BACKGROUND

From David Dayen, prior to the voice-vote passage of Amendment #114 to the NDAA, and the subsequent passage of the legislation, itself, in the House…



“…the President has threatened to veto the bill for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the authorization spends more on defense than the Pentagon requested.”

House Passes Republican Amendment Backing Indefinite Detention For Terror Suspects On U.S. Soil

By Eli Clifton

Think Progress

May 18, 2012 at 11:06 am The House of Representatives this morning took a hard line against efforts by Democrats and libertarian Republicans to limit the president’s power to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects captured in the U.S.

… …While the battle in Congress over the detention provisions in the NDAA may have come to an end with the defeat of the Smith-Nash amendment and the passage of the competing Republican amendment, legal and political challenges may await the NDAA in the very near future. On Wednesday, a federal judge in New York issued a temporary injunction, finding that the detainee provisions in the current NDAA are unconstitutional. And the White House, in a statement (PDF) released on Tuesday evening, listed a series of objections with the pending NDAA including: restrictions on the implementation of the New START treaty; limits on reductions for the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal; and new restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees. Moreover, the White House objected to the overall size of the bill, which surpasses President Obama’s request by $3.7 billion and exceeds the Budget Control Act spending caps by $8 billion, and threatened to veto the NDAA if sent to the President in its current form.

And, here’s Think Progress

Here’s the skinny from Draconia-on-the-Hill, first from Taegan Goddard over at his Political Wire blog, from a few hours ago…



Lawmakers Seek to Lift Propaganda Ban

Taegan Goddard

Political Wire

May 19, 2012 An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed reports. The amendment to the defense authorization bill would "strike the current ban on domestic dissemination" of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon." "The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts -- the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987 -- that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government's misinformation campaigns…"

Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban Propaganda that was supposed to target foreigners could now be aimed at Americans, reversing a longstanding policy. “Disconcerting and dangerous,” says Shank. Posted May 18, 2012 4:27pm EDT An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned. The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee's official website…

…Critics of the bill say there are ways to keep America safe without turning the massive information operations apparatus within the federal government against American citizens. “Clearly there are ways to modernize for the information age without wiping out the distinction between domestic and foreign audiences,” says Michael Shank, Vice President at the Institute for Economics and Peace in Washington D.C. "That Reps Adam Smith and Mac Thornberry want to roll back protections put in place by previously-serving Senators – who, in their wisdom, ensured limits to taxpayer–funded propaganda promulgated by the US government – is disconcerting and dangerous…"

… …The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. “It removes the protection for Americans,” says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false...”

And, here’s BuzzFeed…The article continues on to tell us that the bi-partisan Amendment to the NDAA bill, sponsored by Rep. Mark Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State, with both the Amendment and the bill being passed by the House, yesterday,There’s a LOT more to this story than I’m mentioning in this BuzzFeed article. Facts and quotes that’ll both boggle your mind and make your blood boil, IMHO. (i.e.: the Pentagon spends $4 billion a year on its propaganda efforts, already.) You really should read it, because it’s almost too twisted to believe otherwise!

We’re talkin’: ”The upshot…is the Department of Defense using the same tools on U.S. citizens as on a hostile, foreign, population.”

Again, this was passed by the House, yesterday, with 77 Democrats voting along with 222 Republicans in favor of it.

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On Friday, Kossack David Waldman had a good preview of the legislative action on this bill in the House which may be read HERE.