Folo on questions of “What’s Next?”

  1). Some of the [expletives deleted] congresspersons who copped to not reading the NDAA for FY 2012 (with its unconstitutional "sub-title D" on "antiterrorism," (aka Cessation of Civilian Rights And Repeal of the Lesser-Included Bill of Rights)) said, by way of answer, "It's 1600 pages long."
    As in, "You don't expect me to read through 1600 pages of legislation before I vote on it, do you? In the House and Senate we play 'follow the leader,' as do sheep, lemmings, and the rats and children of Hamlin Town. We don't legislate. Our job is to get elected and STAY elected."

   Hafta say that the "1,600 pages" excuse is a gloriously bullshit one, not least because:

• half of the document is tables/spreadsheets, by way of illustrating the points made in text;
• there's a good bit of boiler-plate one can skip over;
• Moe Udall had time to sign a committee report "apprvd, except for §1021 et seq.)"; and
• all of the text pages are in narrow columns of  12 point or larger double-spaced type, not at all hard to read through. They're just lazy sons and daughters of dogs.

   2). The infamous, contra-constitutional section (§1021, and following (et sequitur) is so poorly drafted, as reads:

(b) Covered Persons- A covered person under this section is any person as follows:

     (1) A person who planned…

…which could be interpreted so that "covered persons" actually means: "any person as follows a person who planned…," or "any person [who] follows a person who planned, …etc.
    In other words, I'd contend that it is possible to interpret this statute as one which labels the mere act of walking behind a person the gummint is suspicious of as criminal conduct. And the statute does not specify the following distance, how far behind the suspicious person is "far enough," or what following distance is "too close". And what of the case where people are in vehicles?  The statute is unconstitutional on its face, or as it's now put "facially unconstitutional." (One wonders what kind of "facials" are meant.)

    High school English would have taught the drafters of this legislation about the use of the colon in punctuation. That is, it's "shorthand" for "as follows", and is forever misused redundantly. Examples, as follows:  Read that as: "Examples, as follows as follows."  Proper use: "Examples:" or, to revise the stupidly written §1021, NADA 4 FY 2012,

"A covered person under this section is any person:

(1) who planned…" and so on.

    The good news is, as I said somewhere else, had not the NDAA (FY2012) been struck down in one district court, all of the people who walked behind Dick Cheney could be arrested and indefinitely detained.

    One other point: Notice that the forepart of the section begs the question, or uses a circular argument, in an attempt to render constitutional the the fact that the Authorization to use military force (AUMF), delegating the power to declare war from Congress to the Executive Branch, is itself Contra-Consitutional, and ditto the War Powers Act, upon which this house of cards all rests, DESPITE any iterations like the text below, which "reaffirmations" do not and cannot cure the unconstitutionality of the underlying attempt to delegate non-delegable powers to the president.

Subtitle D--CounterterrorismSEC. 1021. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.

(a) In General- Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.