The Obama administration has won the latest battle in their fight to indefinitely detain US citizens and foreigners suspected of being affiliated with terrorists under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.
Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA, but Mr. Obama said in an accompanying signing statement that he will not abuse these privileges to keep American citizens imprisoned indefinitely. These assurances, however, were not enough to keep a group of journalists and human rights activists from filing a federal lawsuit last year, which contested the constitutionality of Section 1021, the particular provision that provides for such broad power.
A federal judge sided with the plaintiffs originally by granting an injunction against Section 1021, prompting the Obama administration to request an appeal last year. On Wednesday this week, an appeals court in New York ruled in favor of the government and once again allowed the White House to legally indefinitely detain persons that fit in the category of enemy combatants or merely provide them with support.
Now with this week’s appellate decision, plaintiffs intend on taking their case to the Supreme Court. Should the high court agree to hear their argument, the top justices in the US may finally weigh in on the controversial counterterrorism law.
The so-called “indefinite detention” provision of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act has been at the center of debate since before President Barack Obama autographed the bill in December 2011, but a federal lawsuit filed by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Chris Hedges and others only two weeks after it went into effect remains as relevant as ever in light of a decision delivered Wednesday by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
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