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Veteran journalist, foreign correspondent and best-selling author, Chris Hedges, has filed a federal suit against the Obama Administration for provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that allows indefinite detention of American citizens. The Obama Administration had initially opposed the bill which is also referred to as the Homeland Battlefield Bill, but reversed its position when Congress passed it. President Obama, who was trained as a Constitutional Lawyer, signed the bill into law on New Year\u2019s Eve, saying \u201cI have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.\u201d Obama also said, \u201cI want to clarify that my administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.\u201d However, even if the President keeps his promise, the new law empowers all Presidents, current, and future, to imprison Americans on suspicion of terrorism, detain them indefinitely, deny them habeas corpus, and even transport them to off-site facilities. The NDAA was opposed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, whom Chris Hedges is also suing, and a number of other military and intelligence officials. Hedges, who in his long career as a foreign correspondent has met and associated with many foreign organizations, writes this week, \u201cI have had dinner more times than I can count with people whom this country brands as terrorists. But that does not make me one.\u201d The lawsuit is based on the fact that being a journalist requires Hedges to undertake activities that could, according to the NDAA\u2019s vague language, possibly classify him as a person facing such indefinite detention. It is also based on violations of the first and fifth amendments, according to Hedges. In fact, the NDAA, which takes effect on March 3rd, is disturbingly reminiscent of the 1950 Internal Security Act, passed by Congress over Harry Truman\u2019s veto, which enshrined McCarthyism. Writing for Truthdig, Chris Hedges suspects that \u201cthe real purpose of this bill is to thwart internal, domestic movements that threaten the corporate state\u2026.it passed because the corporations, seeing the unrest in the streets, knowing that things are about to get much worse, worrying that the Occupy movement will expand, do not trust the police to protect them. They want to be able to call in the Army. And now they can.\u201d<\/p>\n
GUEST: Chris Hedges, Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute and a columnist for Truthdig.com, veteran foreign correspondent and author of several books. His latest book is called The World As it Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress<\/em><\/p>\nRead Chris Hedges’ article here: http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/report\/item\/why_im_suing_barack_obama_20120116\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran journalist, foreign correspondent and best-selling author, Chris Hedges, has filed a federal suit against the Obama Administration for provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that allows indefinite detention of American citizens. The Obama Administration had initially opposed the bill which is also referred to as the Homeland Battlefield Bill, but reversed its position […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}