The Decider Strikes again . . .

[sonofdaxjones]

http://original.antiwar.com/jwhitehead/2013/01/07/the-magicians-con-renewing-fisa-ndaa-under-cover-of-fiscal-cliff-debates/

President Obama, no different from his predecessors, is particularly well versed in how to use the theater of politics to his advantage. Consider that amidst the cacophony of the fiscal cliff debates, the president signed into law two pieces of legislation, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (FISA) and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 (NDAA), which further erode our most basic constitutional rights by reauthorizing sweeping police powers to be used by the federal government.

FISA allows the federal government to spy on Americans who communicate with people overseas, whether they are journalists, family members, or business associates, while the NDAA reauthorizes the military’s ability to indefinitely detain American citizens, a provision which first reared its head in the 2012 NDAA.

While the invasive powers bestowed upon the federal government by FISA and the NDAA should be cause for alarm, they have become part of the unchallenged post-9/11 paradigm that disguises itself as representative government today. This matter-of-fact, all-in-a-day’s work erosion of our freedoms is no less appalling than the routine, relatively uncontested renewal of legislation, passed without debate or question year after year, which flies in the face of every fundamental principle of individual liberty on which this nation was founded. Such is the political playbook being used to chart the nation’s course these days.

President Obama’s decision to sign the NDAA, quietly and without much fanfare, while the fiscal cliff debate took front stage is a perfect example of political theater at its finest. The NDAA establishes a colossal $633 billion budget for the military at a time when the nation is drowning in debt, the deficit is skyrocketing, our military empire is overextended, and America is allegedly ratcheting down its presence in the Middle East.

Despite a late November threat to veto the NDAA 2013, Obama signed it into law while on vacation with his family in Hawaii. Similarly, the year before, despite his personal objection to the indefinite detention of American citizens and his insistence that his administration had “worked tirelessly” to amend offending provisions, and would “oppose any attempt to extend or expand them in the future,” Obama signed the NDAA 2012 into law on New Year’s Eve 2011.  Sadly, this year’s passage didn’t even merit that much protestation or concern over its indefinite detention provision from the Commander in Chief or his cohorts in Congress.

[kstatefreak42]

That is all made up. Fake. Crazy conspiracy theorists.

[steve dave]

piece by John W. Whitehead on this

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/national-defense-authorization-act_b_2424510.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[TheHamburglar]

piece by John W. Whitehead on this

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/national-defense-authorization-act_b_2424510.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

That's the same article Dax linked.

[steve dave]

piece by John W. Whitehead on this

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/national-defense-authorization-act_b_2424510.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

That's the same article Dax linked.

the correct response was LUKE DAVE!