By: Ashton DeLano
Staff Writer
President Obama signed on Dec. 31 the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012. This is not big news.
Every year, for the past 49 years, the president signs the NDAA to approve and specify all spending by the Department of Defense. Every president, no matter his political affiliation, has signed this bill.
But the most recent version of the bill has revisions allowing for the first time the U.S. government to detain any person, U.S. citizen or not, who is a part of forces engaged against the US. Their detainment can be for an indefinite amount of time with the requirement of military custody.
Clearly, this act is unlike anything passed by a previous president, and infringes on constitutional rights of all Americans.
First, the NDAA violates the Fifth Amendment of the constitution which includes that no person shall be held to answer for a capital crime unless indicted by a grand jury, which needs to declare the arrest constitutional. This is also known as the Writ of Habeas Corpus, which was temporarily suspended by President Lincoln during the Civil War. The Sixth Amendment also requires that all persons arrested be given the right to a fair and speedy trial.
Both of these amendments are clearly violated by the new NDAA, as it forces anyone, even American Citizens, to be detained by the military for any indefinite amount of time for any reason that may connect them to Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization.
Despite signing a statement that he is against the detainment of U.S. citizens and insisting the act was only signed to support the troops, President Obama has clearly broke his promise to not sign the NDAA so long as it contained the provisions including the detainment of U.S. citizens, according to ABCnews.
In May 19, 2008, while running for President, Obama claimed he would obey the constitution and not use signed statements like the one he made to avoid the provisions of the constitution.
The president has signed into codified law, the ability of the military to arrest and detain anyone they wish for as long as they wish. There is no way to look at this and not see that it violates what the constitution was set out to do: provide protected freedom for every American.
While the White House has tried to spin the facts into making it look like U.S. citizens will not be subject to the law, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), who sponsored the bill, disclosed that it there was no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
Furthermore, protesters who were peacefully voicing their opposition of the NDAA at Grand Central Station in New York City were arrested in January, as seen in a Youtube video. Now the government is violating the First Amendment because people are upset with them violating the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
The saddest thing about this act is its lack of media attention. Almost no TV news source has reported on it, and only the more radical online debate websites are protesting it. The videos of arrests was made by one of the protesters. Normally the media jumps on the president when he violates the constitution, but only Obama’s harshest critic, Fox News, has spoken out against the NDAA.
Obama has always had the backing from his support groups and most Americans, but in the months to come, with re-elections less than eight months away, Obama may find himself without support because he signed this bill.
