No Charges, No Trial, No Lawyer, No Jury: Straight to Execution

It seems big changes are all around our country now; things like globalization, the economic crisis, and our “war on terror”. I have to ask myself why the war on terror is stealing our chances of living as free people, in a free country, being governed by the consent of the people?

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 has destroyed three of the ten guarantees of your liberty as stated in the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights. Any U.S. citizen can now be arrested by the U.S. military while inside the U.S. and can be permanently jailed with no charges, no right to a trial, and no lawyer to assist with a defense.

Yes, it is all true. It is now the law of the land. Congress wrote it and President Obama signed it into law on December 31st, 2011. It is the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012 (NDAA 2012). The problems with the new law are located in Title X, subtitle D, subsections 1031 and 1032. Under it, the U.S. military can now arrest U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and indefinitely detain them without charge, without a trial, without the right to ever appear before a civilian judge, and without the right to a lawyer. The U.S. citizen might then be transferred to “any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity”. Why was the person arrested by the military? Because the person is a “suspected terrorist” or “conspired with suspected terrorists”.

So who is a “suspected terrorist”? According to NDAA 2012, anyone suspected of committing or conspiring to commit a “belligerent act” against the U.S. A look at the definition for belligerent in Webster's dictionary includes, in addition to “at war”, the definition “ready to fight or quarrel”. Quarrel is defined as “a dispute, especially an angry one”. Disputing our government's policies, especially at a loud but nonviolent protest could easily be considered a “belligerent act”.

But how bad is this bill, really? First, there is very broad opposition to it from the “left” and “right”. Both the “right wing” Heritage Foundation and the “left wing” ACLU are strongly opposed. There has not been this much bipartisan anger against a new federal law since the banker bailouts. Also, it shreds the Bill of Rights in three places, specifically the Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, and Eighth Amendment.