Did the Senate vote to suspend the Constitution? « Coach is Right

Did the Senate vote to suspend the Constitution? « Coach is Right: Has the United States Senate voted to suspend the Constitutional right of every American citizen to due process?

Over the past weeks a great deal has been reported, mainly by the NOT “legacy media,” about the National Defense Authorization Act, or Senate bill S 1867, passed yesterday by a vote of 93-7. From highly respected bloggers to the highly agenda driven ACLU, stated opinions on the content of the legislation and its effect on our rights have varied widely.

At issue is whether Senate passage of the bill and the concomitant signature of Barack Obama will allow the Executive branch, from the Obama Regime to those administrations which succeed him, to place suspected terrorists and terror enablers, including American citizens, in the custody of the US military for an indefinite period of incarceration with right to neither charge nor trial.

According to liberal Colorado Senator Mark Udahl, “ one section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on US soil.” “Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the US military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil, ” claims the senator.

The American Civil Liberties Union agrees, writing that the bill “…will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military…but at American citizens far from any battlefield—even…in the United States.”

Yet others, the Washington Post among them maintain the Constitutionally protected rights of American citizens are not in jeopardy, pointing to language in Section 1032 of the bill which clearly states: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.”

On May27th the House passed HR 1540, its version of Senate bill 1867. And thanks to Michigan Republican Justin Amash, one of only 5 Republicans to vote against passage, the truth of this deplorable assault on our liberty is made clear. Stating that the language of the proposed law is “…carefully crafted to mislead the public…”, Amash rightly concludes the language of the bill “…does not preclude U.S. citizens from being detained indefinitely, without charge or trial, it simply makes such detention discretionary.”

See original work for more on this and other stories.