Congress Rushing to Approve 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)

Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
New American
December 12, 2013

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have reached an agreement on the fiscal year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

As approved by the committees, the text of the latest iteration of the bill is derived from H.R. 1960, which passed the House on June 14 by a vote of 315-108 and S. 1197, a version passed by a Senate committee by a vote of 23-3, later that same day.

House and Senate leaders hurried to hammer out a mutually acceptable measure so as to get the whole package passed before the end of the year.

Reading the mainstream (official) press, one would believe that the NDAA is nothing more nefarious than a necessary replenishing of Pentagon funds. Readers of The New American know, however, there is much more than budget issues contained in the legislation.

For two years, the NDAA included provisions that purported to authorize the president of the United States to deploy the U.S. military to apprehend and indefinitely detain any person (including an American citizen) who he believes “represent[s] an enduring security threat to the United States.”

Such an immense grant of power is not only unconscionable, but unconstitutional, as well.

Regardless of promises to the contrary made every year since 2011 by President Obama, the language of the NDAA places every citizen of the United States within the universe of potential “covered persons.” Any American could one day find himself or herself branded a “belligerent” and thus subject to the complete confiscation of his or her constitutional civil liberties and to nearly never-ending incarceration in a military prison.

Finally, there is in the NDAA for 2014 a frightening fusion of the federal government’s constant surveillance of innocent Americans and the assistance it will give to justifying the indefinite detention of anyone labeled an enemy of the regime.

Section 1071 of the version of the 2014 NDAA approved by the House and Senate committees this week expands on the scope of surveillance established by the Patriot Act and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Section 1071(a) authorizes the secretary of defense to “establish a center to be known as the ‘Conflict Records Research Center.’” According to the text of the latest version of the NDAA, the center’s task would be to compile a “digital research database including translations and to facilitate research and analysis of records captured from countries, organizations, and individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.”

In order to accomplish the center’s purpose, the secretary of defense will create an information exchange in cooperation with the director of national intelligence.

Key to the functioning of this information exchange will be the collection of “captured records.” Section 1071(g)(1), defines a captured record as “a document, audio file, video file, or other material captured during combat operations from countries, organizations, or individuals, now or once hostile to the United States.”

When read in conjunction with the provision of the AUMF that left the War on Terror open-ended and the prior NDAAs’ classification of the United States as a battleground in that unconstitutional war, and you’ve got a powerful combination that can knock out the entire Bill of Rights.

Finally, when all the foregoing is couched within the context of the revelations regarding the dragnet surveillance programs of the NSA, it becomes evident that anyone’s phone records, e-mail messages, browsing history, text messages, and social media posts could qualify as a “captured record.”

After being seized by the NSA (or some other federal surveillance apparatus), the materials would be processed by the Conflict Records Research Center created by this bill. This center’s massive database of electronic information and its collaboration with the NSA converts the United States into a constantly monitored holding cell and all its citizens and residents into suspects. All, of course, in the name of the security of the homeland.

Although the outlook is dire, there are those willing to stand and oppose the threats to liberty posed by the NDAA.

For example, libertarian icon and former presidential candidate Ron Paul recently interviewed Daphne Lee, a lady who calls herself “just a mom” but who made an impassioned speech in Nevada against the indefinite detention provisions of the 2012 NDAA. After talking to Lee, Paul announced that he would work to fight enforcement of unconstitutional provisions of the NDAA nationwide.

Additionally, the People Against the NDAA (PANDA) organization is promoting passage of anti-NDAA legislation in towns, counties, and states. On a website devoted to chronicling these efforts, PANDA lists 27 cities, 17 counties, and 25 states that have enacted or are considering bills or resolutions refusing to execute any element of the NDAA that violates the constitutionally protected liberties of its citizens.

While these bills are at various spots along the process of becoming laws, one state recently signed on to thwart the abuse of power authorized by the NDAA.

On October 1, Governor Jerry Brown announced that he had signed AB 351 into law.

The new statute, called the California Liberty Preservation Act, outlaws the participation of any agency of the state of California, any political subdivision of the state, employee of a state or local agency, or member of the California National Guard from

knowingly aiding an agency of the Armed Forces of the United States in any investigation, prosecution, or detention of a person within California pursuant to (1) Sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA), (2) the federal law known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, enacted in 2001, or (3) any other federal law, except as specified, if the state agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the California National Guard would violate the United States Constitution, the California Constitution, or any law of this state by providing that aid….

… knowingly using state funds and funds allocated by the state to those local entities on and after January 1, 2013, to engage in any activity that aids an agency of the Armed Forces of the United States in the detention of any person within California for purposes of implementing Sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA or the federal law known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, if that activity would violate the United States Constitution, the California Constitution, or any law of this state, as specified.

Interpreted broadly, the Liberty Preservation Act would outlaw state cooperation in any federal act which violates the state or federal constitutions. Although Governor Brown almost certainly didn’t intend the provisions of the law to be applied this liberally, the black letter could arguably be used to protect citizens of California from deprivation of a wide panoply of fundamental rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.

It will be worth watching court dockets in California to see if anyone relies on this language to fight the state’s infamous disarmament statutes.

Originally sponsored by State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a conservative Republican (now running for governor), the bill’s senate sponsor was one of that body’s “most liberal lawmakers,” Mark Leno.

“Indefinite detention, by its very definition, means that we are abrogating, suspending, just throwing away the basic foundations of our Constitution and of our nation,” Leno said.

After being warned by some of his fellow Democrats that siding with Donnelly was tantamount to political suicide, Leno stood firm in defense of liberty. “It doesn’t matter where one finds oneself on the political spectrum,” he said. “These two sections of this national defense act are wrong, unconstitutional and never should have been included.”

Then, in November, a similar bill was introduced to the Ohio State House of Representatives by state Representatives Jim Butler and Ron Young. This concurrent resolution condemns “Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012” and urges “the Attorney General of the State of Ohio to bring suit to challenge the constitutionality of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.”

While neither the California law nor the Ohio resolution is a perfect example of absolute nullification of an unconstitutional federal act, both stand as examples to other state legislatures of attempts to heed the counsel given by James Madison to states that want to resist federal consolidation of all power.

In The Federalist, no. 46, Madison recommended that an effective way to thwart federal overreach is for agents of the states to refuse “to cooperate with officers of the Union.”

In order for Fiscal Year 2014 NDAA to become the “law,” the House of Representatives must pass the bill this week and the Senate would have to follow suit by the end of next week. This gives Americans only a few short days to contact their federal representatives and senators and encourage them to reject any version of the NDAA that infringes on the timeless civil liberties protected by the Constitution.

This article was posted: Thursday, December 12, 2013 at 1:47 pm

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Infowars

Congress Rushing to Approve 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)

In Support of Congressional Authorization on Syria

Barack Obama’s campaign team is out in full force doing what the U.S. president himself is giving only passing attention to: building the case for a limited military strike on targets only symbolically related to chemical weapons and calibrated to have no effect on the brutal civil war grinding on and producing ever more radical rebels who are consolidating power in swaths of Syria.

In yet one more example that the Chicago School is better at campaigning than governing, David Axelrod bragged that the president had forced Congress to take responsibility for Syria. He further taunted Congress — before the vote! — as not knowing what to do. The president and his team assert he may attack Syria even if Congress withholds the authorization he has requested. How this builds support, either across the aisle or in Democratic ranks, where for many liberals this will be a difficult vote for principled reasons, is a mystery. But it is consistent with the administration’s inability to resist basketball court swagger — as is hinting that winning congressional authorization on military action will be parlayed into an ownership of Republican votes on raising the debt ceiling and other urgent issues on which the president has been unable to build a coalition and unwilling much to try. Surely a White House that will be decimated both domestically and internationally should the vote fail ought to be instead cajoling, horse trading, and praising to garner votes?

A “full-court press” by the White House evidently consists of major policy statements delivered over the Labor Day weekend, selective declassification of intelligence with assurances that this cabinet would never shade intelligence, ringing speeches by the secretary of state (and John Kerry was resplendent), allowing members of Congress to remain in their districts to maximize exposure to public skepticism rather than call them back for a war vote at which the president addresses a joint session of Congress, and a presidential willingness to cancel a fundraising trip to California next week, should that prove absolutely necessary. This is an administration willing to forego European missile defense to buy questionable Russian support on Iran sanctions but unwilling to forgo anything in Obama’s agenda to buy congressional support for his war in Syria. The president should watch Spielberg’s Lincoln for a teachable moment. 

Rosa Brooks’s elegiac column best outlines the downward spiral of the Obama administration. The case made by the administration in congressional hearings is a stunning reversal of previous policy: What began as resistance in the face of pressure to act is now desperate rationalization for action. Now Kerry insists extremists constitute only “15 to 25 percent” of rebel forces (as though that were manageable), when just weeks ago a senior intelligence official explained at the Aspen Security Forum that more than a thousand separate factions are fighting. Now Kerry insists moderate rebels are gaining in influence thanks to equipment provided by Saudi Arabia, even as commanders of four of the five major rebel fighting forces threaten to align with the al-Nusra Front. Now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel estimates the cost of planned military operations only in the “tens of millions,” while Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had recently denied any military action was possible under a billion. Now intelligence agencies have a rock-solid hold on every aspect of Syria’s chemical weapons attack, though Dempsey not long ago testified that we know less now than we did a year ago about Syria. Now the president considers the prohibition on chemical weapons use a national interest; the previous 13 chemical attacks by Syria over the past year somehow did not constitute a cause for war. Now the world has drawn a red line, even though the world is conspicuously absent in providing political support, mandates from international institutions, or military forces for action against Syria.

Yet with all the administration’s bungling, Congress has now before it a choice. Should legislators support the president’s request or deny him authorization? If they support, they will be complicit in what’s to come, and the president’s “strategy” is laughably unstrategic. It’s a terrible plan, narcissistic to the point of ignoring predictable reactions by both enemies and friends. Many in Congress are understandably concerned about voter backlash — and this president has very short coattails. Only about 20 percent of the public supports intervening in Syria; the administration is nowhere near winning the argument. There is stunning hypocrisy in this president, who took campaign swings through Iraq to highlight his opposition to the war that the United States was fighting and to Germany to highlight his international appeal, now somberly intoning that politics must stop at the water’s edge.

But none of these concerns erases the stubborn fact that it would be bad for our country to deny the president congressional support to attack Syria. Obama has damaged American credibility with his choices; Congress has an opportunity to provide some margin of repair.

A vote in favor of the resolution would demonstrate to the world that We the People are often better than our government, able to make difficult decisions when difficult decisions need to be made. That we struggle to make manifest our principles and beliefs, even in complicated circumstances. That we don’t avert our eyes from evil, even when we are weary of war. That we understand our choices set standards to shape the international order and that responsibility is often a lonely one.

Republicans in Congress should not allow the president to foist on them responsibility that is properly and constitutionally settled on the commander in chief. It is the president who develops policies and carries out military action; he should come up with a better one. Congress should give him the authority while criticizing his plan.

Kori Schake is a fellow at the Hoover Institution.

RealClearPolitics – Articles

In Support of Congressional Authorization on Syria