Obama's Lawless, Secretive Drone War Continues Over Pakistan
Taliban leader reportedly killed in latest clandestine strike in
South Waziristan
Published on Thursday, January 3, 2013 by Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/03-0
New US drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen
By Patrick O'Connor
4 January 2013
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/04/dron-j04.html
Obama and torture
4 January 2013
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/04/pers-j04.html
Rights Group Condemns President Obama for Signing NDAA
President Caves on Veto Threat Second Year in a Row
January 3, 2013
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/01/03-2
US: Defense Bill Signing Backtracks on Guantanamo
President Should Renew Efforts to Transfer Cleared Detainees
JANUARY 3, 2013
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/03/us-defense-bill-signing-backtracks-guantanamo>
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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/03-1
Published on Thursday, January 3, 2013 by TruthDig.com
Obama's New Year's Resolution: Protect the Status Quo
by Amy Goodman
Amidst the White House and congressional theatrics surrounding the
so-called fiscal-cliff negotiations, a number of bills were signed
into law by President Barack Obama that renew some of the worst
excesses of the Bush years. Largely ignored by the media, these laws
further entrench odious policies like indefinite detention,
warrantless wiretapping and the continued operation of the U.S. gulag
in Guantanamo. The deal to avert the fiscal cliff itself increases
the likelihood that President Obama may yet scuttle an unprecedented
cut in the Pentagon's bloated budget. It's not such a happy new year,
after all.
On Sunday, Dec. 30, the White House press secretary's office issued a
terse release stating "The President signed into law H.R. 5949, the
'FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012,' which provides a
five-year extension of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act." With that, the government's controversial
surveillance powers were renewed until the end of 2017. The American
Civil Liberties Union called it the "heartbreak of another Senate
vote in favor of dragnet collection of Americans' communications."
A champion of progressive causes in the U.S. House of
Representatives, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, is leaving Congress after
16 years, after his Cleveland district was eliminated due to
Republican-controlled redistricting following the 2010 census. Days
before his departure from Congress, I asked him about the FISA
reauthorization.
"The FISA bill is just one example," Kucinich replied, "We're
entering into a brave new world, which involves not only the
government apparatus being able to look in massive databases and
extract information to try to profile people who might be considered
threats to the prevailing status quo. But we also are looking at
drones, which are increasingly miniaturized, that will give the
governments, at every level, more of an ability to look into people's
private conduct. This is a nightmare."
Add to that, the nightmare of indefinite detention without charge or
trial. Just over a year ago, President Obama signed the National
Defense Authorization Act for 2012, also known as the annual NDAA.
That 2012 version of the sprawling NDAA contained a controversial new
provision granting the U.S. military far-reaching powers to
indefinitely detain people - not only those identified as enemies on
a battlefield, but others perceived by the military as having
"supported" the enemy. Chris Hedges, a former foreign correspondent
for The New York Times who was part of a team of reporters awarded a
Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the paper's coverage of global terrorism,
sued the Obama administration because, in his reporting, he regularly
encounters those the U.S. government defines as terrorists: "I, as a
foreign correspondent, had had direct contact with 17 organizations
that are on that list, from al-Qaida to Hamas to Hezbollah to the
PKK, and there's no provision within that particular section [of the
NDAA] to exempt journalists."
A federal judge agreed and ordered a stay, preventing that section of
the NDAA from being enforced. The Obama administration appealed, and
the case is still before the U.S. Court of Appeals. In the meantime,
the court-imposed stay was overturned. With the renewal of the NDAA
for 2013, with the indefinite detention provisions intact, Hedges
told me, "The appellate court is all that separates us and a state
that is no different than any other military dictatorship."
Couched in the same 2013 NDAA is a section prohibiting the Obama
administration from spending any of the bill's $633 billion in
construction or alteration of any facility for the transfer of
prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. This effectively ties President
Obama's hands, despite his 2009 executive order to close the prison
complex, and his more recent reiteration of the goal. Of 166
prisoners still held there, 86 have been cleared for release, but
remain imprisoned nevertheless. The legal group Human Rights First
has just issued a blueprint, detailing how President Obama could
close Guantanamo, despite congressional roadblocks.
The president's second term will publicly begin on Jan. 21, the
hard-fought-for holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s
birthday. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward
justice," King said. If President Obama aspires to do more than
perpetuate an unjust status quo, he must start now.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
© 2012 Amy Goodman
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