We're told not to worry -- that the bill explicitly states that nothing in it shall alter existing law.

Then McClintock notes that "existing law" is "only an assertion by the last two presidents that this power is inherent in an open-ended and ill-defined war on terrorism."

Power now reverts back to the states, since the federal government  has egregiously violated and sought to overturn our "unalienable  rights," and we must call on our state legislators, who are closest to  us, to recall our federal representatives from Washington who voted for  this. 

Facebooks calling for states to pass and update recall laws are sprouting up both from the left and the right, which seek to clearly include federal officials among those subject to this power "not prohibited" by the Constitution and therefore "reserved to the states" and "to the people" by the Tenth Amendment, which was the Founders' brilliant expression of their desire that the Constitution was to be viewed as a straitjacket on the government, outlining limited powers, rather than an inhibitor of personal freedom.  

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution  nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States  respectively, or to the people."

Some say that US senators, whose terms are more problematic than representatives who are up every two years, cannot be recalled.  This is not true.  The legislative history of the federal official recall  is thin.  Two state courts have ruled that their senators cannot  be recalled, Idaho and New Jersey, but the opinions have been weakly  worded and and argued, and anyway do not apply to other states.  The  issue of recall of federal officials is ripe to be revisited in this  political climate.

The Founders have given us potent tools to establish our right to  recall, which is a peaceful and incremental measure compared to the  right they gave us to "abolish" a government which has become  "destructive" of our "unalienable rights."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That  to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving  their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any  Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of  the People to alter or to abolish it...  --  Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776."

Jefferson indicated clearly that the Right to a Jury Trial,  contained in the Sixth Amendment, was among the "unalienable rights."   Jefferson said:

"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by  man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its  constitution."

Logic dictates that the power to recall senators and congressmen resides in the  people.  It can be inferred by the existence of the Constitutional provisions  for expulsion from either house by vote.  It would be absurd to  conclude that the Founders intended for congressmen to be more  responsible to their colleagues than to the very people they represent.   If the Founders had intended for representatives to be able to serve  out their terms in the face of any opposition short of criminal  conviction, the expulsion clauses would not have been included.

Surely a state may exercise the same power either  by direct recall by the state legislature or by a mechanism enacted by  that legislature to do so.  The Declaration of Independence, which is a founding document which is primary even to the Constitution, gave the people the "right" to "alter or abolish" any government which has become "destructive" of the "unalienable rights" it was instituted to preserve.  Mere recall is thus a measured response to a government which has threatened us with kidnap and even execution.  If we have the right to "alter or abolish" the government if necessary, certainly the Founders would not have objected to mere recall laws.

The Treasonous 383 have egregiously and knowingly violated their Oath of Office.  The Oath  of Office of the U.S. senator and congressman, required by the  Constitution before assuming duties, as well as any American military  officer, is: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and  defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,  foreign and domestic." The Oath makes no mention of defending territory,  the president, or anything other than the Constitution. The Founders  intended that defense of the Constitution come before all else.

Thomas Jefferson said: "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor  ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the  principles of its
constitution." By violating their Oath to protect and defend the United  States Constitution, these senators have made themselves "domestic  enemies" of the Constitution, and can no longer be said to represent us.

18 states presently have recall laws: Alaska, Arizona, California,  Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota,  Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island,  Washington and Wisconsin.  State legislatures can pass them in states  which do not.  

[MODEL RECALL LAW, WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTION ARTICLE I.]

The Treasonous 383
SENATE: YEAs ---86

HOUSE: AYES 283 --

RELATED POST: "Why a Constitutional Law Professor Should Not Sign an Unconstitutional Military Detention Bill"

Authors Website: https://ralphlopez.wordpress.com/

Authors Bio:

Ralph Lopez majored in Economics and Political Science at Yale University. He writes for Truth Out, Alternet, Consortium News, Op-Ed News, and other Internet media. He reported from Afghanistan in 2009 and produced a short documentary film on the situation. He has also been published in the Boston Globe and the Baltimore Sun.

Website: https://ralphlopez.wordpress.com/