This bill is usually used to designate a budget for the U.S. Department of Defense and has been passed for a consecutive 49 years running. However, this year it has been altered to reinforce the governments authority to indefinitely detain any U.S. citizen suspected of terrorism without a trial.
Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, said "President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in U.S. law."
While there is no single definition for terrorism in the U.S., the State Department defines it as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." Some may think this does not effect them personally because they could never be suspected of terrorism, but they're wrong.
You can be suspected of terrorist involvement for anything from having a weeks worth of food storage, paying cash at a hotel, owning a gun, having missing fingers or even for buying a flashlight.
The Patriot Act already gives the government the right to spy on American citizens; now NDAA gives them the right to detain us permanently and without trial, for any reason they assume to be terrorist activity. Both of these are in direct contradiction with our Constitutional rights as American citizens.
Barack Obama lied when he promised to close Guantanamo Bay, bring home our troops within 16 months, bring an end to the Bush tax cuts and when he promised to veto NDAA.
After Signing the bill he swore to oppose, Obama had this to say: "I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation."
I guess we'll just have to take his word for it.
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