National Defense Authorization Act of 2012

A couple of nights ago, the US Senate quietly passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. The Senate and House pass a similar bill every year as a matter of course. Normally, this bill just releases the funds needed for the US military to function for the following fiscal year. However, this year’s bill had rider attached to it unlike any of the similar Defense Authorization Acts that have preceded it…and it should scare the hell out of all American journalists, bloggers and activists.

This bill allows the US military to detain people on US soil without a trial, or being afforded a lawyer. This bill reclassifies the United States as a warzone and the rules of war apply here. This means that anybody the government disagrees with, such as whistleblowers, investigative journalists, or opinionated citizens can be scooped up off the street—never to be heard from again—shield laws be damned.

What is even more frightening is that now that it is “legal” for our military to use assassinations in warzones, like in the case of Osama bin Laden and a myriad of his Al-Qaeda henchmen; it would now be possible, and even legal, for the US to shoot and kill any dissenting voice it wishes to silence.

President Obama has said that he will veto this bill, but amazingly, the Senate and House have stated that they have the two-thirds vote needed for a veto override.

What, they can get a two-thirds majority vote for lighting our constitution on fire, but they can’t even get a simple majority vote to raise our debt ceiling…this is the most frightening turn the US has taken in my 41 years alive as an American. 

I hope my government lets me live long enough to see this act be overturned.