What to Expect from Obama's Second Term (Part Three)

More violations of civil liberties

As a presidential candidate in 2007, Barack Obama pledged to champion civil liberties and revise the PATRIOT Act. Obama vowed: “I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.”  He talked the talk of a civil libertarian:

That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.

 

Unfortunately, President Obama did not walk the walk of a civil libertarian. He has proven to be even more of a totalitarian than his predecessor George W. Bush. In May of 2011, Obama signed a four year extension of the PATRIOT Act, justifying this by saying: “It's an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat.” Thus, when Obama became Commander-in-Chief, he could not resist playing Fuhrer where it came to civil liberties. 

While Obama did decry torture, this did not stop him from continuing the barbaric practice of “extraordinary rendition.” There is no moral difference between torturing and allowing torture to be carried out overseas in your name. He also reneged on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay. Apparently, Obama believes that human beings only have the natural right to due process when he says that they do.

President Obama’s most egregious violation of civil liberties was his signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) at the end of 2011. Among the provisions of this military funding bill is a controversial provision concerning the detention of persons by the military in “the War on Terror.”  This section of the NDAA covers two specific groups of persons:

A person who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for the attacks.

A person who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

The NDAA does not specify any geographic limitation, meaning that it applies to all such persons overseas or within the United States. The law is also vague in that it does not exactly define what constitutes being a part of “associated forces.”

When covered persons are not American citizens, the NDAA requires that they be detained “under the law of war without trial until the end of hostilities.” In other words, the law requires that such vaguely defined persons be detained in military custody indefinitely. As “the War on Terror” appears to have become a continuous Orwellian War, persons held under the NDAA can potentially be detained for the remainder of their lives without trial.

However, the most alarming portion of the NDAA is Section 1022(b)(1) which states that: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.”  While this section may appear to exclude all American citizens from such indefinite military detention, it is clear upon closer scrutiny that it merely means that the President is not required to detain American “covered persons” indefinitely without trial. Therefore, it still gives the President the discretion to detain American “covered persons” indefinitely without trial.

President Obama issued a signing statement concerning the NDAA which stated:

The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.

However, Barack Obama changed his mind on the PATRIOT Act, so what is to stop him from changing his mind about the NDAA if it is politically expedient to do so? Obama has shown himself to be anything but a friend of civil liberties, and the "mandate" that he perceives to have been given in his reelection is likely to make him even more power-hungry. This does not bode well for the civil liberties of Americans over the next four years.