National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013
"[13][17] Among these provisions are those that effectively thwart Obama's efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and give military members the right to refuse to take certain actions that violate their conscience.
[17] "This law makes it harder for the President to fulfill his promise to close the Guantanamo detention facility, perpetuating a grave injustice against the detainees held without charge or fair trial," said Frank Jannuzi, Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty International USA.
"[16] The NDAA, an otherwise mundane annual bill that lays out the use of funds for the Department of Defense, has come under attack during the Obama administration for the introduction of a provision in 2012 that allows the military to detain United States citizens indefinitely without charge or trial for mere suspicions of ties to terrorism.
"[20][24][25][26] The Feinstein–Lee Amendment is "inconsistent with the constitutional principle that basic due process applies to everyone in the US," said American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legislative counsel Chris Anders.
By seeking to protect only United States citizens and legal permanent residents, the amendment could be read to imply that indefinite military detention of any other persons apprehended within the United States was authorized in 2001 and was lawful," the ACLU wrote, referring to the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the founding document of the "war on terror" that was passed the week after the September 11 attacks.
[9] A Congressional conference committee tasked with merging the House and Senate versions of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) decided on December 18, 2012, to drop the Feinstein–Lee provision, which would have explicitly barred the military from holding American citizens and permanent residents in indefinite detention without trial as terrorism suspects.
1541) or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (Public Law 112–81) shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus or to deny any Constitutional rights in a court ordained or established by or under Article III of the Constitution to any person inside the United States who would be entitled to the availability of such writ or to such rights in the absence of such laws.
[31]The Huffington Post noted that the replacement version appeared to do little, because the Supreme Court has already declared that the writ of habeas corpus, i.e. the constitutional requirement that someone be presented to a judge, applies to all people.
"[31] Chris Anders from the American Civil Liberties Union called the language on indefinite detention of Americans "completely meaningless" and added there's no doubt that habeas rights are available to anyone who's detained in the U.S.[30] Bruce Afran, a lawyer for the group of journalists and activists suing the U.S. government over the 2012 NDAA, explained that the above quoted provision gives U.S. citizens a right to go to civilian (i.e.
Afran concluded: "Therefore, under the guise of supposedly adding protection to Americans, the new statute actually expands the AUMF to civilians in the U.S."[32] The Smith–Mundt Modernization Act of 2012[33] was introduced by U.S.
[41] He argued against a complete repeal of the Smith–Mundt Act of 1948 stating that the law "creates a statutory firewall between resources intended for foreign audiences and those used domestically.
Tear down that firewall, and it will be a matter of time before resources and personnel who focus on talking about America overseas are diverted in favor of domestic "public affairs," the short-term political imperative of any administration."
House vote by congressional district. [ 5 ]
Senate vote by state. [ 6 ]