Opinion

Steven Newcomb: New law a big threat to rights of all citizens





"During my decades of research into the origins of federal Indian law and international law, I discovered that domination is the Latin language for “government.” I keep returning to this connection between “government” and “domination” as I reflect upon the U.S. Congress’s recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012 on Bill of Rights Day, December 15, 2011.

A provision of the NDAA authorizes Barack Obama or any future U.S. president to have the U.S. military grab U.S. citizens and legal residents, without charge or trial, inside the United States, and to do so without evidence having been brought before a judge or grand jury. Such a person can be detained, and, evidently, even subjected to “enhanced interrogation” until “the end of hostilities,” during a time that has been called a period of war without end.

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) unequivocally stated during the limited discussion of the NDAA that “the battlefield” now extends to “the homeland” of the U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has said that anyone deemed to pose a threat to the national security of the United States, including an American citizen, may be held by the U.S. military and even carted off to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The “law of war” has been invoked in the NDAA, and thus the “law of war” is now evidently deemed by a majority of the members of Congress to apply to persons “covered” in the NDAA, inclusive of U.S. citizens."

Get the Story:
Steven Newcomb: The Darkside of the Dome: ‘The American Dominate’ (Indian Country Today 1/2)

Related Stories:
Steven Newcomb: Superiority and federal-Indian relations (12/19)
Steven Newcomb: Defense bill authorizes detention of citizens (12/6)
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Steven Newcomb: A tribal perspective for Occupy Wall Street (10/13)
Steven Newcomb: US, Canada continue to occupy Native lands (9/30)
Steven Newcomb: Dominance at core of federal Indian laws (9/12)
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