The NDAA, Feinstein's Amendment, Rand's Support

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has been the target of criticism for some time now.  It has been read to authorize the indefinite detention of American citizens on the suspicion of being “belligerent”.  Rand Paul was an early opponent of the bill an offered amendments to cure this violation of civil liberty.

Recently California Senator Diane Feinstein offered an amendment of her own.  Rand Paul co-sponsored her amendment.  Now the question becomes, what does that amendment do?

Rand should explain himself in light of a new article written by attorney Lawrence Rafferty.  Rafferty is calling the amendment the “NDAA Double Cross“.

“As I reported here,
last spring a group of journalists and activists including Chris
Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Tangerine Bolen, led by counsel Bruce Afran and
others, sued President Obama to halt the implementation of Section 1021
in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would have
allowed for the indefinite detention of Americans without charge or
trial.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein recently introduced an amendment to the 2013 NDAA,
which, at first, seems to protect Americans’ due process – but, on
closer examination, can be easily misinterpreted. Afran said that the
Feinstein amendment “puts a gloss” on a very dangerous situation,

“First of all, the Feinstein amendment does not say
that people in the US can’t be put into military custody. It simply says
they can’t be taken into indefinite military custody without ‘trial’.
If they are taken into military custody, they have to be given a trial
of some sort – but not due process in a civil court. The [kind of] trial
this refers to would be … military tribunals. So the Feinstein
amendment does virtually nothing for American citizens or people in the
United States in terms of protection.”

The original law at least left the issue of military detention
somewhat ambiguous, but this amendment actually makes matters worse by
explicitly allowing the military to take Americans into custody. The
measure infringes on Americans’ constitutional rights,
asserts Afran, who explained that, since 1861, the US supreme court has
written in at least four decisions that “people living in the US –
citizens or not – cannot be taken into military custody and denied a
trial in civil courts.” Unforunately, should the NDAA go through, this
becomes the law of the land: “Our system says a law is in force
unless a court says otherwise. The president is considering vetoing the
bill. We don’t know if it will be passed by the House, then signed by
the president. If it is, we may have to go back to the trial court.”  Readersupportednews

Rand has explained his vote on his Facebook page.

Rafferty added to the confusion here Rand and I think another round of explanation would be a good idea to clear things up.