US District Judge Katherine Forrest has issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of the portions of the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 (NDAA) that relate to open-ended military detention of “suspects,” rejecting the Obama Administration’s arguments that the eight plaintiffs in the case, including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, did not have standing to contest such detention practices.
Judge Forrest ruled that Chomsky, Ellsberg and the others had “reasonable” reason to believe that the NDAA could be used to have them captured and transferred into military custody by virtue of their antiwar stances and opposition to the administration’s policies. She also ruled that the NDAA’s standards were too vague and overly broad compared to the 2001 Authorization of the Use of Military Force, which restricted such detentions purely to those directly involved in planning or carrying out 9/11.
Forrest went on to say that the NDAA likely violated both the First and Fifth Amendments, in that it prohibited certain types of freedom of association and denies captives any due process in US courts, and said that the law had already done concrete damage to the abilities of the plaintiffs to do their jobs.
The NDAA has been hugely controversial, and public backlash has convinced members of Congress to try to alter the law. Yesterday, a number of top Bush Administration officials argued that any attempt to prohibit detention without charges would also be “unconstitutional” in that it would deny the president absolute and unquestionable power as commander in chief. Needless to say, today’s ruling does serious damage to that line of argument.
This is great! And thanks be to Chomsky and Ellsberg for challenging this monstrosity! But the 2001 AUMF must be repealed, along with the Patriot Act and NDAA.
This is great but it is just a temporary injunction. As long as the public is lead to believe that the law will be used only against brown folks they will continue to support it. And our elected reps will be able to tweak it here and there to make it impossible for the courts to throw it out.
Maybe there IS hope
Yes, until it all slams into the Supreme Court such as we know it today. But still, it sends notice to the Executive and the Congress that some of the judiciary have their number.
Winning the standing issue was especially gratifying – that anyone practically who has done anything controversial (including any of the Occupy Wall Street crowds) might have reasonable fears of being taken up into some Gulag – the judge was not so cynical as to reject this possibility in times which would look like tyranny if viewed from a few decades in the past. This seems to be a judge who is saying "No, 9/11 DID NOT change everything. Not on your Magna Carta it didn't!"
I really dont think Obama was /or is behind those ID stuff…that all comes that ME country that actually does that and is a huge burden on the US
finally, a federal judge with balls, and it's a woman!
The executive branch was NEVER intended to have "absolute and unquestinable power." Just the idea that members of congress believe and support this notion, shows just how far we've fallen as a nation. Have any of them ever bothered to read the constitution?
The members of our congress are hired by anti-Americans who get rich by abusing Americans. Until we clean out the national security state, and especially the parts of it connected with a foreign country, we will not recover our democracy.
The National Security State Wins (Again)
Why the Real Victor in Campaign 2012 Won’t Be Obama or Romney http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175542/tomgram%3A…
What??? A federal judge rules as if the United States Constitution is still in effect? Can such a thing be fact?
Now we get to hear the courts……. My most humble respect for Katherine B. Forrest…. May her name be with Jefferson Ghandi, King and and Ellsbeg, and the great ones for whom she ruled…!!! …………
Maybe there IS real HOPE in America…………….. Real HOPE for America….. Hope named Katherine B. Forrest…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Until the United States Supreme Court rules that Presidents do not have Absolute rule and unquestionable power, and that idiot Politicians cant give it to them in laws they pass, because they are Unconstitional, we will continue to see stupid FACIST type laws out of them.
The Neocons of the Bush era enhanced this Problem again after it was Knocked on the head in the immediate Post Nixon Era, the majority of the self same fools that started in his time, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the like! Put in a few lackies who couldnt find a precedent in a Paper bag to give a dubious legal oppinion, There is this foolish opinion by them and argued profusely that an AUMF is a Declaration of War, comments by US Supreme Court Justices appear otherwise, Comments in Judgements from at least one Justice say Bush probably committed War Crimes, Throwing out of Bush's Military Tribunal because they were inconsistent with the Geneva conventions in Hamdin V Rumsfeld those alone SHOW that Presidents dont have absolute Powers as President or Commander in chief and are a requirement to follow American Law and The International treaties that the United States has signed off on.
We need to go much further than that. Sad state of affairs when Malaysia shows a more healthy democracy than the US. We should take it upon ourselves to extend this result to Obama. AND to recover our "media" from those who censor the news and plague us with state propaganda.
Bush Found Guilty Of War Crimes
In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were today (Friday) found guilty of war crimes.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.
The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
…Full transcripts of the charges, witness statements and other relevant material will now be sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission is also asking that the names of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and Haynes be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals for public record….
War crimes expert and lawyer Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in America, was part of the prosecution team.
After the case he said: “This is the first conviction of these people anywhere in the world.”
… Boyle then referenced the Nuremberg Charter which was used as the format for the tribunal when asked about the credibility of the initiative in Malaysia. He quoted: “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any person in execution of such a plan.”
The US is subject to customary international law and to the Principles of the Nuremberg Charter said Boyle who also believes the week-long trial was “almost certainly” being monitored closely by both Pentagon and White House officials…
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3…
Did we really need a court in Malaysia to declare those people to be war criminals? No really. Everyone in the world, including you, knew that. But it was good to have it legalized notwithstanding. Thanks for the link.
A federal judge challenges the president of the U.S. on upholding the first and fifth amendments to the constitution. This is big.
That the US has Senators with a so called Legal Background in fact JAG Judge make the lusicrous statement that a Lawyer written legal oppinion is LAW, that would be Senator Graham. According to that scenario all it would need os a letter from a defence Lawyer to the Judge to say MY CLIENT IS INNOCENT I SAID SO!
Judge Forrest I applaud you, but unfortunately when it gets to the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC that bunch of Judges will throw your ruling out the Window, as they have been doing for years, even to the extent of ignoring US Supreme Court rulings!
At the least Obama is exposed for violating the first and fifth amendments.
I hear he's a constitutional scholar. Where did he get his sheepskin?
God bless judge Forrest, a true judge, one of the few remaining ones.
What a relief to read for once some good news. The evil ones in the shadow government have had nothing but one victory after another in destroying this country and and installing a tyranny. Kudos also to the Freedom Seven.
Its rare that I see a font in Antiwar that big.
This event is as rare as Halley's Comet. A Constitution-fearing, principled federal judge ruled against the NDAA, that fascist piece of crap. Judge Forrest rejected the arguments of O-Bomb-a's "Justice" Department.
Maybe there's hope. Not much, mind you, but some. . . .
Dear lady of the court — You are in violation of U.S. Constitution
For the Constitution that Americans worship as their god, it was created by rich nobility slave owners for but one purpose, to protect their right to own property and thereby enslave people.
For if you own land, then you are an absolute dictator over all who are on your land.
For a Constitution can protect people or protect property, but for an absolute it cannot protect both.
For if a homeless man was freezing in the snow and he walking into your warm home to save himself from a certain death — what would happen. Surely he would have to leave or take a Taser shot to the chest followed by a bullet to the head.
Dear lady of the court — You are in violation of U.S. Constitution
For the Constitution that Americans worship as their god, it was created by rich nobility slave owners for but one purpose, to protect their right to own property and thereby enslave people.
For if you own land, then you are an absolute dictator over all who are on your land.
For a Constitution can protect people or protect property, but for an absolute it cannot protect both.
For if a homeless man was freezing in the snow and he walking into your warm home to save himself from a certain death — what would happen. Surely he would have to leave or take a Taser shot to the chest followed by a bullet to the head.
Well, it's the only Constitution we have. I don't care who wrote it. When you make the privileged few stick to it, then its ours. Then it belongs to We the People. I wouldn't give tuppence for an unwritten Constitution like the British one. It wouldn't hold water here. We're too diverse a people to carry our traditions around and enforce them. No, we need the piece of paper. And it's time to enforce it.
It has become known by various news articles that the US is working with terrorists—one example is Mek—to achieve its aims, and hence the NDAA applies to the entire US officials for aiding and abetting terrorists, and therefore they must be indefinitely detained without charge. Now whether they themselves by their own actions have terrorized the world is a separate issue to be taken up by courts of competent jurisdiction.
I don’t know why anyone ever thought Obama would stand up for our rights any more than Bush did. I bet his voters were disappointed after he signed the NDAA, allowing indefinite detention of American citizens. Luckily, citizens and state governments alike are starting to fight back against it (more about that here: http://www.martiallawusa.com/wp/?p=45) If Obama thinks he can subjugate the American people that easily, he’s got another thing coming…
What I like about Judge Forrest is that she appears to be one of those nerds who worked on anti-trust and intellectual property, a nit-picking stickler type who would immediately understand that US law is a machine which performs certain functions. She understands that NDAA as it stands is a juggernaut style of machine, like a tank in Tiananmen Square or like any crude such device of the barbarian or Soviet or Nazi past. And she doesn't like the patent on it. Something's not new about it at all. In fact we got rid of those things long ago, they're on the junk heap of history. You can't just crank one out and say "There, now you can legally put anyone in one if you are the President." Because they were outlawed for their flawed design. And this one moves like it, smells of the same old bodily fluids, pops up the same red flags. It's a bad copy of a bad machine. Out it with that old thing, pretending to be new.
First good news I've heard from the US in about 3 years. Good on Hedges & Co. and Judge Forrest.
Another exercise in futility. Wait till the Corporate Supremos get a hold of that. We'll be beginning for the NDAA.
Oh, but threaten a member of Congress with indefinite detention for opposing Obama and see how quickly they will change their tune. It's okay to throw someone in the oubliette as long as it's not THEM.
How many steps is it from the oubliette to the guillotine? Not far I think, and the blood of tyrants will soon refresh the tree of liberty if our legislature and executive pursue the course they have put themselves on. I merely quote Thomas Jefferson, a man whose virtues always outweighed his flaws.
Let's not "take anything off the table" Isn't that what those who destroy our rights say when threatening some poor third world basket case….. Their code words for nuclear attack, conventional genocide by depleted uranium and their home by 5:00 drones…. Take our rights at your own risk…. Cause we're not gonna "take anything off the table"………. We remember how our revolution was fought………!!!!!!!!!