Earlier this month, Senate approved the Gestapo-like legislation that legalizes arrest, indefinite detention, torture and interrogation of Americans without any charge or trial. In addition, the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 reapproves water boarding and other torture techniques (legally called "advanced interrogation techniques") that are currently forbidden. Under this bill, US military can hold Americans for terrorism-related charges and detain them without trial ant torture indefinitely.
Supporters of this Gestapo-like act say that it is necessary to sacrifice freedom for security. So... Is the United States of America now
Land of the Secure and not the
Land of the Free? Furthermore, a list of approved interrogation techniques that can be used on American suspects will be top secret! Is it because the authorities want to keep the terrorists from learning some nice torture techniques or is it because American public might be appalled if they learned that Nazi Gestapo was not so inventive in torturing anti-Nazi suspects?
President Barack Obama has pledged that he would veto the legislation as it stands. Unfortunately, since Republican Congressman Ron Paul said that this legislation would allow for "
literally legalizing martial law," suddenly White House thinks that it is a great law. Obama revoked his warning and plans to authorize the bill that allows indefinite detention and torture of Americans. Taking this partisan biased approach to such law is something that should make every American citizen afraid of the future.
Have Americans forgotten the eternal words of Dwight D. Eisenhower:
"
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom."
All this reminds me too much of Nazi Reichstag passing the "Gestapo Law" that allowed that "Neither the instructions nor the affairs of the Gestapo will be open to review by the administrative courts." With the secret amendments, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 looks to offer identical authorization and secrecy for dealing with Americans "
suspected of terrorist activity." Just as the "Gestapo Law" made possible for someone to be arrested, interrogated and sent to a concentration camp without any legal procedure, so does this act allows for Americans to disappear from the face of the earth and be tortured in secret indefinitely.
All that is necessary now is to have a president pass a "
Night and Fog Decree" and all the "Occupy" protest leaders could start disappearing because, after all, they are fighting against the US Government and therefore could be potential terrorists.
The Time named those faceless protesters as the Person of the Year 2011.
Is the Person of the year going to end up arrested in the middle of the night, and whisked off to far away prisons for torture-interrogation?
America, wake up wherever you are...