US Courts Approve Indefinite Detention and TortureStephen Lendman Constitutional rights dont matter. They never did for most people. Its truer now than ever. Theyre null and void. Executive diktat power rules. Congress and federal courts go along. Theyre complicit. They support sweeping lawlessness. Its unprecedented. It affects domestic and geopolitical issues. No ones safe anywhere. Obama has life and death powers. He can order anyone murdered. He can do so on his say alone. US citizens are as vulnerable as foreign nationals. He can order anyone indefinitely detained. He can throw them in military dungeons. He can deny them due process and judicial fairness. They can remain there uncharged and untried. They can stay there forever. They can be brutally tortured. Its OK. Federal courts said so. More on that below. Section 1031 of the FY 2010 Defense Authorization Act contained the 2009 Military Commissions Act (MCA). The phrase unprivileged enemy belligerent replaced unlawful enemy combatant. Language changed but not intent or lawlessness. Obama did what supporters thought impossible. He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He promised to close Guantanamo. He lied. Hes a serial liar. He broke every major promise made. He prioritizes keeping it open. He wants it expanded. Hes got lots more victims in mind. Hell send there and/or to other US global torture prisons. Dozens operate worldwide. Guantanamos the tip of the iceberg. MCA grants sweeping police state powers. They include precluding civil courts from having jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause for action whatsoever.relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission (including) challenges to the lawfulness of (its) procedures. Habeas rights dont apply. Over 800 years of protection are gone. Theyre null and void. According to MCA: Guilty by accusation suffices. With or without evidence, anyone is punishablewhoaids, abets, counsels, commands, procures (or provides) material support for alleged enemies. Tortures permitted. International laws prohibiting it under all circumstances, at all times, with no allowed exceptions are abolished. Diktat power replaced them. Presidents can do anything they want. They can do so on their say alone. Theyre virtual dictators. Checks and balances dont apply. They never did effectively. Theyre more fiction than fact. Presidents have emergency powers. They can declare martial law. They can suspend the Constitution. They can do so on national security grounds. They can do it for any reason or none at all. They can use federal troops on US streets. They can deploy them against peaceful protesters. Insurrection Act (1807) and 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prohibitions no longer apply. Fundamental freedoms are illusory. Theyre vanishing. They lie in historys dustbin. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provisions let federal troops arrest and imprison US citizens and foreign nationals. They can do it at home or abroad. They can do it anywhere. They can be held indefinitely uncharged and untried. They can be tortured. They can be forced to admit crimes they didnt commit. They can be murdered on Obamas say. Police state lawlessness rules. Its the law of the land. Obamas a tinpot despot. Hes judge, jury and executioner. Fundamental rights are gone. They dont apply. Anyone can be arrested, imprisoned, held indefinitely and tortured for doing the right thing. Protesting imperial lawlessness, social injustice, corporate crime, government corruption, or political Washington run of, by and for rich elites can be criminalized. So can free speech, assembly, religion, or anything challenging Americas right to kill, destroy and pillage with impunity. Its official. Tyranny rules. Americas unsafe to live in. Theres no place to hide. Challenging diktat powers criminalized. Police state ruthlessness targets anyone trying. Military dungeons or secret FEMA concentration camps await victims. Americas no democracy. Its not beautiful. Its a battleground. Its nightmarish for countless numbers affected. Law Professor Jonathan Turley called NDAA authority ruthlessness that would have horrified the Framers. Indefinitely detaining citizens is something (they) were intimately familiar with and expressly sought to bar in the Bill of Rights. Other legal experts agree. Habeas, due process, and other fundamental rights are too precious to lose. Theyre now quaint artifacts. Theyre gone. They lie in historys dustbin. Tyranny replaced them. Americas no different from other totalitarian states. Its ruthless. Its militarized for control. Its concentrated money power running things. Its fascism writ large. Its wrapped in the American flag. Its scapegoating challengers. Its out-of-control militarism. Its national security justification to brutalize and oppress. Its controlling the message. Its convincing people fundamental rights are abolished for their own good. Its getting most people to believe it. Its stripping off Americas mask. Its showing its true face. Its menacing, cruel and unjust. Federal court decisions explain. In 2012, Hedges et al v. Obama challenged NDAA provisions. Last September, Southern District of New York federal Judge Katherine B. Forrest blocked Obamas indefinite detention law. Shes the exception, not the rule. She called it facially unconstitutional: it impermissibly impinges on guaranteed First Amendment rights and lacks sufficient definitional structure and protections to meet the requirements of due process. She added that: If, following issuance of this permanent injunctive relief, the government detains individuals under theories of substantially or directly supporting associated forces, as set forth in the National Defense Authorization Act, and a contempt action is brought before this court, the government will bear a heavy burden indeed. At issue is section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It states in part: Congress affirms that the authority of the president to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war. Covered persons are defined as: Anyone who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces. Plaintiffs argued that broad, ambiguous language like substantially supported, associated forces and directly supported leaves them and others vulnerable to lawless indefinite detention. Legally meeting someone rightly or wrongly called a terrorist, staying in their homes, inviting them to speak at conferences or in panel discussions, interviewing them, or socializing with them can be called dealing with the enemy. So can writing anti-imperial articles, exposing and/or discussing US crimes of war and against humanity, and participating in anti-war protests. Hedges et al won. Obama officials appealed. On Wednesday, the New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Forrests ruling. Three judges did so unanimously. They did it shamelessly. They called indefinite detention uncharged and untried OK. They said Hedges et al lacked standing. Its because federal law says nothing at all about the presidents authority to detain American citizens. False! NDAA covers everyone. US citizens are as vulnerable as foreign nationals. Appeals Court Judge Lewis Kaplan said non-citizens failed to establish standing because they have not shown a sufficient threat that the government will detain them. Plaintiffs lawyer Carl Mayer said (w)ere reviewing what our options are, but I strongly suspect that we will appeal to the Supreme Court. The ruling came on the same day the District of Columbia Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling. At issue are oppressive Guantanamo prisoner genital area searches. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered them stopped. Appeals Court judges overruled him. They authorized whats conducted to degrade, harass and humiliate. Theyre unrelated to security. Separately on July 16, Washington, DC District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled against three Guantanamo hunger strikers. They sued to stop force-feeding. Its lawless. Its medically unethical. Its excruciatingly painful. Its torture as international law defines it. Collyer supports it. Her ruling ignored inviolable laws. Shes contemptuously dismissive. She said: There is nothing so shocking or inhumane in the treatment of petitioners which they can avoid at will to raise a constitutional concern that might otherwise necessitate review. Although framed as a motion to stop feeding via nasograstric tube, Petitioners real complaint is that the United States is not allowing them to commit suicide by starvation. According to the World Federation of Right to Die Societies: All competent adults regardless of their nationalities, professions, religious beliefs, and ethical and political views who are suffering unbearably from incurable illnesses should have the possibility of various choices at the end of their life. Death is unavoidable. We strongly believe that the manner and time of dying should be left to the decision of the individual, assuming such demands do not result in harm to society other than the sadness associated with death. Brutalizing indefinite Guantanamo detention constitutes an incurable disease. It includes hopelessness and unbearable suffering. It prevents any chance for freedom. It denies all rights. Deaths unavoidable. Itll come sooner, not later. Dying with dignitys excluded. Permitting it is fundamentally right. Not according to kangaroo federal court justice. Collyers ruling replicated Judge Glady Kesslers July 10 decision. On the one hand, she called force-feeding painful, humiliating and degrading. On the other, she abstained from ruling responsibly. She wrongfully claimed federal courts have no authority over Guantanamo. Obama alone has authority to address the issue, she said. False! Kessler doesnt know the law. Maybe she does but spurned it. She ignored High Court rulings. In Rasul v. Bush (June 2004), the Supreme Court held that Guantanamo detainees may challenge their detention in civil court. In response, Congress enacted the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act. It subverted the ruling. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (June 2006), the High Court held that federal courts retain jurisdiction over habeas cases. It ruled against military commissions. It said they lack the power to proceed because (their) structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions. In response, Congress passed the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA). In updated form, its the law of the land. Supreme Court justices can challenge it. They can strike it down. They havent done so. Perhaps a future court will. In Boumediene v. Bush (June 2008), it affirmed habeas rights for Guantanamo detainees. It let them petition for release from lawlessly imposed custody. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. He said America maintains complete jurisdiction over Guantanamo regardless of its offshore location. He opposed political branches govern(ing) without legal restraint. He expressed concerns about usurping power to switch the Constitution on or off at will. Doing so lead(s) to a regime in which they, not this Court, say what the law is. Even when the United States acts outside its borders, its powers are not absolute and unlimited but are subject to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution. He called habeas an indispensable mechanism for monitoring the separation of powers. The test for determining (its) scope must not be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain. This bedrock right has no adequate substitute. It doesnt matter. Justice in America no longer exists. Diktat power replaced it. Perhaps NDAA enactment was when freedom in America died. Post-9/11, its been on the chopping block for elimination altogether. Tyrannys the law of the land. Its institutionalized. Fundamental rights dont matter. Democracys a four-letter word. Out-of-control power runs things. Its unaccountable. Nonbelievers arent tolerated. The worst is yet to come. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.His new book is titled How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War.Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/ linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 