The terrorists have won
Jack Hunter
Blogger for “Paulitical Ticker”
via The Day Caller
12/2/2011
Since 9/11, Senator Lindsey Graham has said repeatedly that we must fight the terrorists “over there” so we don’t have to fight them “over here.” But this week, Graham threw that all out the window. Apparently, we are now at war everywhere. Forever.
Commenting on the controversial Section 1031 of the National Defense Authorization Act — which many contend gives the federal government new powers to arrest American citizens without charge — Graham made clear this week that “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”
The entire world is now a “battlefield”? “Including the homeland”?
There have been serious constitutional questions raised recently concerning whether our federal government should be able to arrest or assassinate American citizens overseas without charge or trial. This new and largely uncharted legal territory has been troublesome. But arresting or assassinating American citizens here in the United States without trial? Rounding up and holding American citizens indefinitely without charge? What country is this?
This is a new and unprecedented government power that should scare the living hell out of every last American. Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) rightly called it “one of the most anti-liberty pieces of legislation of our lifetime.” Jim Gilmore, former Virginia governor and chairman of the Congressional Panel on Terrorism, roundly denounced it: “The provisions of this bill undermine the basic safeguards that we enjoy as Americans. It is dangerous, and should not be supported by anyone: Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, citizen or non-citizen.”
Added Gilmore: “This ill-considered bill is one of those dangers to our liberties by an unwise extension of military power in the homeland contrary to all law, precedent and history.”
As Amash and Gilmore note — and Graham ignores — the basic constitutional principle of protecting individual liberties through due process is not some negotiable piece of historical trivia. It is the bedrock of the most rudimentary American and Western law dating all the way back to the Magna Carta. Accepting this legislation blindly — as the majority of both parties seem entirely comfortable with — is to surrender the most basic of American liberties. Said Sen. Rand Paul, who fought hard and mostly alone to strip the National Defense Authorization Act of this terrifying provision: “Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.”
And the terrorists have won. If a primary purpose of terrorism is to induce fear, and Americans are willing to give up their most precious freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism, how is this anything less than a monumental victory for our enemies?…
The article continues at The Daily Caller.
Update: Iron Curtain Begins Descending onto the United States of America
…The most recent and titanic infringement on the rights of all US citizens is a bill (National Defense Authorization Act-NDAA). Although Section 1032 subsection (b) (1) and (2) of S 1867 (passed in secret and behind closed doors) states that US Citizens and legal resident aliens are not subject to military incarceration, US Senators (including now self-outed Marxist Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham) are gleefully interpreting Section 1031 to include all US citizens being subject to “Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”
In other words, we may now experience what those recently nationwide refurbished FEMA camps look like. This is no longer conspiracy theory, folks. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) amongst many others have now not only threatened all of us with arrest but, are threatening the very foundations of what used to be our country. The masks have come off of our elected officials and most of them now resemble either Josef Stalin or Adolph Hitler…
