The author reports on the recent US District court hearing on a civil liberties lawsuit that he, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, and others filed against the Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act. The judge had previously issued a temporary injunction order against the enforcement of this provision, and will issue a final decision in the coming weeks. However, the case is expected to wind its way to the Supreme Court.
Hedges warns us about the ominous consequences to our civil liberties if this provision is found to be legal. It seems clear that this law would move us further down the road to a police state.
This section of the NDAA, signed into law by Obama on Dec. 31, 2011, obliterates some of our most important constitutional protections. It authorizes the executive branch to order the military to seize U.S. citizens deemed to be terrorists or associated with terrorists. Those taken into custody by the military, which becomes under the NDAA a domestic law enforcement agency, can be denied due process and habeas corpus and held indefinitely in military facilities. Any activist or dissident, whose rights were once protected under the First Amendment, can be threatened under this law with indefinite incarceration in military prisons, including our offshore penal colonies.His comments about our two party system and the elections indicates that his awareness of our deceptive political system is progressing.
The broader purpose of all these actions such as the Patriot Acts, NDAA, militarizing police forces, is to turn the US into a police state. The political operatives of the One Percent ruling class are becoming aware that they will no longer be able to depend on methods of indoctrination (broadcast media, schools, entertainment, etc) to keep their subjects ignorant. They know that the latter will soon wake up to the fact that the entire system is rigged against them to One Percent's advantage. Thus, they foresee the necessity for coercive methods to maintain the capitalist system--the goose that lays their golden eggs.