Obama Breaks Promise To Veto Bill Allowing Indefinite Detention of Americans

[cthulu2016]

48. Okay, here's the deal on the language, IMHO

The REQUIREMENT that the military gets terror suspects does not apply to people in the US. It is not required. The law leaves open whether Americans MAY be detained but is governed by existing law and precedent so I guess whatever the law was governing Jose Padilla is still whatever it is.

The section about detainees who have materially aided al queda or other anti-US fighters being subject to the laws of war (indefinite detention until end of conflict) does not exempt anybody, American or otherwise. It does, however, say that it doesn't change existing law and authorities regarding people in America.

So the military can continue to do whatever the hell it has been doing. And whatever the hell the supreme court has said is not challenged via revision. (SCOTUS has the last word on interpreting the law, but congress is free to then change the law if they don't care for SCOTUS's interpretation -- like, "This law does not mean X!" )

One is free to take this codification in law of certain shady practices that the SCOTU said were okay seriously or not.

It does not appear quite as nefarious as its critics say and not quite as harmless as its defenders say.

It should be noted that the President issued a signing statement saying that parts of this law, as passed, are unconstitutional. My impresssion was that the signing statement did not, however, concenr the parts we are arguing about here.

That's my take.