Get my broker on the phone!

Consolidated tinfoil, BUY!!!!

The U.S. Senate, doing it's job for once, is set to consider S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act, that is, the 2012 Defense Budget.

Certain individuals are engaging in PSH over portions of the bill, to wit, Subtitle D--Detainee Matters, and it's "subordinate clauses", Section 1031 and 1032.

Most of the panic centers around SEC. 1031. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE, paragraph D of which states that

(d) Construction- Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

which is being construed as repealing the Posse Comitatus Act* and suspending habeus corpus.

Trouble is, paragraph b says

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

        (1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.

        (2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

I hate to sound like one of those sheep who always say "If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear", but it seems to me that this sets the bar kind of high for government oppression.

***

* Wikipedia:  The Posse Comitatus Act is an often misunderstood and misquoted United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 18, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction. Its intent (in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807) was to limit the powers of local governments and law enforcement agencies from using federal military personnel to enforce the laws of the land. Contrary to popular belief, the Act does not prohibit members of the Army from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain "law and order"; it simply requires that any orders to do so must originate with the United States Constitution or Act of Congress.
The statute only directly addresses the US Army (and is understood to equally apply to the US Air Force as a derivative of the US Army); it does not reference, and thus does not implicitly apply to nor restrict units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States. The Navy and Marine Corps are prohibited by a Department of Defense directive, not by the Act itself.^[1][2] The Coast Guard, under the Department of Homeland Security, is exempt from the Act.