On New Year’s Eve, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) went into effect. This page is helpful in describing what the legislation legalizes.
One component of the law is indefinite detention. This means that individuals can be held for however long is deemed necessary. Furthermore, they will be denied their due process; there doesn’t have to be a fair trial. I think this legislation is fundamentally wrong and cannot be justified, even if under the guise of an Act that supposedly protects against terrorism. All people held in the United States, by the power of the Constitution, are granted a fair trial and cannot be held indefinitely, even if they are alleged to be a threat to the country.
Some other key components of the law are here: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/
Does anybody think this law is constitutional?
In my opinion, the NDAA is constitutional- especially considering the current state of the union and our volatile foreign policies. That being said, I don't agree with the 'detention without trial' component. The fact that a president like Obama signed off on this alludes to, possibly, a difficult future for our nation. Its hard to contextualize the world we live in unless you can look back on it, and only 70 years ago Japanese-Americans and even Italian and German-Americans (though in smaller numbers) were held in "NDAA" fashion during WWII. I'm not trying to compare the War on Terror to WWII, but I think the NDAA is a good indicator of the direction we are going with our current foreign affairs.
ReplyDeleteI think that as it is stated, NDAA is unconstitutional. It is very easy for me to say that. But it all depends if we carry it out in a constitutional or unconstitutional way. The way it is interpreted might be different. Despite what the NDAA says, Obama won't hold people indefinitely without trial of AMERICAN CITIZENS. So I'm not quite sure what that means to non-Americans. But I agree with Thomas in that this being passed is just a sign of the times and how things are going.
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