Enemey Expat Act 2012 - "Government To Strip Citizenship Without Conviction"

[marl]

New Bill Known As Enemy Expatriation Act Would Allow Government To Strip Citizenship Without Conviction

http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/images-11.jpeg

First, Congress considered the National Defense Authorization Act, sections of which gave the President the authority to use the military to arrest and indefinitely detain Americans without trial or charge. The language was revised because of strong condemnation from the American people. But now a new bill has emerged that poses yet another threat to the American citizenry.
Congress is considering HR 3166 and S. 1698 also known as the Enemy Expatriation Act, sponsored by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA). This bill would give the US government the power to strip Americans of their citizenship without being convicted of being “hostile” against the United States. In other words, you can be stripped of your nationality for “engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States.” Legally, the term “hostilities” means any conflict subject to the laws of war but considering the fact that the War on Terror is a little ambiguous and encompassing, any action could be labeled as supporting terrorism. Since the Occupy movement began, conservatives have been trying to paint the protesters as terrorists.



The new law would change a part of US Code 1481 which can be read in full here (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1481.html). Compare 3166 to 1481 and the change is small. The new section makes no reference to being convicted as it does in section (7). So even though the language of the NDAA has been revised to exclude American citizens, the US government merely has to strip Americans of their citizenship and the NDAA will apply. And they will be able to do so without convicting the accused in a court of law.
I hope I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like this is a loophole for indefinitely detaining Americans. Once again, you just have to be accused of supporting hostilities which could be defined any way the government sees fit. Then the government can strip your citizenship and apply the indefinite detention section of the NDAA without the benefit of a trial. This certainly must be questioned by American citizens. The way these defense obsessed Republicans think, our rights are always in danger of being taken away.Sauce: AddictingInfo.org (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/06/new-bill-known-as-enemy-expatriation-act-would-allow-government-to-strip-citizenship-without-conviction/)


Read the bill yourself! (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-3166)

If a better source comes along, I'll post it. But you may read it, it's really short and straight to the point. Scary.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Why is Lieberman always involved in supporting some of the most fucked up shit related to "national defense"? :rolleyes:

[piet11111]

They tried to do this with Anwar al-Awlaki but couldn't so instead they assassinated him anyway creating a precedent for killing american citizens by presidential order.

I guess this will make things a bit more digestible for the media if those people are not citizens anymore before they are killed by a drone strike.

[MarxSchmarx]

This is going to slammed shut by the courts. Amendment V of the American constitution guarantees due process for things like this; without a conviction and judicial review, no sane judge would uphold this law. As piet11111 correctly notes, extra-legal manuevering and fiat accomplis are far more dangerous threats than anything codified which won't see the light of day.

[piet11111]

Due process has been effectively abolished by the NDAA so don't count on the courts to overturn this out of any attachment to the constitution.

Especially when you read stuff like
This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent. - Antonin Scalia

[MarxSchmarx]

Due process has been effectively abolished by the NDAA so don't count on the courts to overturn this out of any attachment to the constitution.



No judge would agree that the NDAA is sufficient to overturn a constitutional amendment. That is absurd.

The basic problem is that the supreme court has considerable precedent making it extremely difficult for involuntary and even voluntary loss of citizenship, especially for people born into American citizenship (so-called natural-born):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroyim_v._Rusk

The details differ, to some degree, for naturalized (i.e., people who voluntarily became) citizens:

http://www.justice.gov/olc/ina340.htm

although even then the issue really is biased very heavily against the government seeking revocation.

The only possible case where this might pass constitutional muster as any court interprets it is if somebody acquired American citizenship via birth to an American parent in a foreign country especially with juis solis, for example, if they were born in say Brazil but had an American mother. In this case the child will have American citizenship, but unless the parent was a diplomat it would be open to interpretation whether the child is a natural born citizen. Even here, the courts have generally tended to grant the same rights to those who "inherited" American citizenship rather than being born on AMerican soil or naturalizing. The case of George Romney (father of Mitt), who was born in Mexico to American parents (thereby being a dual citizen, and, somewhat surprisingly, making their American-born grandson also a Mexican citizen), has pretty much resolved this question from a constitutional perspective that the children of an "American parent" is entitled to the same rights as somebody born in the united states territory.

[piet11111]

The times have changed the powers that be are getting rid of everything in the legal code that hinders them.

Habeas corpus has been part of the consitution since the beginning and they effectively threw that out.

[MarxSchmarx]

Habeas corpus has been part of the consitution since the beginning and they effectively threw that out.

The constitution states that Habeas corpus can be abrogated during
cases of rebellion or invasion. It was suspended during the American civil war clearly during a time of open rebellion.

The NDAA moreover specifically states:


Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.The president and congress have both expressed repeatedly that habeas be upheld, particularly for american citizens. If NDAA contradicts these directives, then it is contradicting itself and therefore is unenforceable.

Moreover, this piece of NDAA has not undergone court review, and there is no realistic reason to believe that it will survive if the government ever brings it to trial.

[Red Commissar]

The bill doesn't seem to have gotten progress since it was introduced this past fall. I think it's doubtful we'll see it come up again, though the damage NDAA can potentially cause is still up for grabs.

You can get the summaries and progress of both the house (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3166) and senate (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s112-1698) versions of this bill, which show they were both referred to committee after their introduction in October and have essentially died there, like many bills do. I'm not sure why this site is picking up on this just now.

Admittedly though, it's a reflection of the times when these things get thought of in the first place. Not surprising to see Lieberman putting his name on it either.

[X5N]

I read that as "government to strip citizens without conviction." :blushing:

Joe Lieberman is by far one of the closest Congress has to a National Socialist. I can't wait for that fucker to finally leave.

[RadioRaheem84]

The constitution states that Habeas corpus can be abrogated during . It was suspended during the American civil war clearly during a time of open rebellion.

The NDAA moreover specifically states:

The president and congress have both expressed repeatedly that habeas be upheld, particularly for american citizens. If NDAA contradicts these directives, then it is contradicting itself and therefore is unenforceable.

Moreover, this piece of NDAA has not undergone court review, and there is no realistic reason to believe that it will survive if the government ever brings it to trial.

How can you be so sure of this considering it's already being done to non-citizens? Is there really a sacred line that cannot be crossed when it comes to citizens?

I was talking to a guy who worked for BAE Systems in Sealy, TX and he told me that they stopped sending stuff to Iraq and started making stuff for domestic security use.

I don't mean to sound like an Alex Jones freak but it does sound like the war may be coming home.

[Rafiq]

O noz govt can now arrest american CITIZENS!!!!11 *fap fap* alex jones *fap fap* NWO.

Seriously are any of you naive enough to think the U.S. State never this shit anyway throughout it's whole existence? As if some old asswipe paper constitution will stop them.... The moral standards users here have for the American Bourgeoisie are appalling.

[Sendo]

So you could arrested for anything at all and the second you ask for something like a lawyer or whatnot, the police could call up the White House or military or whatever and strip your citizenship away and do whatever they want.

The USA has never really been a force for good in the world and never had some golden era. It may have been hypocritical. It may have practiced democracy for the few. But it has had a foundation based on rule of law. More than any other western state, the USA had codes and laws and constitutions. More than centuries worth of precedent and conflicting laws as in the UK. More procedure and due process than in any Asian bourgeois republic.

The USA is becoming rule by executive decree. A dictatorship in every meaning of the world.

They wouldn't be laying a framework for assassinating citizens, removing habeas corpus, and citizenship as a privilege if they weren't planning on stepping up their game. I just hope and pray for the American war machine to get its ass kicked or run out money or whatever. It's like nowhere is safe and no person is safe, expats and residents and citizens and foreigners alike. I remember in the mid-Bush years there were cries of "fascism!" this and "fascism!" that. I was always embarrassed as a leftist and felt that people were demeaning the word. I really think quite the opposite. That the US's path to fascism has been underestimated. The last vestiges of American democracy will die with a mere whimper. Think V for Vendetta the comic (NOT the movie). We'll just realize one day that there are no rights in America left.

[Sendo]

O noz govt can now arrest american CITIZENS!!!!11 *fap fap* alex jones *fap fap* NWO.

Seriously are any of you naive enough to think the U.S. State never this shit anyway throughout it's whole existence? As if some old asswipe paper constitution will stop them.... The moral standards users here have for the American Bourgeoisie are appalling.

Does any period in US history (post-colonial era) match the past 11 years (2001-2012)? From Bush to Obama, from Afghanistan to NDAA/SOPA/this mess, from the meteoric rise in police brutality accompanying record low crime rates, from 2001 to 2012. The declaration that corporate money = free speech. Has any other 11-year period in American history come close to this? Did the madness of internment camps last this long? The only parallel I know is the period of slavery and then you have the genocide of nearly the whole of the Native peoples (but even then, US citizens and residents were afforded certain rights). I can think of the economic disasters and class warfare of the 19th century. But nothing compares to the breadth of what is going on now.

[agnixie]

Does any period in US history (post-colonial era) match the past 11 years (2001-2012)? From Bush to Obama, from Afghanistan to NDAA/SOPA/this mess, from the meteoric rise in police brutality accompanying record low crime rates, from 2001 to 2012. The declaration that corporate money = free speech. Has any other 11-year period in American history come close to this? Did the madness of internment camps last this long? The only parallel I know is the period of slavery and then you have the genocide of nearly the whole of the Native peoples (but even then, US citizens and residents were afforded certain rights). I can think of the economic disasters and class warfare of the 19th century. But nothing compares to the breadth of what is going on now.

Yes, easily.

For one, there are the Miners' Wars or the Redneck wars in the 20s, which culminated in the Army Air corps bombing striking miners in West Virginia. I'm sure more could be found for other periods before.

[Os Cangaceiros]

O noz govt can now arrest american CITIZENS!!!!11 *fap fap* alex jones *fap fap* NWO.

Seriously are any of you naive enough to think the U.S. State never this shit anyway throughout it's whole existence? As if some old asswipe paper constitution will stop them.... The moral standards users here have for the American Bourgeoisie are appalling.

Indefinite detention with no trial is kind of a new thing, they didn't even do that shit in ww2 (an actual war), with the Nazi saboteurs who were captured on the east coast of the USA in 1942 ("operation pastorius"). Oh, and of course the disgraceful internment of mostly Japanese civilians in the USA, although there was a pretty definitive end of that detention: when Japan surrendered. There's going to be no end to this war, no nation to surrender, no capital city to seize and make everything better.

[Ostrinski]

I wonder if revolutionary defeatism could be applied here? If the American war machine takes a beating, it could level the economy, initiating a crisis wherein class consciousness could develop as the proletariat becomes aware of their primary material interests and needs.

[Sendo]

As much as the jingoistic Manifest Destiny shit in my passport, if I were to lose my citizenship it would be very bad. If I don't have permanent residency in some other country nor am I close to achieving second citizenship I become a stateless person. I would have to go to some country that provides asylum and learn a whole new language and not be in a good position to pay back the student loans that my parents are cosigned on.*

So yeah, I'd rather not have the USA do something arbitrary like look that I haven't paid taxes in years and check up whatever facebook posts I idiotically made (and get cached on Google no matter your privacy settings were) and just declare that people like me have citizenship revoked. It's as easy as making a no-fly list. They could just set computers to automate the process. All of a sudden, people with the same first and last name get hung up when they go to renew passports and whatever and for most of them, the officer will just reverse the red flag on the computer screen. I don't want to sound like a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, but what reason would the government have for allowing me to keep my citizenship? I loved the land and many of the people, but in their eyes I'm an ex-pat who hates the government and doesn't pay any taxes (or lobbying fees!).

I've got one thing to save me, I'm white and come from a Christian non-Muslim background and was born on US soil to American citizens. Shameful that this fact is what makes me the most immune to the brutalities of the government and its police, but it's a fact.

Imagine someone in my position who is a second generation Arab-American.

*(After Clinton's 1999 law, it is impossible to get rid of student loans unless you die or pay them back. There are very unfortunate individuals who end up, when all is said and done, paying $150,000 on a $40,000 loan.)

[MarxSchmarx]

Seriously are any of you naive enough to think the U.S. State never this shit anyway throughout it's whole existence? As if some old asswipe paper constitution will stop them.... The moral standards users here have for the American Bourgeoisie are appalling.

Well, for better or worse the "paper constitution" has helped deal with the American bourgeoisie at certain times - for example in legalizing abortion, preventing the execution of juveniles, recognizing private homosexual activity as a right, and desegregating public schools - all belatedly, but concrete victories nevertheless. Is it adequate? Of course not. But it gives us a bit more room to breath, and it's preferable to the alternative. In fact, if the American bourgeoisie could get away with all their oppression any way, why are they so eager to pack the courts and law schools with their allies? It's just one front of a multi-faceted struggle; to dismiss this recognition as "moral standards ... for the American bourgeoisie" is just a cheap-shot.

[Sendo]

Well, for better or worse the "paper constitution" has helped deal with the American bourgeoisie at certain times - for example in legalizing abortion, preventing the execution of juveniles, recognizing private homosexual activity as a right, and desegregating public schools - all belatedly, but concrete victories nevertheless. Is it adequate? Of course not. But it gives us a bit more room to breath, and it's preferable to the alternative. In fact, if the American bourgeoisie could get away with all their oppression any way, why are they so eager to pack the courts and law schools with their allies? It's just one front of a multi-faceted struggle; to dismiss this recognition as "moral standards ... for the American bourgeoisie" is just a cheap-shot.

That's exactly how I feel. While the constitution is only worshiped by the naive liberals and by paleo-conservatives, it is still better than nothing. Yes it's a document that codified slavery, but no mater how bad the document is, it does provide a check for bourgeois rule. It may legitimize many things, but since the Bill of Rights were passed it has been a battleground. To just roll one's eyes at legislation and say whatever, it changes nothing, is too easy. It's like saying abstentionism is appropriate in all elections. I don't agree with either position. Class-warfare comes best through direct action, but we shouldn't dismiss hard-won legal protections like desegregation and universal suffrage.

The extreme of worshiping the letter of the Constitution as if it were a Bible and the extreme of dismissing the role of courts are both wrong. I hate the Constitution as is and it was originally written to protect the opulent few with a guise of democracy as its author said. True, but I'll take liberal civil rights over nothing at all, and I won't ignore the fact that a law that circumvents what little remains of checks and balances is about to be passed.

[Hexen]

Actually most people seem to forget that the constitution (including the bill of rights, etc) was originally written and intended for the bourgeoisie and it was never meant for the productive classes.

I think everything would make sense if people would realize this if they read that small print on the devil's/tricksters contract deep enough.

[Sendo]

Actually most people seem to forget that the constitution (including the bill of rights, etc) was originally written and intended for the bourgeoisie and it was never meant for the productive classes.

I think everything would make sense if people would realize this if they read that small print on the devil's/tricksters contract deep enough.

I'm the first one to acknowledge that. However, in its current form the Constitution is a tool for liberty. The government has not cited the Constitution to enact new draconian laws or nonsense like the Patriot Act. These acts have flown in the face of the Constitution. If a lawyer can use the Constitution to strike down the death penalty or the Patriot Act or the NDAA, then more power to her/him!

Class struggle is important, but that doesn't mean we can't have side struggles going on simultaneously. Mumia Abu-Jamal was denied a fair trial in the ethical and Constitutional sense. Should we let him rot in jail until the socialist revolution? If we can use Constitutional lawyers to free him, why not?

But I suppose, in your view, that using the Constitution would corrupt us. Give me a break. I can have no illusions about the Constitution and hate its authors, but if at a certain moment in history we can use it for the gains of the working-class or human rights then we should use the Constitution at that moment in history. (One could argue that without a nation-wide employment program to get a job for everyone then a lot of provisions and rights laid out are unachievable)

Why is it always with the extremes with so many on the Left? Can I despise the monarchical farce that is going on in north Korea while praising Kim Il-sung and congratulating Kim Jong-il on deterring the Yanks from extending their continued invasion?

So why can't I complain about laws like this? Why must I be so naive as to not that the government has been committing horrible things without legislation or jurisdiction? Why must I be a Constitution loving tri-point hat wearing "patriot"?

If a police officer kills an innocent man, should we gather a lynch mob that will do its participants more harm than good? I would suggest getting the pig thrown in jail and sent to crack bricks until he's an old man, but we can't do that, since legislation banning violent murder was written by the bourgeoisie.