According to a CBS poll done earlier this month, Congress' approval rating is at an all-time low of 9%. Certainly Congress either isn't aware of this or they don't care as they are continuing to attack the rights of the American people, this time with S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act.
This bill would, in the words of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield.” In other words this bill would allow the military to arrest and detain American citizens in America as though they were enemy combatants without having actually been involved in the theater of war.
According to Rep. Justin Amash, who voted against it, this act would “permit the federal government to indefinitely detain American citizens on American soil, without charge or trial, at the discretion of the President.”
Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) said of this bill, “One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. Soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. Military to preform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved.”
Section 1031 does not differentiate between U.S. Citizens and enemy combatants, and though Section 1032 (b) which refers to the applicability to U.S. Citizens states, “(1) United State Citizens—The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.”
This might not be a problem if not for the fact that in 2009 Homeland Security released a report which called most Americans possible terrorists. Read on and see if you might be one of the people this administration considers a terrorist, and who therefore needs to worry about this overturn of the Posse Comitatus Act.
From the Homeland Security report: “Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.” In other words, if you support the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution and want the government out of your business then this administration considers you a terrorist. So, do you really want Obama to have the power to send the military to arrest you and detain you “under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities” as prescribed in Section 1031 of this act?
If you still believe that the military is meant to protect the American people and our great nation rather than to be turned against us, then call your Senator and tell them to vote no on S 1867. For their contact information, click here.
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