New bipartisan bill could give any president the power to imprison US citizens in military detention forever
One of
the most outrageous acts of Barack Obama’s presidency was his
failure to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal
year 2012.
The
fiscal year 2012 NDAA included provisions that appeared to both
codify and expand a power the executive branch had previously claimed
to possess — namely, the power to hold individuals, including U.S.
citizens, in military detention indefinitely — based on the
Authorization to Use Military Force passed by Congress three days
after 9/11.
The New
York Times warned that the bill could “give future presidents the
authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without
charges or a trial.” Not surprisingly, Obama’s decision generated
enormous outcry across the political spectrum, from Rep. Ron Paul,
R-Texas, on the right to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on the left.
However,
the NDAA did provide some weak restraints on the executive branch’s
ability to use this power. In theory, the NDAA’s provisions only
apply to someone involved with the 9/11 attacks or who “substantially
supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces.”
But now,
incredibly enough, a bipartisan group of six lawmakers, led by Sens.
Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., is proposing a new AUMF
that would greatly expand who the president can place in indefinite
military detention, all in the name of restricting presidential
power. If the Corker-Kaine bill becomes law as currently written, any
president, including Donald Trump, could plausibly claim
extraordinarily broad power to order the military to imprison any
U.S. citizen, captured in America or not, and hold them without
charges essentially forever.
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