Commentary by James Shott
These days talk of government excesses is routine. A list of recent infractions contains things like the Internal Revenue Service using its resources to persecute applicants for non-profit status and the National Security Agency collecting data on every American’s phone calls and email.
Government excesses have been growing for a long time, and since 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked four airliners and successfully crashed three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the U.S. has been taking strong measures to detect potential terrorist threats, and these are by far the most threatening excesses.
The first of these was the USA Patriot Act, created and passed less than two months after the 9-11 attacks, and signed into law by President George W. Bush. Things have not improved since that fateful law passed.
The problem with such measures is that while they may or may not help prevent a terrorist attack, they present a frightening opportunity for government abuse. Americans are rightly distrustful of such mechanisms, and our Constitution prohibits our government from adopting liberty-crushing measures like these.
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA) was passed and signed into law by President Barack Obama, and greatly expanded the power and scope of the federal government to fight the War on Terror, including codifying into law the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without trial. Including US citizens. Under the new law the US military has the power to carry out domestic anti-terrorism operations on US soil under the broad new anti-terrorism provisions provided in the bill.
This is not the first time such extraordinary misuse of the military has been considered. In 2002 a similar discussion arose, but was ultimately quashed by Mr. Bush.
Those features in the NDAA are unacceptable, even in the name of fighting terrorism. Prior to the NDAA the Posse Comitatus Act prohibited Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Americans also enjoyed the protections of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The intention was to prevent precisely what the 2012 NDAA enacted into law.
Nevertheless, Mr. Obama signed the NDAA into law, saying, “I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”
However, according to Michigan Democrat Senator Carl Levin, Mr. Obama demanded that American citizens be included under the detention law and that the President of the United States have exclusive authority to invoke the statute. “The language which precluded the application of Section [1021] to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved…and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section,” Sen. Levin said after the NDAA was signed into law.
Critics all across the political spectrum rightly opposed the NDAA because of elements in section 1021.
While many government excesses and cases of misbehavior go along uninterrupted, a federal judge appropriately put a stop to the offending elements of the 2012 NDAA only months after it took affect.
Federal Judge Kathleen Forrest granted a preliminary injunction striking down those sections of the NDAA that sought to provide the president the power to indefinitely detain citizens without benefit of their rights.
Judge Forrest concluded that Section 1021 “…failed to ‘pass Constitutional muster’ because its broad language could be used to quash political dissent.” In a statement clearly directed to lawmakers, she added, ”Section 1021 tries to do too much with too little – it lacks the minimal requirements of definition and scienter that could easily have been added, or could be added, to allow it to pass constitutional muster.”
The Obama administration, however, then fought successfully to appeal Judge Forrest’s injunction, and a 2013 version of the bill contains the same intolerable provisions as the 2012 version, and was also signed by President Obama.
Despite Mr. Obama’s comforting words, despite the bi-partisan opposition to section 1021, Mr. Obama demanded that language exempting America citizens and lawful residents from the provisions of Section 1021 be removed, he fought for and won keeping the Section alive in the 2012 version, and signed the 2013 version with those provisions contained in it.
No matter how much you may trust Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama, or any future president, no president can be allowed to have the absolute authority provided in the NDAA to detain citizens without due process, or to set the US military against the people. No individual can be allowed that authority. Ever!
There goes “innocent until proven guilty,” a major protection for citizens against tyranny. Erik Kain, writing on Forbes.com, says: “We’re talking about the stripping away of our most basic freedoms. We’re talking about a potential state that can call me a terrorist for writing this blog post and then lock me up and throw away the key.”
A majority of the US House and Senate approved these measures. Is this what you expect of your elected representatives?
Cross-posted from Observations
U.S. President Barak Obama announces his nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA. (Photo:Reuters)President Obama’s determination to keep his Middle East outreach agenda alive, no matter how at odds with reality, continues. Yesterday, John Brennan, Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, was nominated to head the CIA, replacing scandal-scarred David Petraeus. “John knows what our national security demands,” Obama announced:“John has an invaluable perspective on the forces, the history, the culture, the politics, economics, the desire for human dignity driving so much of the changes in today’s world…He knows the risks that our intelligence professionals face every day.”
At best, the 25-year CIA veteran’s record is a mixed bag. At worst, he becomes another link in the administration’s efforts to normalize relations with Islamic terrorists.
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In 2009, Brennan came under fire again, as the result of the colossal intelligence failure that allowed terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009, during which he attempted to detonate an underwear bomb.
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After calls for his resignation, Brennan responded to the criticism in a USA Todayeditorial. “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda,” he wrote. ”Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill.”
One suspects those on board Flight 253 might disagree. Yet Brennan doubled down, and insisted on treating Abdulmutallab as a criminal, rather than an enemy combatant, contending that it is “naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical,” Brennan contended.
Brennan further cemented his soft-on-terror credentials only days later in a February 13, 2010 speech at New York University law school’s Islamic Center. In front of a largely Muslim audience, he called for trying 9/11 terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court.
During the same speech, Brennan endorsed the administration’s determination to delete words like “jihadist” and “war on terror” from its lexicon. “They are not jihadists, for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and there is nothing–absolutely nothing–holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children,” Brennan insisted. “We are not waging a war against terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic that will never be defeated, any more than a tactics of war will.”
In another telling moment, Brennan’s first referred to Jerusalem as al-Quds, which is its Arabic name. ”In all my travels the city I have come to love most is al-Quds, Jerusalem, where three great faiths come together,” he said.
During the question and answer period, Brennan contended that a 20 percent recidivism rate for terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay prison “isn’t that bad” when compared to the American penal system. ”People sometimes use that figure, 20 percent, say ‘Oh my goodness, one out of five detainees returned to some type of extremist activity,’” Brennan said. “You know, the American penal system, the recidivism rate is up to something about 50 percent or so, as far as return to crime. Twenty percent isn’t that bad.”
That Brennan could compare one-in-five hardcore terrorists returning to the task of waging war against the West with regular criminals of all kinds, demonstrates either a monumental level of naiveté, or a disingenuousness bordering on delusion.
In another speech given in May 2010 at the Nixon Center, Brennan upped the ante yet again, asserting that that “violent extremists” are victims of “political, economic and social forces.” Reuters reveals additional comments Brennan made, following his return from Lebanon:
“Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” Brennan told a Washington conference, citing its evolution from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia to an organization that now has members within the parliament and the cabinet. ”There is certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they’re doing. And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements,” Brennan said.”
Again, one might be forgiven for wondering what constitutes a “moderate” in an organization that has carried out a series of worldwide terror attacks over the course of decades, yearns for Israel’s annihilation and, prior to 9/11, was responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist organization in the world.
Unfortunately, Brennan’s infatuation with outreach is not limited to Hezbollah. In 2010, columnist Patrick Poole revealed that Hamas operative Kifah Mustapha was given a guided tour of the “National Counterterrorism Center and other secure government facilities, including the FBI’s training center at Quantico.”
Mustapha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land foundation case, during which his colleagues were convicted of funding Hamas, yet another U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Center for Security Policy chief Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, demanded Brennan’s resignation as a result. ”The FBI gave a guided tour of one of our most sensitive counter-terrorism facilities to a known Hamas operative,” Gaffney said. “It is clear that the cluelessness fostered by Mr. Brennan is causing an empowering of the wrong sorts of Muslims in America and endangering the American people.”
Brennan penchant for revealing America’s secrets continued in 2012. When the United States thwarted another would-be underwear bomber last May, Brennan inadvertently revealed we had a double-agent working on the case when he briefed former counter-terrorism advisors who subsequently got work as TV commentators.
He told them that the bomber was never a threat because America had “inside control” of the situation. The former advisors reached the inexorable conclusion shortly thereafter.
May was also the month Judicial Watch finally obtained documents, via a Freedom of Information Act, from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA,) revealing that Brennan and Defense Department officials disclosed to Hollywood filmmakers the identity of the SEAL Team Six operator and commander involved in taking out Osama Bin Laden. A transcript of a meeting held July 14, 2011, reveals that ”documents seemingly reference John O. Brennan, Chief Counterterrorism Advisor to President Obama and Denis McDonough, who serves as President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor.”
“These documents, which took nine months and a federal lawsuit to disgorge from the Obama administration, show that politically-connected film makers were giving extraordinary and secret access to bin Laden raid information, including the identity of a Seal Team Six leader,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is both ironic and hypocritical that the Obama administration stonewalled Judicial Watch’s pursuit of the bin Laden death photos, citing national security concerns, yet seemed willing to share intimate details regarding the raid to help Hollywood filmmakers release a movie ‘perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost’ to the Obama campaign.”
All of the above suggests that John Brennan is, at the least, an extremely dubious pick to head the CIA. But a story by Associated Press columnist Kimberly Dozier entitled, “Who Will US Drones Target? Who Will Decide?” paints an even more disturbing picture of Brennan, who she contends has “seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets. The move concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones at the White House,” she writes. She further noted that while some intelligence officials are comfortable with the new process, others expressed concern about ”how easy it has become to kill someone.”
PJ Media’s Patrick Poole puts it more directly: “John Brennan is the man under whom President Obama has consolidated the unprecedented power of assassination. He directly controls and oversees all aspects of the program that had been previously divided between the Pentagon, the CIA, and other officials,” he writes.
