Those evil lefties and their whining about about the indefinite detention aspect of the NDAA (and the ridiculous, Jonah Goldberg level stupid arguments made by Shook). Wait? What? You mean they were right:
A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction late Wednesday to block provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that would allow the military to indefinitely detain anyone it accuses of knowingly or unknowingly supporting terrorism.
Signed by President Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve, the 565-page NDAA contains a short paragraph, in statute 1021, letting the military detain anyone it suspects “substantially supported” al-Qaida, the Taliban or “associated forces.” The indefinite detention would supposedly last until “the end of hostilities.”
In a 68-page ruling blocking this statute, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest agreed that the statute failed to “pass constitutional muster” because its broad language could be used to quash political dissent.
“There is a strong public interest in protecting rights guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Forrest wrote. “There is also a strong public interest in ensuring that due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment are protected by ensuring that ordinary citizens are able to understand the scope of conduct that could subject them to indefinite military detention.”
***Guardian journalist Naomi Wolf read testimony from Jonsditir, who prepared a statement saying that she would not visit the U.S. for fear of detention.
Forrest alluded to this testimony in her decision.
“Hedges, Wargalla, and Jonsdottir have changed certain associational conduct, and O’Brien and Jonsdittir have avoided certain expressive conduct, because of their concerns about § 1021. Moreover, since plaintiffs continue to have their associational and expressive conduct chilled, there is both actual and continued threatened irreparable harm,” she wrote.
“In addition, it is certainly the case that if plaintiffs were detained as a result of their conduct, they could be detained until the cessation of hostilities – i.e., an indeterminate period of time,” Forrest continued. “Being subjected to the risk of such detention, particularly in light of the Government’s inability to represent that plaintiffs’ conduct does not fall with § 1021, must constitute a threat of irreparable harm. The question then is: Is that harm immediate? Since the Government will not say that the conduct does not fall outside of §1021, one cannot predict immediacy one way or the other. The penalty we know would be severe.”
The judge added that she did not make the decision lightly.
“This court is acutely aware that preliminarily enjoining an act of Congress must be done with great caution,” she wrote. “However, it is the responsibility of our judicial system to protect the public from acts of Congress which infringe upon constitutional rights. As set forth above, this court has found that plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits regarding their constitutional claim and it therefore has a responsibility to insure that the public’s constitutional rights are protected.”
Although I caution you all to keep an open mind, because none of this changes the fact that Glenn Greenwald is longwinded and *GASP* lives in Brazil. Also too, JANE HAMSHER!
Federal Judge Katherine Forrest to Milt Shook- You’re CluelessPost + Comments (103)