"Expect Us!"
The bill, which passed by a 93-7 vote in the Senate several days ago, was crafted by Senator Carl Levine (D-MI) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ). It includes a provision that would allow the United States military to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone suspected of being a terrorist or linked to a terrorist organization... without due process.
In addition, because the bill does not clearly indicate how the term terrorist is defined, S. 1867 would grant the President and the military full authority to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens suspected of engaging in terrorism, again, without due process.
Once certain legislative amendments have been made, as per the request of the Obama Administration, the bill will be sent to the House of Representatives for a vote. The President has been urged to veto the legislation if the changes are not implemented.
One section of the "Detainee Matters" provision of the bill, which has caused the greatest concern, states the following:
"The Administration objects to and has serious legal and policy concerns about many of the detainee provisions in the bill. In their current form, some of these provisions disrupt the Executive branch's ability to enforce the law and impose unwise and unwarranted restrictions on the U.S. Government's ability to aggressively combat international terrorism; other provisions inject legal uncertainty and ambiguity that may only complicate the military's operations and detention practices.
Section 1031 attempts to expressly codify the detention authority that exists under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) (the “AUMF”). The authorities granted by the AUMF, including the detention authority, are essential to our ability to protect the American people from the threat posed by al-Qa'ida and its associated forces, and have enabled us to confront the full range of threats this country faces from those organizations and individuals. Because the authorities codified in this section already exist, the Administration does not believe codification is necessary and poses some risk.
After a decade of settled jurisprudence on detention authority, Congress must be careful not to open a whole new series of legal questions that will distract from our efforts to protect the country.
While the current language minimizes many of those risks, future legislative action must ensure that the codification in statute of express military detention authority does not carry unintended consequences that could compromise our ability to protect the American people.
The Administration strongly objects to the military custody provision of section 1032, which would appear to mandate military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects. This unnecessary, untested, and legally controversial restriction of the President's authority to defend the Nation from terrorist threats would tie the hands of our intelligence and law enforcement professionals.
Moreover, applying this military custody requirement to individuals inside the United States, as some Members of Congress have suggested is their intention, would raise serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets."
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) addressed the issue of "Indefinite Detention" in a 13-minute statement to President Obama two days before the vote was cast.
http://fromthegman.blogspot.com/2011/11/politics-in-action-hr-3094-and-s-1867.html
Anonymous video uploaded to YouTube by anonymous04210
Rand Paul video uploaded to YouTube by ricthuse
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