Feds Using NDAA To Silence Journalists Critical Of Government

Alexander Higgins
March 31, 2012

The NDAA is being challenged in a lawsuit by journalists accused of supporting terrorism for reporting facts that challenge the official US government narrative.

A coalition of prominent journalist known for being critical of the United States in the War on Terror have joined forces to file a lawsuit against Barack Obama and Leon Panetta to challenge the National Defense Authorization act.

The NDAA, also known as the Homeland Battlefield Bill, has legalized a wide variety of totalitarian measures against US citizens by declaring the entire world, including the United States, a battleground in the war against terrorism and is a clear and present danger to the US Constitution.

As I reported before the bill was passed into law:

The United States Congress is set to vote on legislation that authorizes the official start of World War 3.

The legislation authorizes the President of the United States to take unilateral military action against all nations, organizations, and persons, both domestically and abroad, who are alleged to be currently or who have in the past supported or engaged in hostilities or who have provided aid in support of hostilities against the United States or any of its coalition allies.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The legislation removes the requirement of congressional approval for the use of military force and instead gives the President totalitarian dictatorial authority to engage in any and all military actions for an indefinite period of time.

It even gives the President the authority to launch attacks against American Citizens inside the United States with no congressional oversight whatsoever.

Just to recap:

• Endless War – The war will continue until all hostilities are terminated, which will never happen.
• No Borders – The president will have the full authority to launch military strikes against any country, organization or person, including against U.S citizens on U.S soil.
• Unilateral Military Action – Full authority to invade any nation at any time with no congressional approval required.
• No Clearly Defined Enemy – The US can declare or allege anyone a terrorist or allege they are or have been supporting “hostilities” against the US and attack at will.
• Authorization To Invade Several Countries – The president would have full authority to invade Iran, Syria, North Korea, along with several other nations in Africa and the Middle East and even Russia and China under the legislation all of which are “known” to have supported and aided hostilities against the United States.[...] Read More…

In accordance with the NDAA, we have seen the US government argue that it can now impose military detention on US citizens.

That means US citizens can be arrested and thrown in jail indefinitely without a right to a trial or even a lawyer.

The US government has also asserted they can ship US citizens they detain to secret overseas prisons where they can be tortured.

The government has even asserted NDAA they are now allowed to preemptively assassinate US citizens they decide t add to a top-secret kill list with no judicial oversight.

The NDAA authorizes the government to do these things based merely on accusations with no need to provide evidence or even proof of their allegations.

Americans were tricked into supporting the NDAA by being assured the legislation would only be used to fight enemy combatants engaged in terrorism.

The government has quickly used vague language in the bill to broaden definition of terrorism and what constitutes supporting terrorism.

In two cases KNOWN cases against US citizens we have seen the enemy combatant label being charged for simply uploading videos to YouTube.

Another US citizen has been charged as an enemy combatant for providing a link to classified information.

That classified information was publicly available on the whistle blowing website WikiLeaks.

Speaking of WikiLeaks, they are now also accused of supporting Al Qaeda because they leaked evidence of US war crimes overseas.

Even Bradley Manning, who the US alleges gave WikiLeaks the classified files, now also qualifies under the broadened definition of supporting Al Qaeda.

Some law enforcement officials in the US and in the UK are operating under the opinion that the Occupy Wall Street movement is a terrorist organization.

Remember, in each of these cases all that is needed to invoke the NDAA to infinitely detain, torture, or even assassinate any of these US citizens is an assassination.

There is no judge and no jury it’s just straight to execution.

Now journalists critical of US government policies are being accused of providing support for terrorism.

Prominent journalist Chris Hedges learned about being placed on the US terror watch list after he was interrogated by Federal government officials apparently because his reporting of facts that oppose the official scripted narrative that is echoed by the corporate media reports is somehow being interpreted as supporting terrorism.

Can you see where this is heading?

Those who question, dissent or expose the government are being treated as providing support for terrorism even when they have no connections to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organizations.

Furthermore, journalists are being silenced in fear that by reaching by even reporting on certain stories or contacting certain organizations they will become a target of the NDAA.

Chris Hedges how now filed a lawsuit against the government challenging the NDAA.

He is also being joined by a coalition of prominent journalists who have signed on to the lawsuits and issued affidavits in support of his claims.

Included on the lawsuit are Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky among others.

Naomi Wolf has also signed an affidavit in support of the lawsuit detailing how the NDAA is being used to prevent her from reporting on stories critical of the government because such stories can easily be considered as supporting terrorism.

Read Alexander Higgins full article here

 

This article was posted: Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 3:28 pm

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