Hedges v. Obama | Obama NDAA Allowing for Assassination & Rendition of U.S. Citizens

Timestamped Summary; Hedges v. Obama | NDAA Allowing Assassination & Rendition of U.S. Citizens:

- 0:58-1:50 - Corporate coup complete: Chris Hedges declares "we have undergone a corporate coup and it's over they won." Major structural assaults by Bush Administration embraced by Obama Administration including expansion of imperial war, drone attacks, looting of US Treasury by Wall Street, and most importantly, assault on civil liberties—which is "worse than under the Bush Administration."

- 1:29-2:15 - Civil liberties assault examples: Radical interpretation of AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) to authorize assassination of American citizens; FISA Amendment Act retroactively making illegal warrantless wiretapping legal; all personal information stored in supercomputers in Utah; use of Espionage Act to shut down whistleblowers. Investigative journalists report government officials won't even talk to them on background "for fear of going to jail."

- 2:15-2:54 - Purpose of stripping liberties: Corporate state "harvesting the nation—stealing as much as fast as they can on the way down" knows that combination of economic decline and climate change (they're "running scenarios in the NSA") will eventually cause blowback. "Eventually people will respond and they want the powers to in essence criminalize any form of dissent and that's what this is about."

- 2:54-4:25 - Civil vs. military justice system: Case comes down to whether US will have civil justice system (ingrained in Constitution, important for combating tyranny and building democratic society) or military justice system. NDAA tries to impose military justice allowing military to police American streets, detain US citizens and residents in military prisons. Most frightening aspect: detention "until the end of hostilities"—now day 4,163 of open-ended war against al-Qaeda, Taliban, and "associated forces." Trying to prevent repeat of Korematsu case—forced internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans during WWII.

- 4:31-5:30 - Police state infrastructure ready: "We don't live in a police state now" but "we have is the complete infrastructure of a police state" physically (prisons) and technologically (computer lists, GPS tracking—"they know exactly where we are"). "They don't need it right now but the moment they need it they click the switch." Dan Ellsberg: "One more 9/11" and "Muslims and Middle Easterners will be in camps to a much greater extent than Japanese were...it'll be hell of a lot more here and some of us here will be in there."

- 5:30-6:42 - Expanding targets: "Very little opposition if any in Congress" from either party. "With almost each passing year the government keeps pressing the outer boundaries of who they can target"—first al-Qaeda, then "associated forces" (expert at making up "squishy terms like co-belligerent"). Now involved in military action in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger. Material support statute expanded to "substantial support which could be construed as journalism or writing." "Progression is going in the wrong direction" and "only if citizens fight back via protest or litigation" will this stop—"I see no effort by either party to stop this."

- 6:42-7:48 - Corporate control of security state: Corporate lobbyists write legislation. Security and surveillance state is the mechanism. Joint command center exists between NYPD and Goldman Sachs—when Hedges was arrested at Goldman Sachs with Occupy Movement, security was "mixed security of Goldman Sachs security and NYPD security." These corporations created 70% of work—US has 16 intelligence agencies and "70% of their work are outsourced to corporations." Handed capacity for security and surveillance state to private corporations, created mercenary armies.

- 7:48-8:44 - Empire collapse pattern: Throughout history, as Thucydides said, "Athens became a tyrant abroad and then became a tyrant at home." Empires "hollow themselves out from the inside—they destroy their cities first, which is what we are doing or largely have done." Then they "bring back the mechanisms of control, the brutal mechanisms of control from the outer reaches of Empire internally." Everything they do abroad "migrates back here"—160 local police law enforcement agencies applied for drone permits. Blackwater (renamed Xe, renamed something else) running around New Orleans after disaster.

- 8:44-10:10 - NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake: Senior executive at NSA discovered within weeks of 9/11 that NSA headed by Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden entered secret agreement with White House making NSA executive agent for "tippy top surveillance program—the warrantless wiretapping program, the Stellar Wind program." In October 2001, senior NSA attorney made "unmistakably clear that NSA had become the executive agent for the White House, it was all legal, the White House had approved it, and you do not want to ask any more questions Mr. Drake. Don't go there."

- 9:42-10:42 - Constitutional subversion: Drake knew in that moment he was "eyewitness to the very subversion of our own Constitution." Knew "not only had the wheels come off a 23-year legal regime and the wheels come off the Fourth Amendment in secret," but "we were in an entirely new vehicle—this was not a constitutional form of government, this was an alien form of government, a secret government being run by executive rule." Everything since 9/11 "has simply increased the power of that secret government." For them, "Constitution is just a piece of paper, an inconvenient truth...We don't really have constitutional government in this country anymore, it is a figment of our imagination, it is a hollowed out Constitution."

- 10:42-11:29 - Drake's prosecution: NDAA "takes it to the next level." Drake prosecuted, indicted, faced prosecutor saying "How would you like to spend the rest of your life in prison Mr. Drake unless you start cooperating with us? We might let you off for 15 or 20 years, maybe." Charged under Espionage Act—"most egregious thing you can charge an American with"—five counts. But at least had "access and recourse to the judicial system" and "third branch of government stood up to the government" during his July 15, 2011 sentencing hearing.

- 11:34-12:48 - Executive branch subversion: Since 9/11, executive branch subverting Constitution, wants to "take the power under themselves," betting on "compliant Congress, a complicit Congress and a judiciary that's not going to stand up to them." They force "enabling act legislation to Congress to make legal...that was once illegal" (FISA Amendments Act example). They also do signing statements or secretly interpret existing legislation that doesn't suit their needs. Patriot Act Section 215 has secret interpretation—"pretty darn clear what it is: if you're a subscriber, you have information, the business...it's not yours, you don't own it, the corporation owns it...they can provide it to the government for national security purposes or the government has direct access to it."

- 12:54-13:53 - Media blackout and bipartisan support: Corporate coup has "seized our systems of information"—half dozen corporations (Viacom, General Electric, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, Disney, Clear Channel) "control what most Americans listen to and watch." Either "celebrity entertainment or trivia" or propaganda outlets like Fox or MSNBC. "NDAA case was never mentioned on MSNBC because it made Obama look bad, never. It wasn't mentioned on Fox because it has bipartisan support." Conservatives and liberals "share a lot in common"—division between them is "artificial." Conservative judges with "great libertarian tradition" often best for civil liberties cases. "Greatest supporter of free speech in the United States right now" is Justice Scalia.

- 14:31-15:29 - Tipping point coming: Hedges covered "disintegrating societies all around the world," popular movements and street demonstrations (Milosevic's fall, Eastern Europe revolutions, Prague, East Germany, Palestinian uprisings). "It's always the ruling elite that determines the configuration of rebellion." Because ruling elite "has not responded rationally," things are "getting worse" through fiscal cliff, refusal to restore unemployment benefits, "utterly mendacious figures on unemployment—just lying through their teeth." Something's going to happen—"I've been in those situations where you feel it, you know it's coming." Never know what triggers it—"usually something utterly benign."

- 15:29-16:16 - East Germany parallel: In Leipzig, Lutheran clergy and congregants walked through streets holding candles for weeks—"everybody laughed at them and then suddenly 70,000 people showed up." Dictator Eric Honecker sent elite paratroop division to fire on crowd "and when that paratroop division got there they didn't do it." The Stasi state was "most sophisticated security and surveillance state in the world until ours" and Honecker "lasted another week in power." Hedges thinks US ruling elite are "that weak internally, they know they're that corrupt, they know how decayed they are." "No population or group in this country has greater cognizance of how rotten this system is than the people who run it."

- 16:16-17:29 - Feinstein Amendment failure: Amendment challenging Section 1021 written by Diane Feinstein was "very inadequate" because it only said "Americans have a right to trial" but "left open the possibility that they could be seized under the NDAA and put before a Military Tribunal." It passed Senate but "under John McCain's leadership on the House-Senate committee to unify the bill, the entire amendment was dropped." Problem for those who care about open society: "we have to recognize that the formal systems of power don't work and they're not going to protect us."

- 17:09-17:57 - Chilling effect of statutes: "When these statutes are held over your head...people cease to speak out." Not sure "government's setting up massive internment camps for journalists and activists but the very fact that these powers exist is what diminishes free speech and the commitment to free speech." Every time there's a law like this, "that commitment is eroded further and further and further downward and that's what we're fighting against."

- 17:57-18:51 - Judge Forrest's constitutional interpretation: Dan Ellsberg read Judge Forrest's 112-page opinion carefully—"here is somebody actually taking the Constitution seriously and the rights seriously as though they weren't just a piece of paper but were really important to interpret and preserve." If Judge Forrest had been judge for Ellsberg's case under Espionage Act (18 USC 793 paragraphs d and e), "she would almost certainly...find that unconstitutional and facially unconstitutional." Same issues arise: "breadth and vagueness."

- 18:38-19:29 - Seeking legal cover for existing actions: Government attempting to "legally justify what they're already doing." They argue that under 2001 AUMF, they have right to assassinate American citizens. "I have read that act innumerable times...none of us find that in the act—that is, to be generous, a radical interpretation of the AUMF." They're seeking to "legally justify in the same way that John Yoo was attempting to legally justify torture—they're essentially looking for kind of legal cover." This is "all connected, all part of this very rapid descent into a frightening form of total corporate totalitarianism."

- 19:32-20:16 - Immediate threat to activists: Statute is "so broad that any government official...could check that box off and name me as a member of this group, in which case under this provision it was immediately clear to me...that if this was given legal weight, people like me could instantly be locked up and stripped of due process." Hedges: "What we're talking about is the capacity of the US government to make you disappear." Ellsberg: "I used to think if there's another 9/11, NSA will be turned on us...wrong. It didn't take another 9/11—one 9/11 was enough to do that."

- 20:16-20:57 - Call for creative action: "Big question is what to do about it." People in room agree but "we need creative thinking about it." Any answer that "just says more of the past, bigger demonstrations, more letters, can't be right. It's got to be imagination." Need new approaches beyond what has been tried before to confront this totalitarian system.
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Original Source Attribution:

'Hedges v Obama: 2012 NDAA Authorizes the Military Detention of Americans Without a Trial' | PANDA Oregon | Feb 24, 2015 | https://youtu.be/JmuUJRHqVso?si=v_hluiT6cMyj2_10

Chris Hedge, Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, and others sued the Obama Administration and leading members of Congress to repeal section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (HEDGES v OBAMA). This particular section authorizes the military to police the streets of the United States, and to indefinitely detain American citizens without a trial. This video documents discussions about the law from the Plaintiffs in this case as well as their lawyers.
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