Occupy protesters shut down Oakland port; Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) says White House demanded removal of protections for Americans in new Defense appropriations bill.
After a brief Occupy update, PBC refers to an op-ed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) opposing the language cited below that puts Americans at risk of unconstitutional detention.
Ralph Lopez of OpEd News deserves credit for smoking out the truth about section 1031 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, passed by the Senate on 12/1/11 by a vote of 93-7. Section 1031 permits a US citizen in the “homeland” to be held without charge or trial, indefinitely. His article includes the video of Sen. Levin repeatedly stating that exclusions to protect citizen residents were in the bill when it passed his committee, but were removed at the request of the White House.
We also talk about the NYT story 12/11/11 on terrorism convicts in American prisons and the special units in Indiana and Illinois. The same defense bill would require that future noncitizen terror suspects be held and tried by the military, essentially requiring Gunatanamo to stay open indefinitely.
Also covered:
–Ambassador Crocker says US troops should stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014
–Taliban denies participating in peace talks
–Russian protesters actually covered on Russian TV
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