NDAA 2014 – Congress rushing to approve even worse Defense bill UPDATE

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Defense One

1. With Just Days to Spare, Senate Extends NDAA Streak

   DefenseNews.com ‎- 2 hours ago

   In a vote that ended around 11:40 p.m. Thursday, the chamber voted 84-15 to pass the 2014 national defense authorization act (NDAA), which….

UPDATE: Just passed cloture 71 to 29.Will be voted on today or tomorrow.

While we were looking the other way, the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act  2014) rises. Even more onerous than the previous versions. It must be voted on by the House and by the Senate next week. Will they do it? Of course they will.

Section 1071 of the version of the 2014 NDAA approved by the House and Senate committees this week expands on the scope of surveillance established by the Patriot Act and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have reached an agreement on the fiscal year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

As approved by the committees, the text of the latest iteration of the bill is derived from H.R. 1960, which passed the House on June 14 by a vote of 315-108 and S. 1197, a version passed by a Senate committee by a vote of 23-3, later that same day.

House and Senate leaders hurried to hammer out a mutually acceptable measure so as to get the whole package passed before the end of the year.

For two years, the NDAA included provisions that purported to authorize the president of the United States to deploy the U.S. military to apprehend and indefinitely detain any person (including an American citizen) who he believes “represent[s] an enduring security threat to the United States.”

Such an immense grant of power is not only unconscionable, but unconstitutional, as well.

Finally, there is in the NDAA for 2014 a frightening fusion of the federal government’s constant surveillance of innocent Americans and the assistance it will give to justifying the indefinite detention of anyone labeled an enemy of the regime.

Section 1071(a) authorizes the secretary of defense to “establish a center to be known as the ‘Conflict Records Research Center.’” According to the text of the latest version of the NDAA, the center’s task would be to compile a “digital research database including translations and to facilitate research and analysis of records captured from countries, organizations, and individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.”

In order to accomplish the center’s purpose, the secretary of defense will create an information exchange in cooperation with the director of national intelligence.

Key to the functioning of this information exchange will be the collection of “captured records.” Section 1071(g)(1), defines a captured record as “a document, audio file, video file, or other material captured during combat operations from countries, organizations, or individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.”

When read in conjunction with the provision of the AUMF that left the War on Terror open-ended and the prior NDAAs’ classification of the United States as a battleground in that unconstitutional war, and you’ve got a powerful combination that can knock out the entire Bill of Rights.

Finally, when all the foregoing is couched within the context of the revelations regarding the dragnet surveillance programs of the NSA, it becomes evident that anyone’s phone records, e-mail messages, browsing history, text messages, and social media posts could qualify as a “captured record.”

After being seized by the NSA (or some other federal surveillance apparatus), the materials would be processed by the Conflict Records Research Center created by this bill. This center’s massive database of electronic information and its collaboration with the NSA converts the United States into a constantly monitored holding cell and all its citizens and residents into suspects. All, of course, in the name of the security of the homeland.

Although the outlook is dire, there are those willing to stand and oppose the threats to liberty posed by the NDAA.

In The Federalist, no. 46, Madison recommended that an effective way to thwart federal overreach is for agents of the states to refuse “to cooperate with officers of the Union.”

In order for Fiscal Year 2014 NDAA to become the “law,” the House of Representatives must pass the bill this week and the Senate would have to follow suit by the end of next week. This gives Americans only a few short days to contact their federal representatives and senators and encourage them to reject any version of the NDAA that infringes on the timeless civil liberties protected by the Constitution. Read more  The New American

Need a refresher?

From  August, 2012 post: Obama fights injunction against unlawful detention of U.S. citizens

…Yet incredibly, when pressed on the issue, this Obama mouthpiece suggested to Judge Forrest that concerns about the president’s detention powers were excessive as American citizens would, after all, have the ability to file a writ of habeas corpus should they be illegally or improperly jailed! “How long does [such a] petition take,” asked Forrest? When Torrance refused to answer,the Judge continued,“Several years,.right”?

The group points out that the new Second Circuit ruling is completely incorrect because it claims that Section 1021 of the 2012 NDAA says nothing about the government’s ability to detain citizens.

You might want to check out first FBI Director “I have to check and see if Obama can kill Citizens on U.S. soil

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday said he would have to go back and check with the Department of Justice whether Attorney General Eric Holder’s “three criteria” for the targeted killing of Americans also applied to Americans inside the U.S.

From August, 2012 post: Obama fights injunction against unlawful detention of U.S. citizens

Obama lies-he insisted that detention of Americans be in defense bill

“But… It was his administration that insisted that the language be included in the bill”.

From the video: Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told Congress recently that under the original wording of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens were excluded from the provision that allowed for detention. Once Obama’s officials saw the text though, says Levin, “the administration asked us to remove the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”