Judge Rules ‘Permanently’ Against Obama’s Unconstitutional NDAA

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Judge-Rules-Permanently--by-Gustav-Wynn-120912-81.html

By Gustav Wynn (about the author)

A federal judge permanently blocked enforcement of a law signed by Obama late last year that included vague language allowing the military to detain US citizens indefinitely.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest today ruled in favor of Chris Hedges and six other journalists in permanently blocking disputed provisions in the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act for 2012). Forrest placed a preliminary injunction against the law in May because...well, because of the U.S. Constitution. The government appealed then, prompting today's smack down. In part:

"The Constitution places affirmative limits on the power of the Executive to act, and these limits apply in times of peace as well as times of war"

The challenge to the NDAA came within two weeks, filed by a distinguished group of journalists including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges,  Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Jennifer "Tangerine" Bolan, noting that Section 1021(b) of the law allows detention of U.S. citizens and permanent residents without due process, and solely on "suspicion of providing substantial support" to  al-Qaeda or others  engaged in hostilities against the U.S.

Opposition lined up quickly on the left, including Michael Moore, Rachel Maddow, Glenn Greenwald, the ACLU, Johnathan Turley, Democracy Now, Mother Jones, The Young Turks, Naomi Wolf,  Katrina van den Heuval,  Ray McGovern and Matt Rothschild with critical reporting appearing on sites like  HuffingtonPost , FireDogLake, OpedNews, Truthout, Alternet, CommonDreams, Raw Story,  DailyKos  and others.

The judicial response so far to the NDAA was fast and firm, siding with the plaintiffs in a 112 page ruling holding that the law's vague language needs immediate clarification because it endangers reporters or activists based simply on research, speech or associations that should be protected by the First Amendment.

Earlier this week, we presented Obama's Bush-Era Incoherence on Constitutionality of NDAA arguing the NDAA was making Obama unpopular with the left for his stances against constitutionally protected civil liberties. 

The Obama administration's appeal could go forward, kicking the case up to a higher court, but government lawyers actually have claimed the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens captured in the United States  is not derived from the NDAA, but the 2001 AUMF.

A senior administration official told TPM that the NDAA "changes nothing" about the legal question long before today's injunction was help up, asking  "[c]ould a future administration hold a U.S. citizen in military detention? Yes, if the [2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force] allowed it, but that would have been true with or without this bill."

"Whether you can pick up a U.S. citizen inside the United States and place them in military detention -- which was done in the Padilla case but was never resolved up to the Supreme Court -- we would argue still sort of an open legal question and is not answered by the NDAA, it's totally silent on that".

The "Terrorist" Ruse

Even more disturbing were assertions made by former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, speaking about the NDAA and the suspension of posse comitatus we haven't seen since Reconstruction. Invoking J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to paint legitimate dissenters as communists, Wilkerson believes the authors of the NDAA are more concerned with the surging ranks of those in the Occupy movement than al Qaeda sleeper cells:

"I don't think they're doing this based on their fear of terrorists. I really think they're doing this based in their ultimate fear of the Occupy Wall Street -- cum -- other movements in this country which are going to deepen and become more profound in every city in this country if we do head into a depression, rather than a recession which, with Europe and our banks so heavily committed to each other, is looking more and more like the future. 

If that's the case, these people are hedging bets against their own people, by making their military a part of the force they will call out against their own people. And to me, that's heinous. Calling the Occupy Wall Street people terrorists is the next move, I mean, that's how you start this kind of stuff."

If true, this would also explain the stealthy, fast-tracked passage of the Trespass Bill HR 347, making it a felony punishable by up to ten years in federal prison to protest anywhere certain government officials don't want you to. 

The "unanimous consent" vote in the Senate meant no record was kept of how each Senator voted, but the House approved it in February by a margin of 338-3 before Obama signed it, the perfect companion law to the NDAA in bald, glaring defiance of The First Amendment which states: 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You need to be a member of The Patriots For America to add comments!

Join The Patriots For America

Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • GOOD FOR THIS JUDGE!!!  hERE'S A LAWYER/JUDGE WHO CAN SEE WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AND WON'T GIVE HER STAMP OF APPROVAL TO THE DESTROYER AND HIS UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS!!!!!!  WE NEED MORE JUDGES LIKE THIS!!!

  • >>>  BRAVO FOR AN HONEST & FAIR JUDGE KATHERINE FORREST . GOD BLESS HER FOR DOING THE RIGHT THING TO STRIKE DOWN A GROSSLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACT OF THE ' COMMUNIST ' MIS ~ ADMINISTRATION .

    MAYBE SHE SHOULD ALSO RULE ON THE INELIGIBILITY OF THE USURPING , FRAUDULENT , COMMUNIST AND LIAR WHO ILLEGALLY " OCCUPIES " OUR OVAL OFFICE AND WHITEHOUSE .

    • May God protect her....she will be targeted now.

  •  AMEN TO BOTH POSTS!!  GOD BLESS JUDGE FORREST!!!

    • AMEN & GOD WATCH OVER HER......I HATE SAYING THIS OVER AND OVER BUT..WAKE UP AMERICA, AND DO YOU REALLY THINK OBAMA WILL SIDE WITH THE JUDGE, ''HELL NO''.......

  • She will be targeted for discreditation at the least, death at the maximum by this heinous administration. Congress should get it's head out of it's collective backside and would do so if a large segment of them were not as anti- citizen and constitution as the President and his Marxist minions. May God watch over Judge Forrest and all like her as these are the very people we NEED desperately to overcome the stain put on our culture our freedoms and our way of life. This is a totally CONSTITUTIONAL decision on her part and for that, she MUST suffer threats and worse both personally and professionally , I am betting. We must be there for her and all others like her; for their benefit, and OURS!  would that the rulings concerning Obama's eligibility and personal records issues had been before her at some point in the past 4 years. Had that been so, we might not be having to deal with it NOW!~

  • Amen and Hallelujah! Thank you Judge...Thank you LORD!

  • God Bless the Judge who has the the vision to see the truth. May the Lord above protect her and her family from any harm that may follow.

  • This is great, but who is going to make the Obama adminsitration actually obey the law.  He does not care what laws are made or that are reinforced by judges. The Constitution was there before he broke it's laws the first time when no one was allowed to question his elegibility to run for office.  Someone needs to step up to the plate and play ball the right way.  An illegal alien is sitting in the president's office just smiling because no one has taken the steps to remove him from that office.

      This judge is great, and I'm glad she had the integrity and courage to take that stand for the Constitution, and for 'We the People". But we are in the same boat as before, and it is going under unless someone throws Obama out of office before the election that he has no legal right to even be in.  I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone.  What is wrong with our elected, conservative officials?  They are letting Obama stay in control, they are letting him kill off our military while he is apologizing to the militant Muslims for America's insensitivity.  They are making political comments about the Embassy killings but no one is demanding a policy change to let those assigned to protect the ambassadors be allowed to have live ammo.

      I keep saying that you can make as many laws as you want protecting the Constitution, but until action to remove Obama happens, he will simply keep making his Executive Orders (which will now automatically be law if Marshall Law is declared) and slipping his laws into bills too long for anyone to have the time to read them before they are voted on.

      Who is going to stop Executive Order 13603 from being implemented, since the House passed a bill that in the event of Marshall Law, Executive Orders are not required to be approved by the House and  Senate, but can be immediately used by the president. If any other president had dared to do the things Obama has done, they would have long since been out of any position of authority and behind bars for treason.  Ooops, I forgot, you need to be an American citizen to be arrested for treason don't you? We have what the Constitution calls the top General in our Military who is not even a U.S. citizen, and he is still in the presidency and on his way to becoming His Majesty the dictator.  In fact, if he wasn't already in that position, he wouldn't still be there.  He is confident that he will stay there with all the forces of the U.N. backing him. 

    How much longer are the men and women in the military who took an oath to uphold the Constitution  and protect this nation and it's people from terrorists both foreign and domestic, going to put up with this? Certainly there must still be real American's in some positions of authority where they can step in and remove this imposter.  Obviously our elected officials aren't doing a thing.  How many more people is Obama going to get killed before someone with enough clout to back it up, tells him he can't do it any more? 

    Our legislators swore oaths to obey that same Constitution but all they seem to know how to do is play politics and divert the public from the real situation going on in the White House.  Tell me why we should trust those conservative Republicans anymore than we can the Democrats, if they can't manage to remove an illegal alien from the Oval Office.  They have all refused to publically demand proof of citizenship, and the opening of all those secret records Obama paid so much to make inaccessible. Oh, Romney made a joke about no one asking to see his birth certificate.  As if having someone who can't even prove he is a U.S. citizen in the presidency, is a joking matter!   They have refused to get involved in the processes that ordinary citizens have had the courage to do in their various states to try to make Obama prove his citizenship. I DON'T UNDERSTAND THESE PEOPLE .  And you want me to trust that they will turn the country around if we vote them in. 

    Who is going to stop Obama from destroying our nation between now and January when he would be gone, providing he doesn't get  re-elected, or if he doesn't simply declare a State of Emergency and Marshall Law and prevent  the election from happening. I am sick of hearing about the election. It is a diversion from what the real issue is.  What we should be hearing is that  the military is storming the white house and removing an imposter, taking back America and it's freedoms. They should be taking back the freedom of the press and air waves that has been gone for 4 years, so that  the truth actually gets out to the common man.  It's way past time for someone to act!      

  • Like I said before, this was a great thing this judge did.  Two hours later Obama appealed again.  Besides Obama now has the legal right to simply write aqn Executive Order that give the NDAA back to himself like present with abow, thanks to the House ruling that says in the case of Marshall Law, the president has the freedom to use any executive order he writes without passing it by either the House or the Senate. There is nothing passed that Obama doesn't like that stays permanent.

This reply was deleted.