USA: Virginia Votes To Refuse NDAA's Provisions That Allow The President To Indefinitely Detain American Citizens Without Charge

I would like to state that Ron Paul (R-TX) is the ONLY republican presidential candidate that stands against this new law.

H.R. 1540: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. Ron Paul (R-TX) even voted NO when this bill was voted on in congress on May 26, 2011.

I came across several false rumors on the internet by both the Obama/democratic camp and Ron Paul opponents claiming he was a hypocrite and did not bother to vote on this bill. Allow me to clarify, Ron Paul was a "no vote" on Dec 14, 2011 when the hill was voting on a "CONFERENCE REPORT" after it PASSED BOTH the house and the senate! GovTrack writes "After passing both the Senate and House, a conference committee is created to work out differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill. A conference report resolving those differences passed in the House of Representatives, paving the way for enactment of the bill, by roll call vote." So naturally, I can see why Ron Paul would not give a hoot about voting for a "CONFERENCE COMMITTEE" if he was against this bill in the first place!

President Obama claiming by signing an "unconstitutional" waiver should calm Americans nerves is simply hogwash. President Obama has SIGNED THIS BILL INTO LAW with these provisions included. It is the LAW OF THE LAND by the stroke of President Obama's pen. The only way it can legitimately disappear is by passing another legislative bill that would REPEAL these provisions.

In 2008, then Senator Obama called presidential "signing statements" (letters of interpretation and recommendations attached to Congressional legislation) unconstitutional and promised not to use them. Please click HERE to have Obama explain this to you himself.

So for the record, President Obama is for this new law because what he says and what he does are two different things. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have also stated emphatically that they too will maintain this new law as well as the Patriot Act and TSA. The ONLY one out of ALL of these presidential choices left or right fighting for our individual civil liberties is Dr. Ron Paul. The following legislative bill is an example of the 100's of bills Ron Paul has submitted and are completely ignored/rejected by the rest of our elected representatives who are also supposed to be fighting to protect and defend OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES!!!

The Humble Libertarian writes: Even while campaigning, Ron Paul is working hard as a legislator to fight for our rights, from rushing to Washington from South Carolina to vote against a debt ceiling hike, to introducing a bill this week that would undo the outrageous provisions of the NDAA that allow the president and military to arrest and detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without charges.

In fewer than 100 words, the text of Ron Paul’s legislation, HR 3785, would overturn section 1021 of the NDAA:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Section 1. Repeal of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012.

The bill, introduced on January 18, has since been referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, in addition to the Committee on Armed Services. [I just checked GovTrack and this bill hasn't moved since. (emphasis mine)]

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RT news

Virginia votes to refuse NDAA

written by Staff

Wednesday February 22, 2012

Although Congress approved this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers on another level continue to find faults with its nasty detainment provisions. Virginia is now the latest state to consider laws that nix some of the NDAA.

When U.S. President Barack Obama signed his name to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, he authorized the US military to detain and torture anyone on Earth — Americans included — without charge. Opposition was widespread even before the commander-in-chief put pen to paper, but critics are continuing to condemn the legislation only two months after Obama approved it. So weary of the NDAA are lawmakers in Virginia, in fact, that a recent vote within the state’s House of Delegates led to the passing of a counter-act that will keep those detainment provisions out of VA.

A recent meeting of lawmakers in the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly yielded an impressive 96-to-4 approval for HB 1160, a bill that will ban state officials from abiding by some elements of the NDAA. Should the act see similar support in the state’s Senate, Virginia will be spared from the detainment provisions that have garnered opposition against Congress and the Obama White House over the NDAA’s passing.

Under the Virginia law-in-waiting, state agents are forbidden from aiding “an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the conduct of the investigation, prosecution or detention of any citizen pursuant to 50 U.S.C. § 1541 as provided by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.”

The Virginia bill would specifically see to it that Section 1021 of the NDAA is made illegal, which, per President Obama’s approval, legitimizes the detainment of any alleged terrorist, including Americans, that are believed to have committed a “belligerent act” or have supported “hostilities,”

Bob Marshall, a 20-year veteran of the House of Delegates and author of the legislation, tells The New America that his "oath to uphold the U.S. and Virginia Constitutions” prompted him to pen HB 1160, which he feels corrects the unconstitutional provisions put in the NDAA.

"They say this law [the NDAA] is designed to fight terrorists. You don't defeat terrorists by adopting their tactics,” says Marshall. "I will be faithful to my calling to stand against these predators who would sell their birthright for a mess of pottage," he adds.

Marshall’s bill comes after a call-to-action from the Tenth Amendment Center think tank, which is asking other states to consider composing legislations that will outlaw the NDAA across the US.

"The very fact that so many legal experts come up with so many diverse readings of those NDAA sections should give us all pause,” Tenth Amendment Center communication’s director, Mike Maherry, adds to The New American, “The language is vague and undefined. Are we really going to trust the judgment and good intentions of Pres. Obama or whichever Republican sits in the White House to protect us? That seems like a pretty bad plan."

When President Obama approved the NDAA on December 31, 2011, he attached a signing statement in which he insisted that he would not abide by Section 1021, saying he “will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.” Since the bill was approved, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has seen at least one case in which a detained person, in that instanced a Yemeni national, was kept detained under the NDAA.

Others have called Obama’s signing statement meaningless when put in the grand scope of things. American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero told The Atlantic last month, "The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”

“Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today,” Romero added upon the president’s signing.

Across the country in Washington State, five Republican lawmakers recently proposed a bill that would ban the NDAA detainment provisions in their own jurisdiction. “Winning the war against terror cannot come at the great expense of eviscerating the unalienable rights recognized by and protected in the United States Constitution,” its authors acknowledged.