NDAA 2013 - Indefinite detention without trial is back [View all]

[naaman fletcher]

Source: Russia Today

Lawmakers in Washington have stripped an amendment from next year’s National Defense Authorization Act that could have kept the government from indefinitely detaining US citizens without charge or trial.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Michigan) told reporters on Tuesday that an amendment to the 2013 defense spending bill approved only two weeks earlier had been removed. That amendment, authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), was pitched as a solution to a clause in the current NDAA that allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens without due process or habeas corpus.

Under the 2012 NDAA, US President Barack Obama is affirmed the power to put any American citizen behind bars if he or she is suspected of assisting in any way with forces engaged in hostilities against the United States or its allies. That provision, Sec. 1021, says any person who commits a “belligerent act” against the country can be imprisoned indefinitely “without trial” until the vaguely-worded period of hostilities has come to an end.

Pres. Obama signed the 2012 NDAA into law on December 31 of last year, but included a statement at the time that condemned the powers under Sec. 1021 that he awarded himself.

Read more: http://rt.com/usa/news/ndaa-indefinite-detention-trial-403/

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We need to pressure the whitehouse to veto the bill until indefinite detention is stripped