A scenario: Newt Gingrich is President of the United States in 2013 [View all]

[justiceischeap]

Last edited Tue Dec 20, 2011, 12:51 PM - Edit history (1)

I'd like to preface this scenario with the following: there has been a lot of back and forth on this board about what NDAA can and cannot do in reference to US citizens. I'd like to think that we have some intelligent folks debating both sides of this coin--either the President can or cannot hold US citizens indefinitely. I think the language of this Bill is so ambiguous that even intelligent folks have a hard time discerning the true authority of this law. That said, here's the scenario.

President Gingrich decides to declare YOU an enemy combatant because you participated in a protest that didn't have a permit and there was damage to property and people got hurt (for the sake of this argument, we'll say police officers got hurt). I've posted about this several times before, the DoD considers illegal, violent protests a form of low-level terrorism. So, the folks arrested at the illegal, violent protest are declared terrorists by President Gingrich. What happens to you according to your interpretation of NDAA? Do (would) we even know if you've been arrested and held as an enemy combatant by President Gingrich? Would such a President freely offer up the fact that he's taking advantage of ambiguous language in a Bill that some of you argue can't be used against US citizens?

I know, to some, this scenario seems out there and probably within the realm of tinfoil hattedness (I made up a word) but I think the scenario I painted above is possible...heck, it was possible before NDAA but, IMO, NDAA gives a President somewhere to point when people say, "You can't do this sort of thing," and he can say, "Well, that's not the way I interpreted it. The bill said it wasn't "required" that the military take custody, but it doesn't say we're not "allowed" to take custody of US citizens."

Here is what Sen. Lindsey Graham had to say about the law of the land right now: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/appearance/600840428

So anyone arguing that NDAA doesn't "allow" for US citizens declared enemy combatants to be detained indefinitely hasn't, IMO, really looked further into this matter.