Protests Against Indefinite-Detention Law Roll in from Across Nation
Mongi Dhaouadi, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Connecticut Chapter, hosted the meeting, which he organized with activist Chris Gauvreau. “All of us will adopt today a resolution with a clear sense that we will defeat and we will repeal this no-good law,” Dhaouadi told the crowd.
The $662 billion NDAA was signed into law by President Obama on New Year’s Eve. The bill gives the president unprecedented power to have the military seize suspected terrorists anywhere in the world, including American citizens on U.S. soil, and keep them locked up in detention indefinitely without charge or trial.
When the House version of the bill passed last spring Indigenous Peoples worried that it could be used against them for asserting their rights to self-determination and sovereignty, or for protecting their lands and resources against exploitation by governments or corporations. Other opponents argue that the bill violates the U.S. Constitution, and protests against it have spread across the country as states, civil liberty and justice organizations join a rapidly growing nationwide movement. Voices of protest have come from all parts of the political spectrum, including both the Occupy movement and Tea Partiers. In early February, people from the two groups demonstrated together in Massachusetts. “The Occupiers and Tea Partiers rightly fear the NDAA marks yet another erosion of our civil liberties,” the National Catholic Reporter said.
Several states have drafted legislation to revoke the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA, including Washington, Arizona, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Maryland. On February 14 the Virginia House of Delegates passed H.B. 1160 by a vote of 96 to 4. The bill presents a 10th Amendment argument: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” That prohibits agents of the state government from “assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the conduct of the investigation, prosecution or detention of a citizen in violation of the United States Constitution, the Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation.”
Read more:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/03/26/protests-against-indefinite-detention-law-roll-in-from-across-nation-104676
