NDAA in the Senate
My brother commented on yesterday's post, pointing out that I'm only telling half the story. After the NDAA was passed from the House to the Senate, more provisions were added including the one allowing the President to detain anyone, not just foreigners, without trial. He included this clip of Senator Carl Levin saying that the President requested that the exemption be removed.
I've tried to find either corroboration, clarification, or context for Levin's remark. Unfortunately every article I've found making the "Obama requested removing the exemption" point just links back to the same 10 second out-of-context video clip. On the other hand this page says that John McCain, "initially proposed to permit the indefinite detention of American citizens by the US military" and that Levin tried to water down that provision with ambiguous language. That view is supported by McCain's himself, whose floor statement on NDAA takes credit for the provisions and taunts the White House for being unable to remove or reduce them:
“The Congress - in strong bipartisan majorities, especially in the Committee on Armed Services - is deeply concerned by the Administration’s flawed handling of detainees in the fight against terrorism. It was Congress that took up this vital national security issue, and drafted all the versions of these provisions, and led the negotiations on all of the major compromises.
“Yes, we listened to the Administration’s concerns, and we took many of them into account, but unfortunately the Administration has fought these provisions every step of the way. They tried to have these provisions stripped from the Senate bill as a condition for bringing it to the floor for debate. When that didn’t work, they tried to have these provisions dropped from the bill through amendments on the floor. And when that didn’t work, they urged the Conferees to drop these provisions in Conference, or at least water them down into nothingness. Again and again and again, the Administration failed. So for them to now try to claim credit for these provisions flies in the face of the historical record. Facts are stubborn things, and when it comes to these detainee provisions, the fact is this: Congress has led and defined the debate, and the Administration has finally conceded to that reality.
Obama agrees. While McCain bragged about getting the NDAA into its final form "The Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, the Director of the CIA and the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the NDAA are harmful and counterproductive to their work." In Obama's signing statement he says that §1021 "breaks no new ground and is unnecessary". §1022 "is ill-conceived and will do nothing to improve the security of the United States". Obama's statement also says that:
under section 1021(e), the bill may not be construed to affect any "existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States." My Administration strongly supported the inclusion of these limitations in order to make clear beyond doubt that the legislation does nothing more than confirm authorities that the Federal courts have recognized as lawful under the 2001 AUMF.
I don't think Obama's interpretation is correct, but whether or not you believe Obama's stated intent, look at the Congressional record. After the indefinite detention amendments were added, Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) introduced an amendment cosponsored by Rand Paul and Al Franken to forbid the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens. In a party line vote 66% of Democrats supported it, but 93% of Republicans opposed it, and the measure failed 37-61.
For the last 3 years, the Republicans' political strategy has been to take a shit on Obama's carpet and then blame him for being a poor housekeeper. In Obama's first week he signed an executive order to close Guantanamo, move detainees to American prisons, and give them fair trials. Republicans in Congress successfully prevented him from doing this with a combination of restrictive legislation and ridiculous political rhetoric. Then they publicly blamed and ridiculed him for not closing Guantanamo.
This is the same thing all over again. House Republicans put this police state nonsense into the NDAA, defeating House Democrats' attempts to keep it out. When McCain and Levin's "unnecessary" and "ill-conceived" amendments were added, Democrats tried to add back the exemption for American citizens and were defeated by 93% of Senate Republicans who didn't want the exemption. And now Republicans are trying to say that Obama requested this stuff as part of the secret government concentration camp conspiracy theory that's been kicking around for more than a decade? Bullshit.
You say Obama didn't want the American citizen exemption. I say, based on the agreement written statements and voting records of both parties, he didn't want any of it. Very few Democrats wanted any of it. If Democrats had gotten their way at any point during this process, less to none of this would have happened.
I've tried to find either corroboration, clarification, or context for Levin's remark. Unfortunately every article I've found making the "Obama requested removing the exemption" point just links back to the same 10 second out-of-context video clip. On the other hand this page says that John McCain, "initially proposed to permit the indefinite detention of American citizens by the US military" and that Levin tried to water down that provision with ambiguous language. That view is supported by McCain's himself, whose floor statement on NDAA takes credit for the provisions and taunts the White House for being unable to remove or reduce them:
“The Congress - in strong bipartisan majorities, especially in the Committee on Armed Services - is deeply concerned by the Administration’s flawed handling of detainees in the fight against terrorism. It was Congress that took up this vital national security issue, and drafted all the versions of these provisions, and led the negotiations on all of the major compromises.
“Yes, we listened to the Administration’s concerns, and we took many of them into account, but unfortunately the Administration has fought these provisions every step of the way. They tried to have these provisions stripped from the Senate bill as a condition for bringing it to the floor for debate. When that didn’t work, they tried to have these provisions dropped from the bill through amendments on the floor. And when that didn’t work, they urged the Conferees to drop these provisions in Conference, or at least water them down into nothingness. Again and again and again, the Administration failed. So for them to now try to claim credit for these provisions flies in the face of the historical record. Facts are stubborn things, and when it comes to these detainee provisions, the fact is this: Congress has led and defined the debate, and the Administration has finally conceded to that reality.
Obama agrees. While McCain bragged about getting the NDAA into its final form "The Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, the Director of the CIA and the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the NDAA are harmful and counterproductive to their work." In Obama's signing statement he says that §1021 "breaks no new ground and is unnecessary". §1022 "is ill-conceived and will do nothing to improve the security of the United States". Obama's statement also says that:
under section 1021(e), the bill may not be construed to affect any "existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States." My Administration strongly supported the inclusion of these limitations in order to make clear beyond doubt that the legislation does nothing more than confirm authorities that the Federal courts have recognized as lawful under the 2001 AUMF.
I don't think Obama's interpretation is correct, but whether or not you believe Obama's stated intent, look at the Congressional record. After the indefinite detention amendments were added, Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) introduced an amendment cosponsored by Rand Paul and Al Franken to forbid the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens. In a party line vote 66% of Democrats supported it, but 93% of Republicans opposed it, and the measure failed 37-61.
For the last 3 years, the Republicans' political strategy has been to take a shit on Obama's carpet and then blame him for being a poor housekeeper. In Obama's first week he signed an executive order to close Guantanamo, move detainees to American prisons, and give them fair trials. Republicans in Congress successfully prevented him from doing this with a combination of restrictive legislation and ridiculous political rhetoric. Then they publicly blamed and ridiculed him for not closing Guantanamo.
This is the same thing all over again. House Republicans put this police state nonsense into the NDAA, defeating House Democrats' attempts to keep it out. When McCain and Levin's "unnecessary" and "ill-conceived" amendments were added, Democrats tried to add back the exemption for American citizens and were defeated by 93% of Senate Republicans who didn't want the exemption. And now Republicans are trying to say that Obama requested this stuff as part of the secret government concentration camp conspiracy theory that's been kicking around for more than a decade? Bullshit.
You say Obama didn't want the American citizen exemption. I say, based on the agreement written statements and voting records of both parties, he didn't want any of it. Very few Democrats wanted any of it. If Democrats had gotten their way at any point during this process, less to none of this would have happened.