For a while now, the US government has claimed the right to detain and hold terrorism suspects without trial in the name of "national security."Americans shrugged; why, it's only happening to foreigners, and they are backwards Arabs who talk funny and worship a false God.
But empires always have a way of cannibalizing themselves and eventually turning their guns inwards on those they are claiming to "protect." Now with a bill like the one that will soon be voted on in the Imperial Senate, we see an even further shredding of the quickly shrinking sliver of 4th and 5th Amendment protections for the Empire's subjects here at home.
Secret Bill To Be Voted On Today Would Allow The Military To Sweep Up US Citizens At Home Or Abroad
Either Monday or Tuesday the Senate will vote on a bill that allows the US military to imprison civilians with no formal charges and hold them with no trial.The ACLU reports even US citizens wouldn't be immune as the legislation aims to declare national territory part of the "battlefield" in the War on Terror.
Termed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and drafted behind closed doors by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) the NDAA would:
1) Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside the United States;
(2) Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and
(3) Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.
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