Mitch Hell

Forget guilty until proven innocent, this was a case of guilty even after proven innocent.

The Senate last night attempted to pass an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have allowed Americans to be detained even if they had been found not guilty by a trial.

Although the fact that indefinite detention without trial has now been codified into law by way of Section 1031 of the National Defense Authorization Act, an attempt was made at the last minute to fast-track an even more horrifying amendment into the NDAA bill via a voice vote.

Amendment No. 1274 would have given the federal government the power to detain U.S. citizens until Congress declared the ‘war on terror’ over, which we have been told is a never-ending multi-generational conflict. The provision also gave the feds the power to keep an American incarcerated even if they were tried and found not guilty.

Thankfully, Republican Senator Rand Paul discovered the provision and was able to request a last ditch roll call vote. The amendment was eventually defeated by a worryingly narrow final vote of 41-59.

Forget Kafkaesque, the very fact that the Senate even attempted to enact a law that would put the likes of Stalinist North Korea to shame speaks volumes about the contempt that lawmakers have for the bill of rights.