Jake Porter

A big thumbs down to a couple of little discussed provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that would give the Department of Defense the ability to detain suspected terrorists on American soil indefinitely denying them the right to a trial so long as the federal government claims they are members of Al Qaeda.  

The problems with these provisions are painfully obvious.  The FBI has a very good track record dealing with terrorists in the United States, bringing them to trial, and getting convictions while at the same time disrupting terrorists activity.  The U.S. military on the other hand is not, nor has it ever been, designed to handle such situations and should certainly not be handed the title of judge, jury, and possibly even executioner.  Not to mention, loopholes in this bill could potentially allow for the indefinite detainment of United States Citizens.

Dave Nalle, Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, posts the following update:

Two Amendments from Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) are still pending and will be voted on at 5pm today. They will edit the language of sections 1031 and 1032 to remove the possibility of indefinite military detention. They are a reasonable alternative to the Paul and Udall Amendments and Senators Paul, Udall and Mike Lee will be supporting them along with a growing coalition of other Senators. They are only a handful of votes short of passing these amendments, so if we could win over a few more Republican votes that might make all the difference. At the end of this article is an expanded list of Senators who you could call today before 2pm EST and encourage to vote for the Feinstein Amendments. Please take a few minutes to make the calls. It’s also still useful to email your Senators, especially if they are on the target list.