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Cross Post from ILWQ
Yes. The leadership of Democratic and Republican Parties may be too gutless to stand up to Obama, but Chris Hedges is not. Last Friday Attorneys Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran filed a complaint in the Southern U.S. District Court in New York City on Hedges behalf as the plaintiff against Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as embedded in the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Obama Dec 31, 2011.
With this bill, which will take effect March 3, the military can indefinitely detain without trial any U.S. citizen deemed to be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism. And suspects can be shipped by the military to our offshore penal colony in Guantanamo Bay and kept there until “the end of hostilities.” It is a catastrophic blow to civil liberties.
“. . .But I suspect the real purpose of this bill is to thwart internal, domestic movements that threaten the corporate state. The definition of a terrorist is already so amorphous under the Patriot Act that there are probably a few million Americans who qualify to be investigated if not locked up. Consider the arcane criteria that can make you a suspect in our new military-corporate state. The Department of Justice considers you worth investigating if you are missing a few fingers, if you have weatherproof ammunition, if you own guns or if you have hoarded more than seven days of food in your house. . . .”
Go to Truthdig to read Chris Hedges full explanation of why he is doing this.
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Note: If anyone knows of the potential impact of this heinous act, it’s Chris Hedges.
Chris Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, where he was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years (1990–2005).
16 Comments
Thank you for bringing this info to FDL.
Recommended.
Go, Chris!
I’m behind you.
Just one more reason to love and respect Chris Hedges.
Thank you Chris for showing us what courage and integrity looks like.
Another thing to thank Chris Hedges for. God bless and keep him.
The entire membership of the Mormon
cultreligion can file suit for religious persecution over that issue.Having more than seven days of food in one’s house? Forget about just Mormons: I would think any Big Box store member, Sam’s Club and CostCo, would be high on that list! I mean, what’s seven days’ worth of food if one buys the sizes avialable at the Big Box stores?
I just checked my pantry cupboard: Several unopened bottles of salad dressing bought when on sale, large containers of flour, sugar, dried legumes. Several cans of low sodiun soups. Low sodium broths for making soups. Many types of seaonings, all of which will last longer than seven days.
And then there’s the freezer: ground beef bought on sale and frozen, frozen veggies bought on sale, etc. And so forth. Oh, and frozen breads, the good kinds, bought day old or on sale.
Is that really a criteria? Holy moly! Any country family could be brought up on that one, along with the bargain shoppers. Damn.
Who knew frugality was a terraist clue?
Thank you, Chris Hedges. But does anyone not disappeared under this law have “standing?” And if they’re disappeared, they may have standing but no way to sue, right?
What’s the number of this “catch”? Catch 22 we know about, but this one?
You beat me to it. Just like you, I’m thinking that his suit will be tossed out on “standing” grounds.
Hedges was interviewed by Gary Null today on his daily show at progressiveradionetwork.com. Hedges said that he thinks Obama + Congress delivered NDAA because the corporatocracy believes that they can’t trust the police to stifle dissent. Black op military guys are their insurance, the desire for which was increased by Occupy Wall Street.
IOW, non-terrorist citizens are the target.
Gee, this story never made it to dkos; I wonder why….
Basically. His last sentence in the piece said it all:
In our world of up is down, MLKjr would be a terrorist. And any peace-lovers are terrorists. I don’t think they think any citizens are “non-terrorists”…well, except those 1 percenters who are so patriotic and loyal that they are f-ing the country, whoops, I mean, creating jobs and keeping the economy from collapsing.
He’s claiming in the complaint that, in practicing his profession as a journalist, he already has engaged in activities that could constitute a violation of the statute, given vague and undefined terms like “substantially supported”,”directly supported”, and “associated forces”.
He hopes to satisfy the standing requirement, since he intends to continue to develop relationships with and interview people who are actively involved in challenging authoritarian governments and U.S. corporate power. He believes that he will be at risk to be disappeared into a U.S. gulag by the U.S. military, if the court does not act.
He’s asking the court to issue a declaratory judgment that the statute is unconstitutional because it is vague (i.e., he cannot reasonably figure out where the line is between legal and illegal acts and thereby avoid violating the statute), overbroad (i.e., violates his First Amendment right to investigate and report the news), and would deny him due process of law under the Fifth Amendment(i.e., because he could not challenge his confinement and would be denied a trial).
That would be enough for me, if I were the judge, to grant the relief that he requests.
But, I ain’t wearing the robe.
He needs an independent tough-minded judge willing to stand up to the government.
He was practically considered a terrorist back then.
Not everyone shed a tear when his head got blown off.
SharonMI -
He was practically considered a terrorist back then.
Not everyone shed a tear when his head got blown off.
The Great Orange Ostrich Haven…
In our police state in which the only job not at risk of a layoff is in the military (til yer head gets blown off), working for peace makes one a terrorist. When are they gonna drag off D. Kucinich and other Dept of Peace advocates?