Tag Archives: Congress

Homeland Battlefield Act Portion Found Unconstitutional By New York Judge

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Homeland Battlefield Act Portion Found Unconstitutional By New York Judge.

All I can say is, YAYAYAYYAYAYAY!

WASHINGTON — A day before Congress weighs an amendment to end indefinite military detentions in the U.S., a federal judge Wednesday ruled the law that allows the practice unconstitutional.

Saying the measure has “chilling impact on First Amendment rights,” U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, of New York’s Eastern District, found that a group of reporters and activists who brought the lawsuit had no way of knowing whether they could be subjected to it. That makes it an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment’s free speech right and the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process, Forrest said in a written opinion.

The lead plaintiffs — Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges of the Nation Institute and Tangerine Bolen, who runs the website RevolutionTruth — argued that they conceivably could be grabbed under the law because they deal with sources that U.S. authorities may deem to fall under the law, Section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

The law defines the suspects who can be detained as a “person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces.”

Forrest found the language too vague, and repeatedly tried to get government attorneys to say that the reporters’ fears were unfounded. The lawyers declined.

“At the hearing on this motion, the government was unwilling or unable to state that these plaintiffs would not be subject to indefinite detention under [section] 1021,” Forrest wrote. “Plaintiffs are therefore at risk of detention, of losing their liberty, potentially for many years.

“An individual could run the risk of substantially supporting or directly supporting an associated force without even being aware that he or she was doing so,” Forrest wrote. “In the face of what could be indeterminate military detention, due process requires more.”

“We dealt a pretty big blow to two branches of Congress and President Obama,” Bolen told The Huffington Post. Bolen got involved in the lawsuit because she worked extensively on the Wikileaks and Bradley Manning cases, and used her website to expose where the war on terror has gone tragically wrong, including interviewing Iraqis and Afghans with damning tales to tell.

“Given that I engage in those two activities and I have an entire team around the world, I really felt that under the vague language of the NDAA, someone like me could easily get in trouble,” Bolen said.

“If I start showing that we’re behaving in such an egregious manner in this country in our alleged war on terror, and I become a thorn in the side of the U.S government in fighting for our rights — the phrase material support, I’m talking to, quote, alleged terrorists or people around the world who may be questionable — just by talking to them and interviewing them on a platform, am I providing them material support?” Bolen said. “That was my fear.”

The author and activist Naomi Wolf said watching the judge question administration lawyers repeatedly on the issue of who might be detained under the law — and the lawyers not answering — was downright chilling. To have the judge find that state of affairs unconstitutional was a profound relief, Wolf said in an interview.

“To hear those words — it’s so true, it’s so obvious — it puts in glaring relief the hideousness, the unconstitutionality, the darkness of this legislative efffort and others like it,” Wolf said. “She is so completely, obviously right. It’s nothing short of treason to have put forward legislation like this, let alone to have had most of the people who represent us and our president sign off on this clearly, obviously criminally unconstitutional — unconstitutional is inadequate. It’s anti-constitutional. It’s dictatorial.

“I’m so happy as a mother. It’s so profound. All of us were put in danger by this law.”

The White House had no comment on the ruling Wednesday night.

Reps. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.) are offering an amendment on Thursday to the 2013 Defense Authorization Act that would end the law. Amash sent an appeal to fellow lawmakers soon after the ruling, asking them to pass it.

“The amendment I’m offering with Rep. Adam Smith is the ONLY amendment that ensures that persons arrested on U.S. soil aren’t detained indefinitely without charge or trial,” Amash wrote. “Voting against the Smith-Amash amendment allows the government to retain the power to detain persons, picked up in the U.S., for life, on the suspicion that they ‘substantially supported’ forces ‘associated’ with our enemies.”

“If our constituents haven’t sent a clear enough message, tonight’s ruling surely does: Congress must act now to guarantee the constitutional right to a charge and a trial,” Amash wrote.

The progressive group Demand Progress was among those directing voters to contact their elected representives about the law, using an online petition and a new Facebook tool.

The government has 60 days to decide whether to appeal.

Michael McAuliff covers politics and Congress for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.

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Lawmakers announce bill prohibiting indefinite detention in U.S. – CNN Security Clearance – CNN.com Blogs

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Lawmakers announce bill prohibiting indefinite detention in U.S. – CNN Security Clearance – CNN.com Blogs.

Two Democratic members of Congress announced a bill Thursday that would prohibit the indefinite detention of any suspected terrorist apprehended in the United States, whether or not the suspect was a U.S. citizen.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado said the legislation would ensure that anyone captured, detained, or arrested in the United States on suspicion of terrorism will go through the civilian justice system and be provided due process rights awarded under the Constitution.

This would not apply to suspected terrorists captured overseas who are now being held at the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“The goal here is to have clarity, first of all, on how these people are handled in the U.S., and second of all, to reassert the primacy and the importance of our civil justice system,” Smith said. “It is our contention that our civil justice system absolutely protects us from the threat in this case.”

The bill is aimed at amending a controversial provision added to the National Defense Authorization Act that gave the military the authority to indefinitely detain anyone suspected of terrorism in the United States.

“More than 10 years later, one thing has become absolutely clear: our criminal justice system in the U.S. is 100% adequate to take care of this problem,” said Smith, who claimed that more than 400 terror suspects have been tried successfully by U.S. civilian courts. “But at the same time, on the books we have a law that gives the executive branch the power to indefinitely detain people here in the U.S., even U.S. citizens. And we believe that we should take that off the books.”

The National Defense Authorization Act was strongly contested in Congress last year, with the issue of indefinite detention being high on the list of concerns for those who opposed its passing. President Barack Obama threatened to veto the bill, but after amendments were made, he relented.

“I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists,” he said of the $662 billion legislation last year.

The White House had lifted a veto threat against the measure after legislators made changes in language involving detainees to make clear that nothing in the bill requiring military custody of al Qaeda suspects would interfere with the ability of civilian law enforcement to carry out terrorism investigations and interrogations in the United States.

“I want to clarify that my administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens,” Obama said in a statement last year. “Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”

Smith argued that the current administration’s policy is not enough.

“Even though you can make the argument that this executive will not exercise the authority, has not exercised the authority, we don’t believe that you can afford to allow that kind of power to reside in the executive branch,” he said.

Google’s response on new privacy policy ticks off congresswoman

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Google’s response on new privacy policy ticks off congresswoman | Security – CNET News.

Google apparently isn’t making any friends in Congress after a hearing yesterday on the company’s new privacy policy.

Called before a Congressional committee to address questions over the policy, Google officials were said to be less than “forthcoming” with their answers, according to Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), who heads the House subcommittee leading the investigation.

“At the end of the day, I don’t think their answers to us were very forthcoming necessarily in what this really means for the safety of our families and our children,” Bono Mack told reporters, according to The Hill.

Google has been under the microscope yet again after revealing plans last week to share user information across its various products and services. The company is also combining its 60 different privacy policies into one giant policy that it claims will be easier to understand.

But the move lighted a fire under politicians concerned by and confused about the policies, prompting them to press Google for more information. Though the company sent Congress a 13-page letter in response, a hearing was almost inevitable.

Appearing before Bono Mack and the rest of her subcommittee, Pablo Chavez, Google’s director of public policy, and Michael Yang, a Google senior counsel, tried to walk through the steps that users can follow to manage their privacy settings. But Bono Mack apparently still found the process cumbersome.

“By being more simple, [the privacy policy] is actually more complicated,” Bono Mack said, according to The Hill.

Saying that Congress might not be able to provide the right answer, Bono Mack suggested that Google users consider switching to other services if the company goes too far.

With online privacy a hot-button issue in Congress, more hearings are slated to take place this year, with some centered on Google’s latest changes.

In response to the hearings, a Google spokesman sent CNET the following statement:

“Privacy is an important issue, and we’re happy to discuss our updated Privacy Policy with Congress.”

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