{"id":373,"date":"2011-12-22T16:48:25","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T16:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/?p=373"},"modified":"2011-12-22T16:48:25","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T16:48:25","slug":"oh-hey-palm-need-you-on-the-face-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/?p=373","title":{"rendered":"Oh Hey Palm, Need You On The Face Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

I sent a note to my senator about the NDAA<\/a>\u00a0a week or so back and got a form reply. This is my response:<\/p>\n

\n

Dear Ms. Boxer:<\/p>\n

You recently sent a reply to my written concern about the NDAA that included the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cI also voted for an amendment offered by Senator Feinstein that would have clarified that mandatory military detention would apply only to terrorist suspects captured outside the United States. \u00a0This amendment also failed by a vote of 45-55.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI strongly oppose any expansion of military detention authority that erodes our civil liberties. \u00a0However, I voted for the National Defense Authorization Act because it includes a number of provisions for our troops and their families, including a pay raise requested by President Obama and important health care benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m deeply concerned that you don\u2019t seem to see the distinction between due process as applies to US citizens and due process for any detainee, for any reason, nor do you indicate a concern for human rights violations beyond our borders. It\u2019s also incredibly upsetting that despite there being a deep flaw in the NDAA which, as you put it, erodes our civil liberties, you voted for it to provide quality of life improvements for troops.<\/p>\n

While I agree that proper compensation and benefits for soldiers is important, I\u2019m disappointed that you seem to place civil liberties of the world\u2019s populace and even the greater citizenry of Americans above a pay hike and health benefits for (voluntary) military personnel.<\/p>\n

If your approach to this kind of legislation is to pass it to get what you want and then work to undo the \u201cbad parts\u201d later, your representation of me is completely backwards. To be clear: Vote down the unconstitutional stuff, re-introduce clean legislation to pass through the beneficial measures. This is what I elected you to do. If you won\u2019t operate with prudence for my best interest, I\u2019m happy to elect someone else who will.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Granted, I wish I had edited a bit more because the clause, \u201c\u2026you don\u2019t seem to see the distinction between due process as applies to US citizens and due process for any detainee, for any reason\u2026\u201d doesn\u2019t come out how I intended it to. What I meant is that I\u2019m not sure there ought to be<\/em> a distinction, but my point gets muddled. C\u2019est la vie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I was a little confused by Boxer\u2019s citation of the Feinstein amendment compared with the Wikipedia article (99-1 success in Wikipedia vs. 45-55 in Boxer\u2019s reply) but this article (the Wikipedia source)<\/a> clears it up: The 99-1 success was a wishy-washy amendment designed to say, \u201cWe don\u2019t mean to override current US law.\u201d To me that sounds a little like making a rule that says it\u2019s cool to punch people in the face whenever, but qualifying it with, \u201cthough standard manners still apply.\u201d The defeated amendment tried to clarify the \u201cmandatory detention\u201d bit for terrorist suspects captured outside US borders.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not the most politically-inclined person in the world, and I fear I misunderstand a lot of what\u2019s going on as a non-politico, but I\u2019ve read enough to see that congress is floundering and people are looking for excuses to showcase what a miserable job they\u2019re doing. And with stuff like this, it\u2019s not hard to see where the problem lies.<\/p>\n

For reference, the full text of Barbara Boxer\u2019s original reply is here:<\/p>\n

\n

Thank you for writing to me about provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) concerning the military detention of enemy combatants.\u00a0 I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.<\/p>\n

I was deeply disappointed that the final version of the NDAA did not include important language authored by Senators Mark Udall (D-CO) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)\u00a0 regarding detainees that would have protected civil liberties while helping to keep us safe.\u00a0 During floor consideration of the NDAA, I voted for an amendment offered by Senator Udall that would have replaced the detainee provisions in the bill with a requirement for the Administration to report to Congress on detention authorities.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this amendment failed by a vote of 38-60.<\/p>\n

I also voted for an amendment offered by Senator Feinstein that would have clarified that mandatory military detention would apply only to terrorist suspects captured outside the United States.\u00a0 This amendment also failed by a vote of 45-55.<\/p>\n

I have now agreed to be a co-sponsor of S.2003, the Due Process Guarantee Act.\u00a0 This important bipartisan legislation would protect American citizens arrested within the United States from being held indefinitely by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

I strongly oppose any expansion of military detention authority that erodes our civil liberties.\u00a0 However, I voted for the National Defense Authorization Act because it includes a number of provisions for our troops and their families, including a pay raise requested by President Obama and important health care benefits.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

#<\/p>\n

from Like a Detuned Radio<\/a> \u2014 December 22, 2011 at 08:40AM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sent a note to my senator about the NDAA\u00a0a week or so back and got a form reply. This is my response: Dear Ms. Boxer: You recently sent a reply to my written concern about the NDAA that included the following: \u201cI also voted for an amendment offered by Senator Feinstein that would have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}