NDAA: a shift toward a police state
Joseph Beck
America is about to get a lot scarier. The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, has many worrying that we are taking the first steps to becoming a police state.
The very name brings to mind images of dissenters with bags over their head being thrown into unmarked vans.
Indefinite incarceration, suspension of Habeas Corpus, and detention without trial are all covered under the new act. Indeed it seems that our rights are being stricken from us all of a sudden. But are they?
Professor of Political Science, Brian Dille doesn’t think so. “(NDAA) is not a fundamental shift from existing policy,” Said Dille. In October of 2001 the President George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law. The bill allowed for everything from wiretapping your phone to extorting your librarian for your reading history.
The Patriot Act, which was passed with a vote of 357-66, effectively nullified parts of the Bill of Rights.
“If anything, the provisions in this bill actually limits executive power more than it has in the past,” said professor Dille.
Until now the executive branch of the United States of America had full discretion on the detention of terror suspects. One might find their conversations recorded, or their motions tracked, without a warrant or probable cause.
Hidden discretely within the many sections of the law it states that “the requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States”
Professor Dille doesn’t think that the passage of the bill will affect Obama’s chances in the election eleven months from now. “There is a lot of heat and noise surrounding this but much of it will die down come November.”
“The Republic will survive,” said Dille, as I left his office.
After all, suspension of rights is nothing new to America. Lincoln once locked up the entire legislature of Maryland without charges so they couldn’t vote to secede.
