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Originally Posted by StickyGreen
And last time I checked, there has never been an actual official law allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial before NDAA 2012...
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although i am sympathetic to your argument, actually there was a president that threw habeus corpus in the trash.
Quote:
On April 27, 1861, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended by President Abraham Lincoln in Maryland during the American Civil War. Lincoln did so in response to riots, local militia actions, and the threat that the border slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union, leaving the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., surrounded by hostile territory. Lincoln chose to suspend the writ over a proposal to bombard Baltimore, favored by his General-in-Chief Winfield Scott. Lincoln was also motivated by requests by generals to set up military courts to rein in "Copperheads," or Peace Democrats, and those in the Union who supported the Confederate cause. Congress was not yet in session to consider a suspension of the writs.
His action was challenged in court and overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court in Maryland (led by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney) in Ex Parte Merryman. Lincoln ignored Taney's order.
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as you can see, not only did lincoln detain prisoners without due process, he ignored a federal court that ordered him to re-instate it.
point being, war is always the excuse to suspend liberty. it happened with the patriot act, is happening with this issue.
& you push these ideals of liberty like they were better at some point in the past. Liberty has always been restricted, from the founding days, when slaves were 3/5 of a person, when indians walked the trail of tears, when women could not vote, when blacks could not sit in the front of a bus, or women could not get a safe & legal abortion. Today the lines are drawn with gay marriage, the rights of illegal immigrants, & how to deal with americans who work for al queda, indisputably an army at war with western civilization.