What Price Liberty?

There is a bill called the National Defense Authorization Act that has passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate that contains a very worrisome provision that would allow the U. S. Military to detain any individuals suspected of terrorism, and even in the case of U. S. citizens, the Military would be authorized to hold them indefinitely without filing any charges against them.

So what you ask? What does that mean to me? Nothing, if you’re not one of the unlucky ones who loses the writ of habeas corpus, but if someone is rotting away in a prison cell, they would naturally be a bit more concerned.

It also would mean a lot more if you are one of us who don’t trust the government to take such liberties, too. We trust the Fourth Amendment more, and, in this part of the Bill of Rights, this sort of thing is strictly unconstitutional.

Unlike most bills in Congress, that are favored by either one party or the other, this one has as its supporters, for example, both Senator Carl Levin, D. MI and Senator John McCain R. AZ, two men who are normally on opposite sides of such issues.

But just as strangely, two Senators who spoke out against it are also relative strangers in opposing the same piece of legislation. They are Sen. Al Franken, D, MN, and Kentucky’s own Sen. Rand Paul. Both are vehemently against the idea of allowing any American citizen to be locked up without charges for as long as the military might deem appropriate.

There are other prominent conservatives who are just as opposed as Sen. Paul. One of the more prominent voices against this provision is retired Admiral John Huston, one-time Judge Advocate General of the U. S. Navy and a self-proclaimed conservative Republican whose first vote ever for a Democrat was the one he cast for President Obama.

To Admiral Huston, legislative actions of this sort that chip away at our freedoms are a victory for the terrorists. Huston is quoted by AOL’s Huffington Post as saying “In this war, the enemy doesn't have to win. They can cause us to do things we wouldn't otherwise do, such as indefinite detentions, in the name of fighting a war." This, Huston goes on to say, is something the country would not have put up with before the 9/11 attacks.

The Daily Show’s John Stewart has his own view of this provision. In a show following the Senate’s approval of this bill which includes the provision in question, Stewart asks just who might be suspected of being a terrorist.

Using language included in the bill, Stewart describes how someone innocent might be identified as a terrorist because they might have attended functions that included known terrorists, or at one time sat with radical clerics, or associates with a man who is missing part of his fingers. (That’s one of the identifying marks of a terrorist, according to the bill.)

In the meantime, people who match those descriptions, all from President Obama’s past, are shown: There’s Jeremiah Wright, the radical cleric; Bill Ayer, the former terrorist; and Rahm Emanuel, his former Chief of Staff, the man who’s ID’ed missing some fingers.

Yes, the President of the U. S. could fit the bill. Maybe that’s why he’s threatened to veto it.