To hell in a handbasket

The Supreme Court rules that President Obama can authorize the military to imprison anyone they want, any time, and to deprive the detainee of their constitutional rights.

I do see that at least a few of the cases were remanded to the lower courts for "further proceedings," so perhaps the issue isn't completely dead, but really, that this even has to go to court is an outrage.

It also puts a new light on Harry Reid's constant clamoring to label ranchers, Tea Partiers, veterans, and others he doesn't like for political reasons, as terrorists, Nazis, and, in one of his famous phrases, "evil doers."  If in fact your are a terrorist, per the progressive definition, does not that give the president the authority, under this law, to arrest and detain you for no reason, indefinitely?

Further, as anti libertarian as the court currently is, imagine what it would become if one or more of the conservative jurists were to retire, die or become incapacitated?  Immediately, the Constitution and all it's protections for the individual would be void, reinterpreted by the progressives as a "living document" to mean whatever they wanted it to mean.  We are already very close to that, with the Kelo decision, the rulings base on the idea of a constitutional "penumbra," and Justice Roberts' rhetorical gymnastics made to validate the patently unconstitutional Obamacare.

Now, whether you disappear indefinitely into an American gulag depends wholly, apparently, on whether the president decides you are a national threat.

From the article at WND:

The controversial provision authorizes the military, under presidential authority, to arrest, kidnap, detain without trial and hold indefinitely American citizens thought to “represent an enduring security threat to the United States.”

Journalist Chris Hedges was among the plaintiffs charging the law could be used to target journalists who report on terror-related issues.

A friend-of-the-court brief submitted in the case stated: “The central question now before this court is whether the federal judiciary will stand idly by while Congress and the president establish the legal framework for the establishment of a police state and the subjugation of the American citizenry through the threat of indefinite military arrest and detention, without the right to counsel, the right to confront one’s accusers, or the right to trial

...

At the trial court, on Sept. 12, 2012, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District Court of New York ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and placed a permanent injunction on the indefinite detention provision.

Obama then appealed, and the 2nd Circuit authorized the government detention program.

Since the law passed, multiple states have passed laws banning its enforcement. Herb Titus, a constitutional expert, previously told WND Forrest’s ruling underscored “the arrogance of the current regime, in that they will not answer questions that they ought to answer to a judge because they don’t think they have to.”

The judge explained that the plaintiffs alleged paragraph 1021 is “constitutionally infirm, violating both their free speech and associational rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment as well due process rights guaranteed by the 5th Amendment.”

She noted the government “did not call any witnesses, submit any documentary evidence or file any declarations.”

“It must be said that it would have been a rather simple matter for the government to have stated that as to these plaintiffs and the conduct as to which they would testify, that [paragraph] 1021 did not and would not apply, if indeed it did or would not,” she wrote.

Instead, the administration only responded with, “I’m not authorized to make specific representations regarding specific people.”

Forrest wrote that the court’s “attempt to avoid having to deal with the constitutional aspects of the challenge was by providing the government with prompt notice in the form of declarations and depositions of the … conduct in which plaintiffs are involved and which they claim places them in fear of military detention.”

“To put it bluntly, to eliminate these plaintiffs’ standing simply by representing that their conduct does not fall within the scope of 1021 would have been simple. The government chose not to do so – thereby ensuring standing and requiring this court to reach the merits of the instant motion,” she said.

“Plaintiffs have stated a more than plausible claim that the statute inappropriately encroaches on their rights under the 1st Amendment.”