[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

OK, so in the vein of more serious discussion of the issue at hand:

1) I'm not familiar with the proposed bill beyond some quick googling last night. While the wording of the section at issue is definitely chilling, I have no idea what the broader implications of passing the bill are. It is called the National Defense Funding Bill, so I imagine there are a number of security and dollar ramifications attached to it. If it's anything like a lot of bills, there's probably lots of pork in it for various reps and senators to give it their blessing to get this far, but that may not be the case.

There is always things stuffed into funding bills, its the easiest way to get legislative changes put through, especially when the funding is based around defense.

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

2) If it gives the government the ability
to detain US citizens without trial, will that happen? The acid test when the provision of the new law is used in this fashion would be a much more telling time IMO. I'm not at all familiar with constitutional law, but a cursory glance suggests that this law could be challenged as being unconstitutional, at least this part of it. I don't know how that kind of objection could be raised if the detainee has no trial rights, but again I am admittedly not a lawyer or very familiar with the US legal system.'

Right now we don't know how open the U.S. Government has been in terms of dealing with homegrown threats. For all we know, for every Time's Square bomber that's been caught and reported on there could be several that were caught and we never heard about it.

This is definately going to be a litmus case when we hear about the first indefinate detention order, there is no doubt that the ACLU or Civil Liberties Group will challenge that detention so that it can get put in front of the Supreme Court. This bill is not an ammendmant to the Constitutiuon, and I don't think a Bill can abrogate the Consitition without it being ammended to take that law of Bill into account (someone American can probably correct me if I'm wrong.

While the detainee might not have rights, there is a right to challenge the law

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

4) Again, without knowing the entire scope of the legislation, it's hard to say where each congressman was coming from when deciding to pass this. Perhaps the liberty concerns were not raised, perhaps there is other funding issues such as increasing or cutting spending that received a higher profile when it was being debated. I don't know.

my

From my understanding, Obama isn't threatening the act because of the Consitituional issues, he's threatening to Veto because the introduction of Military Intelligence into the Civillian world could compromise Civilian intelligence gathering capabilities.

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

There are checks and balances in the system to be used on legislation like this. There is the standard presidential veto, which would need a separate vote in the HoR and Senate to be overturned, needing a 2/3 majority in both votes. There is a pocket veto, where the sitting President simply does nothing with the bill and it dies when the congress is adjourned. I don't think this can be applied here, because the President has 10 days (excluding Sundays) to act on the bill presented or it simply becomes law. The elections are far enough away that a pocket veto is unlikely for this bill. And as mentioned, there is the matter of the Supreme Court ruling on the law being unconstitutional should it be challenged.

Its literally passed a couple of checks and balances and is heading for the next level which is Obama who agree's from the sound of it with the letter of the act but not the execution. The check is going to be up to the Civil Liberties Groups and their efforts to find a litmus case to bring to the Supreme courts.