In a 315-107 vote this evening, the House of Representatives has approved a massive $633 billion National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, a consensus version which will now move on to the Senate for rubber stamping.
The bill is something of an increase over the initial House version, which was $606 billion and was approved in July, and a slight increase over the Senate version, which was $631 billion.
One key difference from the Senate version is the removal of the Feinstein Amendment, which was aimed at banning the military from detaining US citizens on American soil and holding them without charges.
The Feinstein Amendment was itself controversial, because while many Senators voted for it, many believed it was actual aimed at making it easier to detain civilians. With the removal, the NDAA of 2013 doesn’t even attempt to rectify the 2012 version’s granting of broad powers to detain citizens on suspicion.
