Human Rights // Current TV

Cotton for my shroud: genocide of farmers

"Since 1995, a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide - the... more

JanforGore
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5 months ago
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7 comments

Obama signs controversial defense bill - “Obama is imperial. He is going for one county in the Middle East after another. His policy is ravaging the world”

US President Barack Obama has put pen to paper on a $662 billion defense bill despite... more

MotherForTruth
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5 months ago
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Obama’s New Year Message and the NDAA

Yesterday, President Barack Obama addressed the nation briefly. Here are my thoughts... more

TomCat1948
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5 months ago
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Woodstock, Forever In My Heart

____________ Click here to read the CNN iReport:... more

EthicalVegan
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2 years ago
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Canada's Giant House of Death on the Prairie

Human Rights Museum a monument to folly... more

shaidlekathy
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Santa's Workshop - Inside China's Slave Labour Toy Factories - YouTube

China's Toy Factories

mollymew
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Mass March by Cairo Women in Protest Over Abuse by Soldiers

The New York Times... . Mass March by Cairo Women in Protest Over Abuse by... more

EthicalVegan
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5 months ago
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4 comments

Canton Police hearing.... A Canton police officer could soon be out of a job

A Canton police officer could soon be out of a job. Daniel Harless is caught on tape... more

letsliveinpeace
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6 months ago
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51 comments

Woman has her fingers cut off for seeking higher education without husbands permission!

Human rights groups in Bangladesh have demanded a severe punishment for the husband of... more

pdy
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6 months ago
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Obama insists on indefinite detention of Americans

Published: 12 December, 2011, 22:01

Think that President Obama will stand by his word and veto the legislation that will allow the government to detain American citizens without charge or trial? Think again.

The Obama administration has insisted that the president will veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, a bill that passed through the Senate last week. Under the legislation, the United States of America is deemed a battlefield and Americans suspected of committing a terrorism offense can be held without trial and tortured indefinitely. Despite the grave consequences for citizens and the direct assault on the US Constitution, the act managed to make it through both halves of Congress but President Obama says he won’t let it become a law.

According to Senator Carl Levin, however, Americans should be a bit more concerned about what the president’s actual intentions are. Levin, who sits on the Armed Services Committee as chairman, has revealed to Congress that the Obama administration influenced the wording of the act and shot down text that would have saved American citizens from the indefinite imprisonment and suspension of habeas corpus.
(Click image above for video of Senator Levin's speech)

Senator Levin told Congress recently that under the original wording of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens were excluded from the provision that allowed for detention. Once Obama’s officials saw the text though, says Levin, “the administration asked us to remove the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”

Specifically, the section that Obama asked to be reworded was Section 1031 of the NDAA FY2012, which says that "any person who has committed a belligerent act" could be held indefinitely.

“It was the administration that asked us to remove the very language which we had in the bill which passed the committee…we removed it at the request of the administration,” said Levin. “It was the administration which asked us to remove the very language the absence of which is now objected to.”

John Wood of Change.org writes that President Obama proposed a veto of Section 1032 of the NDAA, which does not pertain to the detention of American citizens. Rather, that section deals with the use of the US military in taking custody of suspected criminals. Section 1031, which actually deals with the indefinite imprisonment of Americans, remains not only unopposed by the Obama administration, but the president has made sure that the law specifically includes Americans, urging Congress to redraft the legislation with increasingly confusing wording that makes the legalization detrimental to America.

President Obama could sign off on the legislation as early as this December 13 if he chooses not to exercise his veto power. The bill, which includes budgetary provisions for the US military, comes at a price-tag several billion dollars cheaper than the president had asked for of Congress.Published: 12 December, 2011, 22:01 Think that President Obama will stand by his... more

MotherForTruth
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6 months ago
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If Ignorance Is Bliss America Is Heaven

Human Rights Day is today Saturday, December 10, 2011

jdooes
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6 months ago
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2 comments

Show Me Your Papers!

I did a bit of photoshop here...it wasn't hard.

csmonut
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Senate approves indefinite detention and torture of Americans

The terrifying legislation that allows for Americans to be arrested, detained indefinitely, tortured and interrogated — without charge or trial — passed through the Senate on Thursday with an overwhelming support from 93 percent of lawmakers.
Only seven members of the US Senate voted against the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, despite urging from the ACLU and concerned citizens across the country that the affects of the legislation would be detrimental to the civil rights and liberties of everyone in America. Under the bill, Americans can be held by the US military for terrorism-related charges and detained without trial indefinitely.
Additionally, another amendment within the text of the legislation reapproved waterboarding and other “advanced interrogation techniques” that are currently outlawed.
"The bill is an historic threat to American citizens,” Christopher Anders of the ACLU tells the Associated Press.
For the biggest supporters of the bill, however, history necessitates that Americans must sacrifice their security for freedom.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a backer of the legislation, says current laws protecting Americans are too lax. Rather, says the senator, anyone suspected of terrorism "should not be read their Miranda Rights. They should not be given a lawyer."
Graham adds that suspected terrorists, “should be held humanely in military custody and interrogated about why they joined al-Qaeda and what they were going to do to all of us,” although other legislation in the bill isn’t exactly humane. Waterboarding, sleep-deprivation and other methods outlawed in the 2005 Anti-Torture Act will be added to a top-secret list of approved interrogation techniques that could be used on suspects, American or other.
Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte said last week that "terrorists shouldn't be able to view all of our interrogation practices online,” and Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) added during debate this week, "When a member of Al Qaeda or a similar associated terrorist group, I want . . . them to be terrified about what's going to happen to them in American custody.”
"I want them not to know what's going to happen,” added the senator and former presidential candidate.
Not only won’t they know their gruesome future, but they wouldn’t know their own rights — that’s because they won’t have any.
"We need the authority to hold those individuals in military custody so we aren't reading them Miranda rights," adds Kelly.
While lawmakers rallied with overwhelming support to approve the legislation against terrorists, it can also be applied to anyone, including American citizens, who are even suspected of terrorist-ties.
President Barack Obama has pledged in the past that he would veto the legislation if it made through Congress, and a White House official told the AP on Thursday that that threat still stands. As Obama is faced with a country on the brink of economic collapse so close to Election Day, however, a change of heart couldn’t be out of the question — the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 comes at a price-tag of nearly $30 billion below what Obama had asked for.

http://rt.com/usa/news/detention-legislation-torture-senate-891/The terrifying legislation that allows for Americans to be arrested, detained... more