The Senate is pushing forward legislation to allow the US military to detain US citizens indefinitely as enemy combatants. But the Department of Defense does not want that power. Neither does the CIA. Nor the Department of Justice. Strange.
Spencer Ackerman reports:
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opposes the maneuver. So does CIA Director David Petraeus, who usually commands deference from senators in both parties. Pretty much every security official has lined up against the Senate detention provisions, from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to FBI Director Robert Mueller, who worry that they’ll get in the way of FBI investigations of domestic terrorists. President Obama has promised to veto the bill.
When the security state declines to accept rights-infringing powers offered by the people's Senate, the centuries-old understanding of an adversarial relationship between the power hungry state and the defiant governed is turned on its head.
I am reminded of Frederick Doglass's quote -- one that often inspired me:
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both."
I wonder if old Frederick is smiling in his grave right now.
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