Under New Law, Americans Can Be Arrested By Military And Thrown In Gitmo

The new provision contained in the defense bill would give the military the authority to arrest whoever is suspected of being a terrorist on American soil and detain that person indefinitely without a trial.

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.”

Every American needs to know about this, and to speak up about it, lest we become the kind of country we loathe.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.