An attempt to secretly pass "Martial Law" bill!

     The tens of thousands of human rights defenders who recently prevented U.S. lawmakers from secretly including the provision granting all future presidents a blank check to engage in worldwide war without end in the Defense Authorization bill, are immediately needed to defeat legalizing martial law provisions in the bill; giving the U.S. military powers to investigate and detain civilians inside the United States and abroad plus indefinitely imprison without charge or trial. The dangerous bill is on its way to the Senate floor for vote but needs Senate Judiciary public hearings or it could be passed as it now is according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
     The secretly passed bill is S.1253 or The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA). After the Senate Armed Services Committee's passed the bill, Andrea Prasow, The Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program senior counsel for Human Rights Watch said that the military rule provision in the bill is what martial-law states, not democracies do.
     “If the US hopes to promote the rule of law in places like the Middle East, it needs to take a hard look at the policies it is promoting at home,” Human Rights Watch's counter-terrorism senior counsel Andrea Prasow recently stated. “Mandatory military detention for terrorism suspects, indefinite detention for years to come, even the possibility that US citizens could be held without trial at Guantanamo, sends the worst kind of message abroad.”
     Before the Senate votes on the bill, (NDAA) H.R. 1253, Senator Leahy and the Senate Judiciary Committee could hold immediate public hearings on these dangerous provisions if a groundswell of rights defenders demands it according to Laura W. Murphy Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office. Otherwise, the bill soon to be voted upon in the Senate, would:

     Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial civilians arrested within the United States itself, including some U.S. citizens; Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including suspects arrested within the United States itself; and transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.
   
     According to ACLU, a “full public examination of these dangerous measures” is needed before this bill reaches the Senate floor.
     “These provisions could significantly cut back on the historic protections provided to American citizens by the Non-Detention Act of 1971 and to all U.S. residents by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878,” Murphy stated Wednesday.
     The mandatory detention provision was drafted by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, the committee chairman, and Republicans John McCain of Arizona, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The committee recently released the official language of the bill that has the “worldwide war authority” provision deleted but the other martial law provisions remain.
     "We proved our ability to have a big impact when we successfully challenged efforts to authorize worldwide war without end,” said Murphy. “Now, we have to do the same on attempts to dramatically expand military involvement in investigating and detaining civilians, including on U.S. soil."
     The ACLU is seeking support to urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on these provisions, and to assert its jurisdiction to markup sections 1031, 1032, and 1036 before the NDAA bill gets to the Senate floor.