Indefinite Detention Legalese?

[ThePiousPriest]

As of the Public Print of the bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...9yDv%3Ae578148

This is what confuses me: Section 1031 Subsection 3: "Authorities- Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities, relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States."

Section 1032 Subsection B line 1. "UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States."

Yet we have: Sectoin 1031 subsection b line 2: "A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces." What exactly does that mean?

Also here: Section 1032: subsection a line 2 part b: "to have participated in the course of planning or carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the United States or its coalition partners."

In conjunction with food stores and guns placing someone on a terror watch list, does this leave the door open or does it mean the controversial language of the Senate bill was removed? If that was the case, perhaps we have a small victory in the battle for our liberties?

[jmdrake]

Interesting. I had heard that Rand had stripped the power to detain U.S. citizens from the bill, but then I heard that this wasn't stripped out. Looking at the bill it appears you're right.

(Permalink http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-1...2hr1540eas.pdf)

This does dodge a bullet...unless or until the Liberman bill to strip suspected terrorists of their citizenship gets passed.

http://lieberman.senate.gov/assets/pdf/TEA_summary.pdf