Obama May Seek Authority Outlined by Mukasey

[Senator]

http://washingtonindependent.com/51980/obama-may-seek-authority-outlined-by-mukasey">Reports Signal White House Interest in Expanded Detention Powers

It’s been exactly one year since then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey proposed in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute that Congress pass legislation declaring a new, expanded war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban — thereby granting the president the authority to detain indefinitely members of those groups anywhere in the world where they’re found.

That proposal from a lame-duck Attorney General never got very far with the Democratic-controlled Congress. But a year later, the country is still debating that exact same detention authority. And news reports suggest that President Obama may seek precisely the same sort of authority that Mukasey was talking about.

...

“It’s hard to see how they would end up writing anything much different from what Mukasey proposed a year ago,” said Chris Anders, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington. “And that was dead on arrival.” Although the issue was raised at congressional hearings, proposed legislation never received enough support even to get to the floor for a vote.

Last summer, Anders described the idea on the ACLU’s blog as “a multi-part plan to violate the Constitution” that would “give a president worldwide power to declare anyone a terrorist and hold the person forever – without ever charging anyone with a crime.”

...

In an e-mail, Ken Gude, associate director of the International Rights and Responsibility Program at the Center for American Progress, cautioned that new legislation could lead to far broader authority for indefinite detention than even Obama envisions. “For me, the answer to this question decides the whole ball game — if they go to Congress, what will inevitably emerge is a broad preventive detention system regardless of what the Obama administration wants. If they rely on AUMF authority, then it can be much more narrow.”

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[ixion]

1. no. just no.

This is BS, just like it was BS when the * admin proposed it.

End the so-called 'wars' of abstraction and restore our republic...now.

[Senator]

4. well, it's still maybe

But it not being rejected out of hand is bad enough.

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[Ian David]

2. Who is "The Washington Independent" ?

Okay, they may not be mainstream, but it looks like they're at least on our side:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Independent_Media

I'd say well-intentioned, but not a "paper of record."

[Senator]

3. Your point is?

This is not an opinion article. It's a fairly plain description of unchallenged reality.

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[chill_wind]

6. Their reporters have been interviewed on MSNBC

I've seen both Daphne Eviatar and David Weigel on Rachel Maddow, for example. Rachel just had Weigel on last night talking about his Birthers stories.

http://washingtonindependent.com/

Excellent team. Watch them grow.
http://washingtonindependent.com/our-team

[crickets]

5. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. -nt

x(

[pat_k]

7. k&r