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Thread: NDAA - America is the new battlefield.

  1. #1
    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Default NDAA - America is the new battlefield.

    President Obama has just signed into law a piece of legislation that allows US Forces to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone connected with terrorism including US Citizens. It was included on a Bill for troop funding, but in doing so raises some scary thoughts about exactly what the USA will do. It used to be the case that people could be arrested and imprisoned, if they were encountered on a battlefield or where the US troops were active. That premise appears to have been extended to the USA.

    Now Obama has said that he will never use the provision *cough*Guantanamo is still open*cough*, but then he also said he would never sign it in the first place. It also raises the question that now the power is in place, will a future POTUS use that legal authority. There is no point saying that you won't use it, if you can't say that someone after you wont use it either.

    Now, there was a massive outcry in the UK, about detention being increased from 28 to 42 days without charge. But to allow a supposedly democratic government to permanently hold people without charge just seems wrong.

    So, is this a necessary Act to protect America, or a step too far?
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  2. #2
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    The really sad thing is that I tried to draw attention to this before it was signed into law and the majority of people I know dismissed it out of hand, believing it to be a paranoid fantasy, despite the concern and analysis from the ACLU.

    The ability to indefinitely detain without charge citizens suspected of conspiring with shadowy enemies is better suited for Soviet Russia than America. I'm not saying it isn't potentially useful in the "war on terror", but I don't think that justifies trampling on human rights. There has to be a limit in how far we're willing to go, and I thought the bill of rights was it.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

  3. #3
    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    It sucks.

    Seriously, every time we surrender a freedom to fear we move further from the American Ideal.

    It will be used eventually and therefore it will also be abused.

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