By Chris Hedges
I and my fellow plaintiffs have begun the third and final round of our battle
to get the courts to strike down a section of the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that permits the military to seize U.S.
citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military
facilities. Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran, the lawyers who with me in January 2012
brought a lawsuit against President Barack Obama (Hedges v. Obama), are about to
file papers asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear our appeal of a 2013 ruling on
the act’s Section 1021.
“First the terrorism-industrial complex assured Americans that they were only spying on foreigners, not U.S. citizens,” Mayer said to me recently. “Then they assured us that they were only spying on phone calls, not electronic communications. Then they assured us that they were not spying on American journalists.
And now both [major political] parties and the Obama administration have assured us that they will not detain journalists, citizens and activists. Well, they detained journalist Chris Hedges without a lawyer, they detained journalist Laura Poitras without due process and if allowed to stand this law will permit the military to target activists, journalists and citizens in an unprecedented assault on freedom in America.”
I and my fellow plaintiffs have begun the third and final round of our battle
to get the courts to strike down a section of the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that permits the military to seize U.S.
citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military
facilities. Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran, the lawyers who with me in January 2012
brought a lawsuit against President Barack Obama (Hedges v. Obama), are about to
file papers asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear our appeal of a 2013 ruling on
the act’s Section 1021.“First the terrorism-industrial complex assured Americans that they were only spying on foreigners, not U.S. citizens,” Mayer said to me recently. “Then they assured us that they were only spying on phone calls, not electronic communications. Then they assured us that they were not spying on American journalists.
And now both [major political] parties and the Obama administration have assured us that they will not detain journalists, citizens and activists. Well, they detained journalist Chris Hedges without a lawyer, they detained journalist Laura Poitras without due process and if allowed to stand this law will permit the military to target activists, journalists and citizens in an unprecedented assault on freedom in America.”
