Obama Signs Police State Legislation

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Tuesday January 03, 2012 23:48

by T

USA is now officially a Police State

President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on New Year’s Eve. The bill provides a massive $662 billion for the US war machine and makes unprecedented inroads into democratic rights, authorizing the US military to seize individuals anywhere in the world and hold them in a military detention facility indefinitely, without a trial or any other legal recourse.

There was some discussion of this bill on the Internet and the consequences of it are so radical and far reaching that many thought Obama would veto it but mainly for tactial reasons. And now that he has signed it, this will send a shiver down the spine of any thinking person.

Some quotes from the report on the WSWS site are:

Congressional Democrats and Republicans ratified the NDAA in a series of House and Senate votes in November and December that beat back nearly all efforts to set limits to the presidential power to arrest and imprison without trial or charge. As Republican Senator Lindsey Graham emphasized during the congressional debate, the legislation defines the entire world to be part of the battlefield against Al Qaeda, including the territory of the United States itself, making every human being on the planet, including every American citizen, a potential prisoner of the American military.

The NDAA effectively revokes the oldest democratic right, habeas corpus, which bars arbitrary imprisonment by requiring that the government present evidence to a judge or court to justify taking a person into custody. This right was first asserted in England during the Middle Ages and finally established and codified in the course of the English Revolution of the 17th century, which shattered the arbitrary power of the monarchy and established the supremacy of parliament. Full text is at the link below:

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Comments (3 of 3)

Chris Hedges challenge to NDAA suspended and likely to be overturned.

Sun Sep 23, 2012 17:33

A few months back Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky launched a legal challenge to the NDAA and the judge ruled parts of it illegal.

Since then it has been expected there would be a counter-attack and the government has managed to interim stage over the appeal ruling until Sept 28th when they will launch a full counter-attack.

Details can be found on WSWS site at:
Obama moves to overturn court ruling invalidating indefinite detention law

Protests appear against the Police State NDAA Bill ending in arrests

Tue Jan 10, 2012 21:11

Thankfully this bill did not go through without some response from the target population at which the NDAA is aimed.

In the report at the link below, the author writes:

The absurdity of America today never ceases to amaze. In fact, it has become so elaborate that one might even suggest it has reached a kind of poetic symmetry. When a protest group is willing to stick their necks out to expose the horror of the National Defense Authorization Act and its open door strategy for unconstitutional arrest and indefinite detainment of American citizens, I have to stand up and applaud. This is the kind of protest we need to see all over the country. Of course, any establishment system which is willing to dissolve the inherent liberties of its citizens certainly isn't going to stand by quietly while they blatantly point out the injustice. The Grand Central Terminal action featured in the video below is a perfect example of the swift and immediate stifling of peaceful dissent by an increasingly totalitarian government:......

Full text of report at the link below. The video referred to above is linked here too.

Caption: Video Id: Cg6ayc-w3bE Type: Youtube Video
Grand Central Terminal Arrests

Fado, fado..

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party

Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:51

...nuair a bhi me og...there was word for that sorta thing.

Totalitarianism.

Seems that 'peace dividend', from the fall of the Iron Curtain, is to be the Pax Pentagonia Global Iron Envelope.

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Obama Signs Police State Legislation

Comments (3 of 3)