Are You an Enemy of the State?

I, along with  Judge Andrew Nepolitano, and many others will continue to oppose this latest Senate addendum to the Defense appropriations bill which passed late last night. I also oppose any similar legislation which expands executive power. Our freedoms are eroding faster than ever and existing Constitutional limits on the power of the president are being pushed to dangerous extremes.

Here is the latest from Judge Nepolitano on this issue. I saw this first quoted in my local paper just yesterday.

Atlanta Journal Constitution...The U.S. Senate on Thursday night struck a bipartisan deal that modified controversial language in a major defense policy bill which had drawn strong opposition from critics in both parties, who charged it would allow the indefinite detention of American citizens by the military.

The 99-1 vote came after several days of heated debate on the Senate floor over whether this defense bill really changed how U.S. citizens accused of supporting terrorists would be treated, or if critics were right that U.S. citizens could be held by the military indefinitely without the filing of formal charges.

Compromise language developed in part by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was ultimately approved, which read as follows:

"Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States."


Earlier, the Senate had twice defeated efforts to water down the detainee provisions in this bill, as a majority of Republicans joined with a dozen Democrats to keep detainee language that some Senators said allowed for indefinite military detention of civilians, a charge that leading Republicans like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) bitterly disputed.

"The Obama Administration's decision to detain people as enemy combatants is within the President's power to do so," argued Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who said American citizens can already be detained indefinitely, as he brushed off charges that this bill would wrongly restrict important constitutional rights.


Graham, who backed the bill's original language, spoke on the Senate floor about the phone calls his office was receiving on the matter, bluntly saying that critics of the bill were misinformed about any change in how long U.S. citizens could be held by the military.

"The Supreme Court will decide who can be detained," said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), who opposed the original detainee language.

"The United States Senate will not," Durbin added.

Next stop for this fight over the military's rules on terror detainees arrested in the U.S. will be in a House-Senate conference committee in coming days...Read More

Linked here from Mark is an opposing opinion on the intended purpose of this legislation, and an excerpt from the bill.
          

But consider this...FYI from Wikipedia

Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984, was a secretive "scenario and drill" developed by the United States federal government to suspend the United States Constitution, declare martial law, place military commanders in charge of state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens who are deemed to be "national security threats", in the event that the President declares a "State of Domestic National Emergency".
The plan states that events that might cause such a declaration would be widespread U.S. opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad, such as if the United States were to directly invade Central America.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

To combat what the government perceived as "subversive activities", the plan also authorized the military to direct ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels.^[7]

Rex 84 was written by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who was both National Security Council White House Aide, and NSC liaison to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and John Brinkerhoff, the deputy director of "national preparedness" programs for FEMA. They patterned the plan on an 1970 report written by FEMA chief Louis Giuffrida, at the Army War College, which proposed the detention of up to 21 million "American Negroes", if there were a black militant uprising in the United States.

^[1][8] Existence of a master military contingency plan (of which REX-84 was a part), "Garden Plot" and a similar earlier exercise, "Lantern Spike" were originally revealed by journalist Ron Ridenhour, who summarized his findings in an article in CounterSpy.^[9]


Antiwar.com...“The initial bill reported by the committee included language expressly precluding ‘the detention of citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.’ The Administration asked that this language be removed from the bill.”

The real purpose of the Levin-McCain provisions is entirely unrelated to “terrorism,” either by al-Qaeda or any known domestic outfit. It was put in there to codify a number of important “legal” precedents, which make it possible for the President to declare an American citizen an “enemy combatant” and hold him or her indefinitely without charges. This is the final step in a process that will enable the President to establish a de facto military dictatorship: it’s the “unitary presidency” meets the global economic crisis.

“America is part of the battlefield,” says Sen. Ayotte, quite accurately – and Americans are the target. Resistance is “terrorism”: dissent is a crime, and you’d better shut up and take it if you know what’s good for you. That’s the message they’re sending – and how, one wonders, will Americans respond?


Tryptophaned into a submissive lethargy by large doses of turkey and stuffing, and living in constant fear of imminent destitution, they hardly notice this historic betrayal. The trap is set, baited, and ready to spring: one has to wonder, however, if this passivity will hold once those steel jaws bite.

I bet they’re wondering in Washington, too.

Read more by Justin Raimondo

Here is some more sick stuff in this bill from...iowntheworld