President Obama Waives Indefinite Military Detentions
by David Atkins
The Washington Post reports:
President Obama issued an order Tuesday night laying out broad new waivers that allow U.S. law enforcement agencies to retain custody of al-Qaeda terrorism suspects rather than turn them over to the military.
The new waivers are Obama’s response to a law passed by Congress last year that requires that alleged al-Qaeda terrorists who are not U.S. citizens be held in military custody rather than being processed through the civilian court system. Key GOP senators said Tuesday night that the president’s measures raised “significant concerns,” and they vowed to hold a hearing to scrutinize them.
U.S. law enforcement officials had feared that the law on sending alleged al-Qaeda members to military custody would inhibit their ability to get suspects to cooperate. The White House threatened to veto the measure, part of the 2012 Defense Authorization Act.
In December, a compromise was reached between Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), requiring military custody for non-U.S. citizens who are suspected members of al-Qaeda or its affiliates and who have planned or carried out an attack against the United States or its coalition partners — unless the president waives that provision.
On Tuesday night, Obama issued the rules for the waivers, which are so broad that the transfer of any suspect into military custody is now likely to be rare.
“This is essentially a 3,450-word line-item veto, rendering the mandatory military detention provision mostly moot,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch.
The NDAA is still an awful law, and delivers far, far too much power into the hands of the Executive Branch and the Pentagon. The Administration is attempting to thread a needle on this stuff, which is a good thing. The President's attempt to nullify the worst parts of NDAA through this action and through his signing statement are good, but they only reflect well on him, not on the law the itself. The next Administration may not be so enlightened.
On the other hand, it would be nice if we had a Congress worth its salt exercise its own authority. The President took political risk in trying to bring Guantanamo detainees to trial in the United States, and the Congress overwhelmingly blocked the detainees from being transferred to U.S. soil. Had the President vetoed the entire NDAA, it's probable that the Congress would have overruled his veto with a 2/3 vote, something all Presidents try desperately to avoid.
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