Why does surprise anyone in the least? By signing the NDAA last New Year's Eve President Obama put a legal mechanism in place whereby any President could have the US military arrest and put any American citizen and place them in indefinite detention without due process.....although he issued a signing statement indicating that he personally would not do this as President, if there is any alleged "national emergency", such a signing statement would go right out the window.
On April 5, the Defense Department quietly sent a report to Congress indicating how it intends to implement a new law requiring lawyers and judges for detainees held in long-term U.S. military custody. As expected, DoD largely wrote the new rights out of existence, ensuring they'd be accorded to few, if any, detainees. What's more, it severely limited the scope of judicial review even that small number will receive. Originally intended to apply to the prisoners held by the United States at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Section 1024 of the National Defense Authorization Act is now more likely to apply to some future category of indefinite detainees held by the U.S. government. And therein lies the problem.
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