Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs director Tiffany Wood has provided the first official response to the shocking U.S. Army document that outlines the implementation of re-education camps, admitting that the manual was “not intended for public release” and claiming that its provisions only apply outside the United States, a contention completely disproved by the language contained in the document itself.

Source: Prison Planet.

Document also describes forced labor.

A shocking U.S. Army manual that describes how “political activists,” including American citizens, are to be indoctrinated in re-education camps also includes rules on forced labor and separating political prisoners by confining them in isolation.

Aside from detailing how PSYOP teams will use “indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes,” as well as targeting “political activists” with indoctrination programs to provide “understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions,” the manual directs political prisoners to be separated from the rest of the camp population.

On page 284, the manual (PDF) describes how “Malcontents, rabble-rousers, trained agitators, and political officers who may attempt to organize resistance or create disturbances within the I/R facility,” are to be confined “in isolated enclosures to deny them access to the general population.”

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Belgian police have arrested almost 500 peace activists outside the NATO HQ in Brussels. Protesters attempted to storm the building, but were met with a heavy-handed response from hundreds of officers. Demonstrators say the march was called to protest NATO’s hawkish intervention policies. For more on this RT talks to one of the activists who actually took part. Hans Lammerant, a spokesman for ‘NATO Game Over’, joins us now from Brussels.

Washington lawmakers latest to join chorus of opposition to bill allowing for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens.

Five Washington state representatives have introduced legislation in an attempt to override provisions the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 that would allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial.

Reps. Jason Overstreet, Matt Shea, Vincent Buys, Cary Condotta, and David Taylor introduced HB 2759, the Washington State Preservation of Liberty Act this week.

The legislation slams a provision in the NDAA that allows the U.S. government and the military to “indefinitely detain United States citizens and lawful resident aliens captured within the United States of America without charge until the end of hostilities.”

The controversial legislation, signed into law by Obama on New Years Eve, allows American citizens to be abducted and held in a detention camp anywhere in the world without trial under section 1031.

As reported by the Tenth Amendment Center, the Washington State Preservation of Liberty Act forbids “any state employee, member of the Washington National Guard or any agent of a corporation doing business with the state” to cooperate in the federal detainment or investigation of a U.S. citizen or resident alien.

It also prohibits any state involvement “with an investigation or detainment of a United States citizen or lawful resident alien located within the United States of America by the armed forces of the United States of America.”

The bill puts forth the case that the NDAA is blatantly unconstitutional and legislates for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without due process.

The Bill states:

It is indisputable that the threat of terrorism is real, and that the full force of appropriate, and constitutional, law must be used to defeat this threat. However, winning the war against terror cannot come at the great expense of eviscerating the unalienable rights recognized by and protected in the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the state of Washington. Indeed, undermining those constitutional rights serves only to concede to the terrorists’ demands of changing the fabric of what has made the United States of America a republic granting the greatest number of people the greatest amount of liberty, justice, security, opportunity, prosperity, happiness, peace, and good ever known or experienced by humankind throughout the history of the world.

“By taking a stand, Washington can join those heroic state officials who stood up against federal power to protect black citizens in the waning years of slavery.” Michael Maharrey, Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center said.

Several other states, including Virginia and Tennessee are also considering legislation to nullify the NDAA provision.

As we have previously noted, although President Obama indicated in a signing statement attached to the bill that he would not use it to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial, it was the Obama administration itself which requested that the provision be worded so it would apply to US citizens.

As the bill’s co-sponsor Senator Carl Levin said during a speech on the floor in December, it was the Obama administration that demanded the removal of language that would have precluded Americans from being subject to indefinite detention.

“The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved…and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section,” said Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

The Tenth Amendment Center has Model Legislation to nullify NDAA available here – we urge readers to contact their state legislators to ask that they introduce this legislation today.

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source: Prison Planet.

The absurdity of America today never ceases to amaze.  In fact, it has become so elaborate that one might even suggest it has reached a kind of poetic symmetry.  When a protest group is willing to stick their necks out to expose the horror of the National Defense Authorization Act and its open door strategy for unconstitutional arrest and indefinite detainment of American citizens, I have to stand up and applaud.  This is the kind of protest we need to see all over the country.  Of course, any establishment system which is willing to dissolve the inherent liberties of its citizens certainly isn’t going to stand by quietly while they blatantly point out the injustice.  The Grand Central Terminal action featured in the video below is a perfect example of the swift and immediate stifling of peaceful dissent by an increasingly totalitarian government:

Responses to the event vary.  Most people who have actually been exposed to the facts on the NDAA have expressed utter disgust and fury.  Rightly so.  Some, however, have taken the old elitist mantra, perpetuated effectively by the Neo-Cons in their heyday, that if you are not for the system, then you are a danger to society.  Not surprisingly, there are still plenty of useful idiots out there buzzing about like parasites in search of blood.

For those who would applaud these arrests, and suggest that they are well deserved, I would have to ask very pointedly; why?

Is it right to crush free speech as long as the message is offensive to you personally?  Do peaceful protestors really present a legitimate threat to our national stability?  Are they truly more dangerous than a corrupt government hellbent on assassinating the legal protections of our natural rights which have existed for centuries?  Would any supporter of the jackboot methodology like to explain to me in a coherent manner why they believe their skewed world view should be shielded from sincere questions?  Please, I can’t wait to witness the kind of ridiculous mental gymnastics required to make such arguments palatable.  If this kind of ignorance wasn’t so destructive, it might actually be entertaining.

The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter if these activists were in Grand Central Terminal, on the streets, or busting through the doors of the Oval Office.  While New York authorities will attempt to argue property loopholes in free speech protections for Grand Central, or national security because of the vulnerability of the terminal, really, this has nothing to do with either.  This is about the removal of American voices from a room, and nothing more.   If the message is going to be suppressed by the mainstream media, and shrugged off by representatives, then protesters must go to where the people are, and make the truth heard by whatever means necessary.

Ultimately, activism is about disturbing people’s normal mundane routines and shocking them out of their pop-culture stupor, even if for a moment.  If we aren’t allowed to do that without constant police intervention, then the First Amendment is not being served, and then, my friends, we have a problem, a problem which should be forced down the throat of government with even more public action.

Source: Alt Market.

I’ve previously noted that Obama says that he can assassinate American citizens living on U.S. soil.

This admittedly sounds over-the-top.  But one of the nation’s top constitutional and military law experts – Jonathan Turley – agrees.

Turley:

• Is the second most cited law professor in the country

• Has worked as both the CBS and NBC legal analyst during national controversies

• Ranks 38th in the top 100 most cited ‘public intellectuals’ in a recent study by a well-known judge

• Is one of the top 10 lawyers handling military cases

• Has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues

• Is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues

Turley said yesterday on C-Span (starting at 15:50):

President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own. If he’s satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world including in the United States.

Two of his aides just … reaffirmed they believe that American citizens can be killed on the order of the President anywhere including the United States.

You’ve now got a president who says that he can kill you on his own discretion. He can jail you indefinitely on his own discretion

***

I don’t think the the Framers ever anticipated that [the American people would be so apathetic]. They assumed that people would hold their liberties close, and that they wouldn’t relax …

CONTINUED at Washington’s Blog. Video at link.

Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped toGuantánamo Bay.

Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of “a war that appears to have no end”.

The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the “war on terror” to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.

The legislation’s supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. But the law’s critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.

“It’s something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. “It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent.”

There was heated debate in both houses of Congress on the legislation, requiring that suspects with links to Islamist foreign terrorist organisations arrested in the US, who were previously held by the FBI or other civilian law enforcement agencies, now be handed to the military and held indefinitely without trial.

The law applies to anyone “who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces”.

Senator Lindsey Graham said the extraordinary measures were necessary because terrorism suspects were wholly different to regular criminals.

“We’re facing an enemy, not a common criminal organisation, who will do anything and everything possible to destroy our way of life,” he said. “When you join al-Qaida you haven’t joined the mafia, you haven’t joined a gang. You’ve joined people who are bent on our destruction and who are a military threat.”

Other senators supported the new powers on the grounds that al-Qaida was fighting a war inside the US and that its followers should be treated as combatants, not civilians with constitutional protections.

But another conservative senator, Rand Paul, a strong libertarian, has said “detaining citizens without a court trial is not American” and that if the law passes “the terrorists have won”.

“We’re talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. It puts every single citizen American at risk,” he said. “Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us? The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism. This is simply not borne out by the facts.”

Paul was backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein.

“Congress is essentially authorising the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge,” she said. “We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge.”

Paul said there were already strong laws against support for terrorist groups. He noted that the definition of a terrorism suspect under existing legislation was so broad that millions of Americans could fall within it.

“There are laws on the books now that characterise who might be a terrorist: someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the department of justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist,” Paul said. “If you are suspected because of these activities, do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantánamo Bay for indefinite detention?”

Under the legislation suspects can be held without trial “until the end of hostilities”. They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue.

The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill before the end of the week. It will then go to the president, who previously said he would block the legislation not on moral grounds but because it would “cause confusion” in the intelligence community and encroached on his own powers.

But on Wednesday the White House said Obama had lifted the threat of a veto after changes to the law giving the president greater discretion to prevent individuals from being handed to the military.

Critics accused the president of caving in again to pressure from some Republicans on a counter-terrorism issue for fear of being painted in next year’s election campaign as weak and of failing to defend America.

Human Rights Watch said that by signing the bill Obama would go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.

“The paradigm of the war on terror has advanced so far in people’s minds that this has to appear more normal than it actually is,” Malinowski said. “It wasn’t asked for by any of the agencies on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism in the United States. It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs.”

In fact, the heads of several security agencies, including the FBI, CIA, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general objected to the legislation. The Pentagon also said it was against the bill.

The FBI director, Robert Mueller, said he feared the law could compromise the bureau’s ability to investigate terrorism because it would be more complicated to win co-operation from suspects held by the military.

“The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain co-operation from the persons in the past that we’ve been fairly successful in gaining,” he told Congress.

Civil liberties groups say the FBI and federal courts have dealt with more than 400 alleged terrorism cases, including the successful prosecutions of Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber”, Umar Farouk, the “underwear bomber”, and Faisal Shahzad, the “Times Square bomber”.

Elements of the law are so legally confusing, as well as being constitutionally questionable, that any detentions are almost certain to be challenged all the way to the supreme court.

Malinowski said “vague language” was deliberately included in the bill in order to get it passed. “The very lack of clarity is itself a problem. If people are confused about what it means, if people disagree about what it means, that in and of itself makes it bad law,” he said.

Source: The Guardian.

Yes, the Indefinite Detention Bill DOES Apply to American Citizens

Even at this 11th hour – when all of our liberties and freedom are about to go down the drain – many people still don’t understand that the indefinite detention bill passed by Congress allows indefinite detention of Americans on American soil.

The bill is confusing. As Wired noted on December 1st:

It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”

A retired admiral, Judge Advocate General and Dean Emeritus of the University of New Hampshire School of Law also says that it applies to American citizens on American soil.

The ACLU notes:

Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

But you don’t have to believe us. Instead, read what one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Lindsey Graham said about it on the Senate floor: “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

Another sponsor of the bill – Senator Levin – has also repeatedly said that the bill applies to American citizens on American soil, citing the Supreme Court case of Hamdi which ruled that American citizens can be treated as enemy combatants:

“The Supreme Court has recently ruled there is no bar to the United States holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant,” said Levin. “This is the Supreme Court speaking.“

Levin again stressed recently that the bill applies to American citizens, and said that it was president Obama who requested that it do so:

*(Levin video has since been deleted)

Under questioning from Rand Paul, another co-sponsor – John McCain – said that Americans suspected of terrorism could not only be indefinitely detained, but could be sent to Guantanamo:

U.S. Congressman Justin Amash states in a letter to Congress:

The Senate’s [bill] does not even distinguish between American citizens and non-citizens, or between persons caught domestically and abroad. The President’s power, in his discretion, to detain persons he determines have supported associated forces applies just as strongly to Americans seized on U.S. soil as it does to foreigners captured on a far away battlefield.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson – General Colin Powell’s chief of staff – says that the bill is a big step towards tyranny at home.  Congressman Ron Paul says that it will establish martial law in America.

Indeed, Amash accuses lawmakers of attempting to intentionally mislead the American people by writing a bill which appears at first glance to exclude U.S. citizens, when it actually includes us:

Pres. Obama and many Members of Congress believe the President ALREADY has the authority the bill grants him. Legally, of course, he does not. This language was inserted to keep proponents and opponents of the bill appeased, while permitting the President to assert that the improper power he has claimed all along is now in statute.

***

They will say that American citizens are specifically exempted under the following language in Sec. 1032: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.” Don’t be fooled. All this says is that the President is not REQUIRED to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial. It still PERMITS him to do so

Source: Washington’s Blog.

Congressman condemns “bold, arrogant, dangerous” move to intern Americans without trial.

Top tier presidential candidate Ron Paul has decried the ‘indefinite detention’ provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, warning that it represents an arrogant, bold and dangerous attempt to establish martial law in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6pnSHyOG-Y

Speaking with the Alex Jones Show today, Congressman Paul went on the offensive against the bill, which is set to be signed into law by President Obama later this week.

Section 1031 of the NDAA bill, which itself defines the entirety of the United States as a “battlefield,” allows American citizens to be snatched from the streets, carted off to a foreign detention camp and held indefinitely without trial. The bill states that “any person who has committed a belligerent act” faces indefinite detention, but no trial or evidence has to be presented, the White House merely needs to make the accusation.

Paul said he saw significance in “the announcement and the arrogance of it all,” making reference to the Obama administration’s claim that it can now assassinate American citizens anywhere in the world and noting that the passage of the NDAA bill is an effort to codify the policy into law.

“This is a giant step – this should be the biggest news going right now – literally legalizing martial law,” said Paul, noting that the subject did not come up at all in any of the Republican debates.

The Congressman also decried the “arrogance” of an attempt to push through via a voice vote an amendment that would have still authorized indefinite detention even if a detainee was found innocent after a trial. The amendment was narrowly defeated by his son, Senator Rand Paul.

“This is big,” emphasized Paul, adding “This step where they can literally arrest American citizens and put them away without trial….is arrogant and bold and dangerous.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6pnSHyOG-Y

Despite speculation that the Obama administration would veto the bill, it emerged yesterday that it was the White House itself which worked to remove language from the bill that would have protected American citizens from indefinite detention under Section 1031.

The administration has been working with lawmakers to alter a separate provision, Section 1032, which pertains to the military being required to take custody of individuals.

With the administration’s concerns over Section 1032 now largely resolved, a revised and final version of the bill could be signed into law before the end of the week.

“The conferees said they plan to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote as soon as Wednesday afternoon and to the Senate soon thereafter,” reports Politico.

Despite the revisions, the bill still contains language that allows Americans to be detained without trial at a detention center anywhere in the world.

Republican Congressman Justin Amash has again warned that lawmakers are attempting to mislead the American people by claiming U.S. citizens are exempt from the most dangerous provisions of the bill.

“Pres. Obama and many Members of Congress believe the President ALREADY has the authority the bill grants him. Legally, of course, he does not. This language was inserted to keep proponents and opponents of the bill appeased, while permitting the President to assert that the improper power he has claimed all along is now in statute,” writes Amash.

“They will say that American citizens are specifically exempted under the following language in Sec. 1032: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States. Don’t be fooled. All this says is that the President is not REQUIRED to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial. It still PERMITS him to do so,” warns the Congressman.

Amash is encouraging Americans to contact their representatives and sign a petition expressing their opposition to the NDAA bill, calling it “one of the most anti-liberty pieces of legislation of our lifetime.”

Click here to listen to the interview with Ron Paul in full.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

Source: Prison Planet.

Despite reports that Obama is planning to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, Senator Carl Levin has revealed it was the administration itself that lobbied to remove language from the bill that would have protected American citizens from being detained indefinitely without trial.

“The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved…and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section,” said Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

“It was the administration that asked us to remove the very language which we had in the bill which passed the committee…we removed it at the request of the administration,” said Levine, emphasizing, “It was the administration which asked us to remove the very language the absence of which is now objected to.”

Section 1031 of the NDAA bill, which itself defines the entirety of the United States as a “battlefield,” allows American citizens to be snatched from the streets, carted off to a foreign detention camp and held indefinitely without trial. The bill states that “any person who has committed a belligerent act” faces indefinite detention, but no trial or evidence has to be presented, the White House merely needs to make the accusation.

An amendment introduced by Democratic Senator Feinstein, described as “cleverly worded nonsense” by Congressman Justin Amash, does not protect Americans from being subject to the provision.

“The Feinstein Amendment 1031(e) is dangerously misleading,” writes John Wood of Change.org, which is running a petition to oppose the signing of the bill. “Don’t be fooled: In the text of 1031(e), “Nothing in this section shall be construed…”, the only word that matters is “construed” because the Supreme Court are the only ones with the power to construe the law. The Feinstein Amendment 1031(e) permits citizens to be imprisoned without evidence or a trial forever, if the Supreme Court does not EXPLICITLY repeal 1031.”

The Obama administration never had a problem with Section 1031 of the bill and indeed acted to ensure it applied to American citizens. Doubts over whether or not Obama would veto the bill only arose out of issues with Section 1032, which pertains to the military being required to take custody of individuals.

“Confusingly, Obama threatened a veto for 1032, but NOT 1031. 1032 is UNRELATED to imprisoning citizens without a trial. Obama has never suggested using a veto to stop Section 1031 citizen imprisonment,” writes Wood.

The notion that the administration lobbied for language that would have protected American citizens and legal residents from indefinite detention to be removed from the bill is unsurprising given Obama’s policy with regard to predator drone strikes.

The White House has asserted the right to carry out state-sponsored assassination anywhere in the world without having to provide any evidence or go through any legal process. The administration merely has to state that the target is a terrorist and it doesn’t matter whether they are an American citizen or not, as we saw in the case of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki and his son who were both killed earlier this year.

Indeed, at the start of the month, Obama administration lawyers reaffirmed their backing for state sponsored assassination.

Congress has until tomorrow to block the law before it heads to President Obama’s desk. Putting faith in an administration that has formalized state-sponsored assassination of U.S. citizens without trial to block the ‘indefinite detention’ provision of the NDAA bill is naive to say the least.

Sign the petition, contact your representative and contact the White House making your opposition to the bill known by clicking here.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

Source: Infowars.