President Barack Obama: "Defiling the Constitution, Betraying the Founders"

[Better Believe It]

Defiling the Constitution, Betraying the Founders
by Ray McGovern
During his career as a CIA analyst, Ray McGovern prepared and briefed the President's Daily Brief and chaired National Intelligence Estimates. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
January 5, 2012

President Barack Obama desecrated the Constitution that he and I swore to defend when he signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which includes language violating the Bill of Rights and other constitutionally protected liberties.

Those existing laws – including the original post-9/11 use-of-military-force authorization and the Military Commissions Act passed in 2006 and modified in 2009 – opened the door for presidents to declare anyone of their choice, American citizen or non-citizen alike, an “enemy combatant” and to subject the person to military prison or even assassination.

The American Civil Liberties Union also disputed Obama’s claim that the NDAA was essentially business as usual. “The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision,” the ACLU said, without “temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”

In other words, the ACLU is noting that since the United States relies on the principle of “laws, not men,” the assurance of any individual president that he won’t exploit an abusive legal power doesn’t mean that the next president won’t. The right thing to do in such a case is to veto legislation that contains that kind of unconstitutional provision, not simply sign it, promise not to use it, and express “serious reservations.”


Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/05-3

[99th_Monkey]

1. Not to mention that Obama has been known to "change his mind"

So THAT's the "CHANGE" he was talking about!!!!!

I've been wondering wtf he meant by it for years..

[struggle4progress]

2. This complaint, like so many others, contains no discussion whatsoever of the key point, which is:

exactly what are the currently existing law and authorities, relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons captured or arrested in the United States?

This matters materially, because there has been a great split between the authoritarians and anti-authoritarians on this issue, for as long as I can remember -- and the conflicting views will be resolved by the courts, as composed by successive Presidents which the advice and consent of successive Senates

I think that there is substantial agreement between most of us here, that indefinite detention, as envisioned by the GWBush gangsters and their ilk, is intolerable -- but we had the misfortune to lose some measurable control of Congress in 2010, and the compromise language here is an inevitable reflection of that loss

[Whisp]

3. what a...

surprise

[T S Justly]

4. K&R (nt)

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

5. He is not the first and he is not alone.

[woo me with science]

6. K&R

Occupy. We are losing our country.

[emilyg]

7. Yes. Day by day.