The National Defense Authorization Act: Truth Is More Frightening Than Fiction

I've generally made it a point to steer clear of political or contentious issues in my blogging, not because I don't have an opinion, but because as an author serving a very diverse group of readers I don't particularly care to start any major food fights. It's just not my style, unless I'm armed with an open can of cream corn. I'm also not partial to any public use of profanity. That's something I generally reserve for when I'm engaged in a home fixit project or have maneuvered our RV into a spot too tight for a Mazda Miyata.

Then I read about the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 and some provisions that were tacked onto it. What we're talking about here is a direct threat to some of our most basic constitutional rights. And that's enough to cause me to stand up and say, "What the frack??"

If you don't know what the NDAA is, it's an annually recurring bit of legislation that lays out the budget for the Department of Defense. That in itself is no big deal, and I'm not here to argue whether we're spending too much, too little, or a just right amount. You can call me Shirley, just don't call me Goldilocks.

The 2012 NDAA, however, has a juicy little twist that would give the military the power to detain and hold – indefinitely – anyone even suspected of being involved with terror groups, including U.S. citizens within the United States. You could be jailed without trial by the military and held as long as the "war on terror" continues, which will probably be forever, unfortunately. There's no probable cause, no reasonable doubt, just suspicion. That's it.

Imperfect as it may be, the entire civil judicial process, all the checks and balances, even the basic concept of "innocent until proven guilty," would all go straight out the window if the government suspected you of somehow being involved with terrorist groups or associated entities (which are all pretty loosely defined). Instead of the FBI knocking on your door and at least telling you that you have the right to remain silent, and the government either having to make a case against you or let you out of the pokey, you could be rounded up by the military, shipped off to a detention facility (hey, Guantanamo is keeping a light on for ya!) and given the water boarding treatment, just because the government suspects you of being associated with terrorism in some way.

Do you think I'm being melodramatic? Check out one of the pithy statements Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the bill's supporters, has made on the issue:

"If you're an American citizen and you betray your country, you're going to be held in military custody and you're going to be questioned about what you know, and you're not going to be given a lawyer."

Follow that up with this one, also by Graham:

"I believe our military should be deeply involved in fighting these guys at home or abroad."

I can easily see a scenario where the government at some point decides that muslims here in the U.S. pose an "unacceptable" threat to national security. Under the provisions of NDAA 2012, elements of the intelligence community – including the National Security Agency, which is under the Department of Defense – could conceivably be authorized to conduct more intrusive surveillance (with the FBI and the Justice Department cut out of the loop). And people who are "suspected" of being involved or possibly associated with the various officially declared terror groups could be rounded up by active duty military or even National Guard personnel and sent off to detainment facilities. A knock on your door in the middle of the night and you disappear.

Muslims are an obvious target, but they're not the only one. Supporters of the various factions that together from a secessionist movement are another. How about the Occupy Wall Street folks? Take your pick. Once you let this sort of genie out of the bottle, all you need is suspicion on the part of the government, just like we "suspected" there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, right?

"Oh, come on!" Says you. "That would never happen! Uncle Sam would never do that, charge the military with rounding up a bunch of American citizens and lock them away without due process. You're a loon! Go back to writing your novels."

I hate to tell you this, but it's happened already. President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 during World War 2 authorized the Secretary of War and U.S. armed forces commanders to declare areas of the United States as military areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded." This led to over 100,000 people, over sixty percent of whom were American citizens, being detained at places like Manzanar, simply because they were "suspected" of possibly supporting the Axis powers. The vast majority of them were of Japanese ancestry. Since they looked like Japanese, they obviously must have been sympathetic to the Empire of Japan. Right.

Thankfully, EO 9066 was rescinded in 1976 by President Ford, and a subsequent review by a commission under President Carter concluded that the decision to detain those people was based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership," and not military necessity.

Does any of that sound familiar? Substitute religious prejudice (muslim = terrorist) for race prejudice, war hysteria is easy to come by when we're dealing with threats to the homeland, and I think almost everyone can agree that we've seen more than our fair share of failure of political leadership these days.

At least Roosevelt had to man up and issue an executive order, which could conceivably have been challenged by any clear-thinking Congress (which we obviously didn't have back then, either). But NDAA 2012 would take what was done under EO 9066 one giant leap beyond and give the executive branch and the military even more sweeping powers by law.

Now, I have to apologize up front to my conservative friends, because when I initially read about these provisions in the NDAA, my first thought was that it was a bit of a reactionary move on the part of extreme conservatives. Well-intentioned, I'm sure, but loony, nonetheless.

I humbly stand corrected. Proving that insanity reigns on both sides of the aisle, these provisions were actually co-authored by Sen Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), who tacked them onto the NDAA.

Because the NDAA is the basic funding legislation for the Department of Defense, it's not an easy bill to shoot down. In fact, it already passed in the Senate by a 93 to 7 vote on 1 December, so it's essentially a third of the way to becoming law. Based on the landslide in the Senate vote, it's hard for me to imagine that the House isn't going to follow suit.

This will leave the steaming mess on President Obama's desk, where he'll have to decide if he has the chutzpah to veto it. If he does, he'll of course get the blame for messing up the DoD's funding for the coming year. I don't want to think about what could happen if he doesn't. It's a steep and slippery slope toward an abyss that we don't want to fall into.

You still don't believe me, I know. So let's take a look at the range of those who oppose the bill, which speaks volumes to just how bad it is. The president is against it, and has threatened to veto it (whether he actually will remains to be seen), and the inner circle of the administration seem to all be in step on this one. The ACLU is against it. Arizona Tea Party members protested against McCain over it. Occupy protestors in Utah protested it. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is against it. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, two individuals who would be instrumental in carrying out this constitutional abortion, are both against it.

I don't have any axes to grind with the right or the left. I believe most people are motivated to try and do the right thing, but not everybody agrees on what the right thing is all the time. But I'll tell you this: I've spent my entire adult life serving the military and the intelligence community, and believe me when I say that we do NOT want these sorts of vague, invasive authorities given to the government. Because once we do, we won't get them back, and these powers can be abused far, far too easily.

When it comes to fighting terror at home, we need to be vigilant and strong, but we need to leave that part of the war to those who are in the best position to fight it: the FBI, police, the courts, and the other elements of our judicial system, so we can seek justice without destroying the core values of the Constitution.

Our military is trained and equipped to defend our nation from threats beyond its borders, and our folks in uniform do their job (failures in political leadership aside) admirably well. But I don't want them given the power to lock up American citizens or anyone else on our soil without due process. One Guantanamo (not the military's fault, by the way, but a clear illustration of how we shouldn't be doing things, in my opinion) is quite enough, thank you very much.

So, if you're an American, do yourself and your children a huge favor. Contact your Congressional Representative and let them know what you think about all this. Because when the House votes on it, if they pass it, there's only one more stop – the president's desk – before it becomes law. And I think that would be a Bad Thing.

Okay, I'm off my political soap box now. I'll shut up and go back to writing novels…

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