Back in December, Nobel Laureate Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. The bill contained two controversial provisions which, according to the ACLU, let’s the government seize and hold Americans without charge, trial, or due process.
“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”
Today, the Virginia legislature took steps to curb this unjustifiable power grab. Via the good folks at the Tenth Amendment Center:
On Wednesday, the Virginia legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that forbids state agencies from cooperating with any federal attempt to exercise the indefinite detention without due process provisions written into sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act.
HB1160 “Prevents any agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of Virginia from assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the conduct of the investigation, prosecution, or detention of a United States citizen in violation of the United States Constitution, Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation.”
The legislature previously passed HB1160 and forwarded it to Gov. Bob McDonnell for his signature. Last week, the governor agreed to sign the bill with a minor amendment. On Wednesday, the House of Delegates passed the amended version of the legislation 89-7. Just hours later, the Senate concurred by a 36-1 vote.
The law goes in to effect on July 1, 2012. Good for Virginia. Several other states have passed similar legislation or resolutions. It’s a nice symbolic defense of liberty, but in practice it shouldn’t significantly affect the nature of police work in the Commonwealth. Afterall, the indefinite detention aspect only comes into play after one has been apprehended. By that time, Virginia agents would be removed from the process.
The phrase “in violation of the United States Constitution, Constitution of Virginia” is more interesting; it would seem to provide a cause of action in Virginia state courts for Federal claims. This could be a back-door for bringing cases to trial if Federal justices are reluctant. In the wake of the original round of Guantanamo Bay detainees, a similar venue-shopping tactic was used by the Bush Administration, placing oversight of those cases with the conservative Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond.
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