On December 31st, Barack Obama signed the H.R. 1540, ”National Defense Authorization Act” for Fiscal Year 2012 into law.  His signing of the bill is causing a great deal of controversy here and abroad because it includes provisions (Section 1031) that empower the President to authorize the arrest and indefinite detention of American citizens charged with terrorism.  Civil liberty groups are outraged that the bill includes such powers — to a degree, it means that an American citizen can be accused of terrorism and without benefit of a true trial or the presentation of hard evidence, can be sent to a detention center and held indefinitely.  This of course conflicts with the very tenetns of our nation’s founding and could easily lead to a massive abuse of power.

Adding to the controversy is the charge that the President is now back-peddling by claming he did not want to sign The National Defense Authorization Act because of Section 1031.  However, there is factual evidence that it was the President himself who  insisted American citizens be included in this section, as they previously had not been subject to arrest and detention without benefit of evidence or trial.

In an effort to combat the growing back-lash, the White House issued the following:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

December 31, 2011

Statement by the President on H.R. 1540

Today I have signed into law H.R. 1540, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.” I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed. In hundreds of separate sections totaling over 500 pages, the Act also contains critical Administration initiatives to control the spiraling health care costs of the Department of Defense (DoD), to develop counterterrorism initiatives abroad, to build the security capacity of key partners, to modernize the force, and to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of military operations worldwide.

The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Over the last several years, my Administration has developed an effective, sustainable framework for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected terrorists that allows us to maximize both our ability to collect intelligence and to incapacitate dangerous individuals in rapidly developing situations, and the results we have achieved are undeniable. Our success against al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents has derived in significant measure from providing our counterterrorism professionals with the clarity and flexibility they need to adapt to changing circumstances and to utilize whichever authorities best protect the American people, and our accomplishments have respected the values that make our country an example for the world. [Read full press release...]

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), is now speaking out and providing further evidence that the original bill did not include American citizens and that their inclusion was only added at the insistance of the Obama administration:

“The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved…and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.

It was the administration that asked us to remove the very language which we had in the bill which passed the committee…we removed it at the request of the administration. It was the administration which asked us to remove the very language the absence of which is now objected to,” said Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.