Senate’s Disastrous New Detention Bill

Senate’s Disastrous New Detention Bill
by: Tom Parker – November 18, 2011 – Amnesty USA

The new National Defense Authorization Bill (S1867) presented to the Senate by the Armed Services Committee is such a disaster for civil liberties and human rights it is difficult to know where to begin.

Section 1031 of the Bill extends the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed after the September 11th attacks to encompass any individual who has “substantially supported” Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces”.

This is extraordinarily vague. The phrase ‘associated forces’ is so flexible that it can be used to encompass almost any militant Islamic group in existence from Indonesia to Nigeria. It might include political parties who share some of the militants’ aims but not their methods – like the Hizb ut Tahrir movement active in Western Europe and Australia.

The Bill does not set any territorial limits on where this conflict is being fought. The presumption is that US forces can engage terror groups with kinetic weapons systems wherever they find them – London, Copenhagen, Istanbul and Kampala are all fair game and to hell with consequences for any citizens of those countries who get caught in the middle.

Also alarmingly imprecise is the term “substantially supported.” In the past the Department of Defense has described both writing an opinion piece for The Guardian, a globally respected British newspaper, and detainee suicide as terrorist acts. To date, this bar has not been set high.

Some of those accused of terrorist affiliations have languished for almost a decade at Guantanamo and are still no nearer having their day in court. Requiring trials by Military Commission will simply relegate more accused individuals to the Twilight Zone of indefinite detention. …more