A thing about the NDAA

Many people who pay a little bit of attention to American politics are very angry at Barack Obama for signing a bill known as the NDAA. The NDAA contains a provision permitting the president to indefinitely detain people accused of terrorism. It explicitly refrains from saying whether this includes American citizens, a stance that codifies the current unsettled nature of the law.

The detention provisions in the NDAA are poor policy (though they do expand the rights of people detained by the American military in Afghanistan). Barack Obama should probably not have signed it — though, in saying that, it must be remembered that “NDAA” stands for National Defense Authorization Act. If Obama had vetoed the bill, he would have not just been vetoing the objectionable detainment provisions, but the entire funding for the American military throughout the world. This is obviously an untenable situation, and would have created a high stakes showdown between the President and Congress over funding the military. Indeed, the president only agreed not to veto the bill when the Senate added an amendment to the NDAA that left the detention provisions as they were, with no firm prescription either way on the matter of indefinitely detaining citizens. The original text of the bill, meanwhile, explicitly permitted the government to detain American citizens. 

I say this not to defend Obama’s decision not to veto the bill. It’s bad law and he could have stopped it. (Though I suspect if he tried, he would have been on the losing end of a battle with the Senate — holding up military funding to defend the rights of accused terrorists is, sadly, not very popular — and may well have seen his veto overridden.)

However, during the Senate’s consideration of the bill, Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) tried to add an amendment that would specifically prohibit the indefinite detention of American citizens. The Senate rejected this by a vote of 37-61. If you are a civil libertarian and want to get mad about the NDAA, by all means, be mad at Obama for his timidity (he is where the buck stops, after all). But who you should really be mad at are these 61 senators. I know getting cross about some people you’ve probably never heard of is not as exciting as shouting angry things about the most powerful man in the world, but these are the people truly to blame for the NDAA.

Nay votes on the Udall amendment:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)
John Boozman (R-AR)
Scott Brown (R-MA)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
Bob Casey (D-PA)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Dan Coats (R-IN)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Bob Corker (R-TN)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Kay Hagan (D-NC)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Dean Heller (R-NV)
John Hoeven (R-ND)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Ron Johnson (R-WI)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Mike Lee (R-UT)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Joe Lieberman (ID-CT)
Richard Lugar (R-IN)
Joe Manchin (D-WV)
John McCain (R-AZ)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Jerry Moran (R-KS)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Rob Portman (R-OH)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Jim Risch (R-ID)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Marco Rubio (R-FL)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
John Thune (R-SD)
Pat Toomey (R-PA)
David Vitter (R-LA)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Roger Wicker (R-MS)

I am pleased to say that both the senators for Washington State, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, voted in favor of the amendment. If you are unhappy about the NDAA and you see your senator on this list, you should probably let her know!