Disappointed to see Sinema on the “no” list.
If Walter gets the Republican nomination, I may have to vote Republican in the fall.
If Rogers gets it, I’m going to have to vote for Sinema despite her support of the NSA spying program, because Rogers is a horrifying Tea Party candidate.
Arizona elections sure are depressing.
I thought that was Reagan did that?
Although honestly I’d have difficulty telling the two of them apart in a dark room.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012
Specifically the subsections 1021–1022 of Title X, Subtitle D, entitled “Counter-Terrorism”.
Basically states that some “Dude” in the DOD can say… “Go get him he is not good.”
By the “New Law”? They now can now ignore the “Old Law”?
The “big teeth”, is called treason.
The new law limits searches of “collections” of various kinds of data that the NSA collects. But the NSA has already told Congress that they interpret “collect” to be a weasel-word that means whatever very specific things it’s convenient for them to have it mean today, so basically they told Congress how to write a law that won’t actually limit their activities.
I just read the stuff you cited, and I don’t see what you claim is there.
"(b) COVERED PERSONS. —A covered person under this section is any person as follows:
(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.
(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.
and
(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS. —The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
and
d) AUTHORITIES .—Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or any other domestic law enforcement agency with regard to a covered person, regardless whether such covered person is held in military custody.
As far as I can tell, this isn’t really what you said it was, and it doesn’t really extend the powers that Reagan and Bushes Sr. and Jr. already implemented to oppress US citizens. As I recall, Reagan signed the laws that let the President declare martial law at the Federal level, Bush Sr. created the federal death penalty (for “drug kingpins” originally) and Bush Jr. removed the last barriers to deploying the US military against civilians inside the United States.
So while Obama is certainly keeping up the trend of ever-increasing authoritarianism, he is not responsible for the ability of US presidents to turn the armed forces against the people of the United States.
Keep in mind that I agree with you that it’s a bad thing, and we should do something about it. But when you blame it on “Obummer” you sound like just another clueless dittohead, and that’s probably not in your best interests.
The NSA is a gigantic bureaucracy, with enormous expenses. The NSA’s budget is its greatest vulnerability. Attacking its budget is exactly the right way to weaken it.
One of the memorable things about the Iran-Contra scandal was the elaborate contortions the Reagan Administration was going through to redirect relatively little money, by federal government standards – and the political cost was relatively high when it was exposed. The scale of NSA funding is such that it is difficut to hide.
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