Report: Kip Smith, Sponsor Of Georgia Bill Requiring Drug Testing For Welfare Recipients, Arrested For DUI

Kip Smith, a Republican state congressman from Georgia and sponsor of a bill that would have submitted all welfare recipients to random drug testing, was arrested Friday night for driving under the influence of alcohol.

Smith was pulled over after running a red light on his way home from a restaurant, Atlanta’s Channel 2 Action News reports:

The officer said when he walked up to Smith’s car he could smell the odor of alcohol coming from the car and then started asking Smith some questions.Smith told the officer he was at Hal’s restaurant where he [had] a single beer and it had been 45 minutes since he had the last drink.

The officer said Smith first refused to take a breathalyzer test, but once it was explained to him that he would be arrested he started the sobriety test, which he had trouble completing.

According to a police report, Smith first blew a .091, and later a .100 and a .099, all above the legal limit of .08. He also failed a “walk-and-turn” test and a “one-leg-stand” field sobriety test.

As Think Progress points out, Smith is a sponsor of a bill that would implement random yearly drug testing for welfare recipients. According to the bill, anyone who failed such test would be cut off from public assistance. In response to this proposal, Democratic state Rep. Scott Holcomb submitted legislation that would instead require all state lawmakers to undergo random drug testing.

Smith said over the weekend that he made a poor decision.

“Mistakes were made and I take full responsibility for them,” Smith said, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. “I understand there are consequences, and there’s no excuse.”

Georgia House Speaker David Ralston said in a statement to Channel 2 Action News that he would be examining the incident.

“This is the first the Speaker has heard of this deeply troubling situation involving Rep. Kip Smith,” the statement read. “DUI is a very serious charge. The Speaker will look into the matter and gather the facts before offering any further comment on this situation.”

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Report: Apple Event: Ebook-Publishing Announcement Coming January 19?

Another mysterious Apple event, another round of rumors leading up to the big day.

On Thursday, at 10 A.M., Apple will host an event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City — that much we know for sure, as the invitations have been sent. The well-sourced John Paczkowski of All Things Digital hears that the event could cover publishing, specifically digital textbook publishing for the iPad (what Paczkowski called “Jobs’ iTextbook Vision”); TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis heard largely the same, adding that her source expects “improvements to the iBooks platform.”

Since those two rumors broke at the beginning of the new year, much has been quiet on the Apple front. And for those wondering, no one thinks that Apple is going to announce either the iPad 3 or the Apple television this Thursday. Though both are projects are believed to be in the works, neither piece of shiny new hardware is expected to be unveiled this week.

So what, specifically, can we expect? Well, a new pair of rumors from Ars Technica’s Chris Foresman claims that the event will indeed center on so-called iTextbook publishing, and that the big Apple event in the Big Apple will center around a new tool for publishers to easily create interactive digital textbooks for the iPad and iPhone, what Foresman dubbed a “GarageBand for textbooks.” (GarageBand is a popular desktop and iOS application from Apple that allows both amateur and professional musicians to record, mix, and produce audio in a studio-like software suite).

Textbooks had long been a pet project of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, one of the world’s most famous college dropouts, who told biographer Walter Isaacson that he had always wanted to disrupt the textbook market. The consensus seems to be that Jobs’ vision for what that digital destruction might look like will be unveiled on January 19 in New York, as Apple’s new iTextbook creation tool could help authors large and small pen textbooks optimized for iOS devices. If the new tool has the impact that Jobs’ envisioned, Apple’s announcement could foretell the end of heavy, expensive textbooks. From Isaacson’s biography, as quoted in Fortune”

He wanted to disrupt the textbook industry and save the spines of spavined students bearing backpacks by creating electronic texts and curriculum material for the iPad.

Many startups, most notably Kno and Inkling, have been attempting to save students’ spines and disrupt the profitable world of textbook publishing for a few years now. Both Kno and Inkling make digitally optimized textbooks available for the iPad and desktop computer; both offer the textbooks at substantially lower prices than they are in print. The two companies, however, take two different routes to publishing: Kno largely leaves the textbook intact, scanning the original textbook in from the print version, while Inkling creates an entirely new textbook optimized with images, audio and video.

What Foresman of Ars Technica is proposing — an application to create digitally optimized textbooks — sounds much like the Inkling method, which sprinkles in three-dimensional graphs and models, relevant video and audio, and interactive quizzes at the ends of chapters. Whatever the new tool looks like, it does not appear that Apple will try to cannibalize the textbook companies’ profits, given that several major publishers are expected to be in attendance. Rather, Apple will simply attempt to succeed where both Kno and Inkling have (thus far) failed, in making digital textbooks a much more widespread, more accepted norm. (Philip Elmer Dewitt of Fortune points out that this goal is not entirely philanthropic on Apple’s part, as making digital textbooks the norm carries with it the effect of selling more iPads).

On January 17, at the site where Apple and Rupert Murdoch announced iPad-optimized newspaper The Daily one year ago, Apple will apparently once again attempt to transform an industry. The world — and a world of spavined students — will be watching.

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Report: America Isn’t a Corporation

By PUAL KRUGMAN

“And greed – you mark my words – will not only save Teldar Paper,but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.”

That’s how the fictional Gordon Gekko finished his famous “Greed is good” speech in the 1987 film “Wall Street.” In the movie, Gekko got his comeuppance. But in real life, Gekkoism triumphed, and policy based on the notion that greed is good is a major reason why income has grown so much more rapidly for the richest 1 percent than for the middle class.Today, however, let’s focus on the rest of that sentence, which compares America to a corporation. This, too, is an idea that has been widely accepted. And it’s the main plank of Mitt Romney’s case that he should be president: In effect, he is asserting that what we need to fix our ailing economy is someone who has been successful in business.

In so doing, he has, of course, invited close scrutiny of his business career. And it turns out that there is at least a whiff of Gordon Gekko in his time at Bain Capital, a private equity firm; he was a buyer and seller of businesses, often to the detriment of their employees, rather than someone who ran companies for the long haul. (Also, when will he release his tax returns?) Nor has he helped his credibility by making untenable claims about his role as a “job creator.”

But there’s a deeper problem in the whole notion that what this nation needs is a successful businessman as president: America is not, in fact, a corporation. Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits. And businessmen — even great businessmen — do not, in general, have any special insights into what it takes to achieve economic recovery.

Why isn’t a national economy like a corporation? For one thing, there’s no simple bottom line. For another, the economy is vastly more complex than even the largest private company.

Most relevant for our current situation, however, is the point that even giant corporations sell the great bulk of what they produce to other people, not to their own employees — whereas even small countries sell most of what they produce to themselves, and big countries like America are overwhelmingly their own main customers.

Yes, there’s a global economy. But six out of seven American workers are employed in service industries, which are largely insulated from international competition, and even our manufacturers sell much of their production to the domestic market.

And the fact that we mostly sell to ourselves makes an enormous difference when you think about policy.

Consider what happens when a business engages in ruthless cost-cutting. From the point of view of the firm’s owners (though not its workers), the more costs that are cut, the better. Any dollars taken off the cost side of the balance sheet are added to the bottom line.

But the story is very different when a government slashes spending in the face of a depressed economy. Look at Greece, Spain, and Ireland, all of which have adopted harsh austerity policies. In each case, unemployment soared, because cuts in government spending mainly hit domestic producers. And, in each case, the reduction in budget deficits was much less than expected, because tax receipts fell as output and employment collapsed.

Now, to be fair, being a career politician isn’t necessarily a better preparation for managing economic policy than being a businessman. But Mr. Romney is the one claiming that his career makes him especially suited for the presidency. Did I mention that the last businessman to live in the White House was a guy named Herbert Hoover? (Unless you count former President George W. Bush.)

And there’s also the question of whether Mr. Romney understands the difference between running a business and managing an economy.

Like many observers, I was somewhat startled by his latest defense of his record at Bain — namely, that he did the same thing the Obama administration did when it bailed out the auto industry, laying off workers in the process. One might think that Mr. Romney would rather not talk about a highly successful policy that just about everyone in the Republican Party, including him, denounced at the time.

But what really struck me was how Mr. Romney characterized President Obama’s actions: “He did it to try to save the business.” No, he didn’t; he did it to save the industry, and thereby to save jobs that would otherwise have been lost, deepening America’s slump. Does Mr. Romney understand the distinction?

America certainly needs better economic policies than it has right now — and while most of the blame for poor policies belongs to Republicans and their scorched-earth opposition to anything constructive, the president has made some important mistakes. But we’re not going to get better policies if the man sitting in the Oval Office next year sees his job as being that of engineering a leveraged buyout of America Inc.

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Report: Mayor Villaraigosa, Chief Beck Release Gang Reduction Stats

For fourth consecutive year, Summer Night Lights’ neighborhoods experience significant drop in violence and crime

LOS ANGELES – Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck today announced the 2011 results of the City’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) program including a successful 2011 Summer Night Lights (SNL) program resulting in a 35% reduction in gang related Part 1 crimes for all SNL sites.

“In 2008, we changed the face of gang prevention and intervention in this city and launched the Gang Reduction and Youth Development Program,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “GRYD’s comprehensive strategy represents a sea change in the way we reduce gang violence. Today, the Summer Night Lights has become a crowning achievement of these efforts and a source of pride in some of our most crime-ridden communities.”

The Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development is an initiative to prevent at-risk youth from joining gangs. It intervenes with gang members to help them safely leave the gang life and responds to gang-related crisis situations across the City. Twelve geographic zones—areas with the highest levels of gang violence—are targeted for prevention and intervention services.

The highly innovative GRYD program is designed to prevent and reduce gang violence using research driven tools, law enforcement, and family-focused psychological theories. The comprehensive gang violence reduction strategy has drawn national attention.

“The GRYD program is the cornerstone of our gang crime reduction efforts,” said Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. “If we are to see a significant decrease in gang crime here in Los Angeles in 2012, GRYD will play a pivotal role. GRYD is a model program that combines gang intervention with youth development, in an effort to reduce gang crime and create healthy communities here in LA.”

GRYD partners with the LAPD on several intervention program and activities that builds bridges between the community and law enforcement. In addition, GRYD in collaboration with the Advancement Project oversees LAVITA, the first comprehensive gang intervention academy in the country which provides certification for gang intervention workers.

The Mayor and Chief Beck recently released the City’s 2011 year-end crime statistics showing that overall gang crime dropped 15.2% representing a reduction of nearly 843 gang crimes last year. The LAPD also reported a 9.4% reduction in gang-related shots fired. Violent crime and property crime were also reduced across Los Angeles for the ninth consecutive year.

As part of GRYD’s comprehensive strategy, Summer Night Lights (SNL) keeps City parks open until midnight from Fourth of July weekend through Labor Day weekend. For these nine weeks, SNL provides extended and expanded programming between the hours of 7 PM to midnight, activities for at-risk youth and their families, job opportunities, and a safe place to spend the summer evenings at 32 recreation centers and parks in and around the City’s GRYD zones.

Communities around SNL parks experienced a 35% reduction in gang-related part 1 crime for all SNL locations combined, 35% reduction in gang-related homicides, 43% reduction in aggravated assaults and 55% reduction in shots fired. This past summer, an estimated 774,800 visits were made to the 32 SNL sites combined, an increase of 64,800 visits from 2010. A total of 484,250 meals were served throughout the program at all SNL sites combined.

In addition, over 1,600 jobs were made available in the summer through SNL including 320 Youth Squad members.

CONTACT: Casey Hernandez 213-978-0741

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Report: Draft cyber bill gives DHS controversial authorities

By Jason Miller@jmillerWFED

The draft version of the comprehensive cybersecurity bill could give the Homeland Security Department the ability to take “any lawful action” against contractors if their systems are under attack.Bob Dix, a former staff director for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and now vice president government affairs and critical infrastructure protection for Juniper Networks, said that could mean taking over a vendor’s system that contains federal data.

“There’s some concern about what would be the criteria about that and how it would be the government has the ability under a provision of lawful action to take over a system used by an agency even if it’s owned by a contractor,” Dix said. “I am worried about the notion that suggests the government would have the authority under law to be able to take over systems of contractors if they view them as having vulnerabilities even if only a small percentage of that is government utilization.”

The provision Dix is talking about is in Section 3553of the bill’s Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Reform section.

The draft bill, obtained by Federal News Radio, would give the secretary of DHS the ability to “direct officials of agencies that own, operate, lease or otherwise control an information system, including information systems used or operated by another entity, including contractors, on behalf of a federal agency, to take any lawful action with respect to the operation of such information system for the purpose of protecting that information system from or mitigating a cybersecurity threat.”

Dix said FISMA needs to be updated and several of the changes in the draft bill are good, but this provision goes too far.

Different interpretation

Not everyone reads the provision the same as Dix.

James Lewis, the director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said Dix’s interpretation is a bit extreme.                                                                                                  

James Lewis, director, Technology and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS photo)

                    “I think it’s more they could direct the contractors to take action,” he said. “I see this more of as an ability to direct action than actually assuming control.”

He said bills such as this one must include broad language to be implemented successfully.

“You either can try and define prescriptively every single example and those tend to be unworkable, or you have to settle for phrases such as any lawful action,” Lewis said. “That doesn’t bother me as much. Over time should that authority ever be exercised, they would figure out what that meant. But I think it’s the kind of language that actually points to not taking control of contractor systems. I’m still not sure that would be lawful.”

He added the language also fits in with the larger effort to reinforce DHS’ authorities under FISMA. The Obama administration gave DHSmore authority and responsibility under FISMA in July 2010.

The Senate promised to take up the comprehensive cyber billearly on in the 2012 session. The House has not publicly committed to take up a comprehensive bill.

Senate lawmakers have been trying to update FISMA for the last three years.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduced a bill to update the 2002 law in 2008 and held out hope each successive year, but couldn’t get enough traction. Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) introduced a version of the FISMA update in 2010, but again, it got nowhere.

Watson also tried to add a FISMA update to the 2010 Defense Authorization bill. But the provisions were not included in the final law.

Similar to other FISMA reform efforts

The FISMA reform in the latest bill looks similar to other efforts, Lewis said.

It codifies the oversight authority for DHS to issue policies, set standards, training requirements, conduct risk assessments and receive reports on agency compliance.

The reform bill also would update agency and chief information officer responsibilities, including ensuring cybersecurity is integrated with agency strategic and operational planning processes and developing and maintaining a risk management strategy.

Alan Paller, the director of research at the SANS Institute, has been an outspoken critic of the paperwork part of FISMA. He said the continuous monitoring language is most important in the reform bill.                                                                                                  

Alan Paller, director of research, SANS Institute (SANS photo)

                    “I think the key is the report language. There needs to be two or three examples in the report language that comes out with the bill so there is no question,” Paller said. “The key people in this whole thing are the inspectors general. If they misinterpret it so the security people think they are suppose to do one thing and the inspectors general think they are suppose to write reports, which has been happening for the last 10 years, then you will get a lot of wasted reports. The key is the inspectors general understand exactly what was meant for continuous monitoring, meaning automated, online monitoring of every device on the network. If that is in the report language, that is good enough.”

While the provision that could give DHS the ability to take over contractor systems is one controversial piece, it’s what’s in the sectionabout critical infrastructure that could stop the bill in its tracks.

Juniper’s Dix said his and others’ concerns over the critical infrastructure section stem from the government getting too much oversight authority in specific areas. He said one provision would create additional regulatory regimes but not target the real cyber issues, which are the control systems of critical infrastructure providers.

The other area concerns assessing the risk management of critical infrastructure vendors.

“I don’t think that is the role of the government,” Dix said. “I don’t think it’s proper for the government to tell me and my company how best to manage the risk on behalf of my customers, my internal organization and my shareholders. I believe we do a pretty good job of that, and I think most people across the community do a pretty good job of that at this point in time.”

Dix said there absolutely is room for improvement and places industry can improve upon, but it must come through a collaborative process. He pointed to the current effort with DHS through the Critical Infrastructure Coordinating Councils.

Dix said lawmakers in the House seem to understand this approach, but the Senate isn’t getting it as quickly.

Critical infrastructure in most need of cyber help

CSIS’ Lewis said if the critical infrastructure section of the bill doesn’t pass, the rest of the bill isn’t worth much because this is the one area that needs the most attention.

Lewis said the bill does call for a collaborative process but there needs to be a way for DHS to make sure the standards are being met.

“The problem with voluntary, it doesn’t work. We don’t have to prove that anymore,” Lewis said. “And when anyone says we can rely on a voluntary approach, you may want to smell their breadth. That is the crux of the matter. Can we create standards and hold companies to them? We have to recognize this has to be a very light touch, it has to be collaborative and it has to differ from sector to sector. That is the crucial point for me.”

Along with FISMA and critical infrastructure, the bill includes two other sections, codifying DHS operational and oversight authorities and creating an Office of National Cyberspace Policy with a Senate-confirmed director.

“There is a real desire to do something in both parties,” Lewis said. “They want to show this is not a do-nothing Congress and this is an important bill and if they can pass it, it would be an achievement that they would be proud of. The other thing I’ve heard is there is a real push from opponents of the bill to neutralize it and to pass the easy parts and leave out anything meaningful and come back at some point in the future. The odds are good we will get something, but whether it is something useful it remains to be seen.”

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Report: Quote On Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Will Be Changed

WASHINGTON — A quote carved in stone on the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington will be changed after the inscription was criticized for not accurately reflecting the civil rights leader’s words.

The inscription currently reads: “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” The phrase is chiseled into one side of a massive block of granite that includes King’s likeness emerging from the stone. It became a point of controversy after the memorial opened in August.

A spokesman for the U.S Department of the Interior said Friday that Secretary Ken Salazar decided to have the quote changed. The Washington Post first reported on Friday the decision to change the inscription.

The phrase is modified from a sermon known as the “Drum Major Instinct,” in which the 39-year-old King explained to his Atlanta congregation how he would like to be remembered at his funeral. He made the February 1968 speech just two months before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.

In the speech, King’s words seem more modest than the paraphrased inscription: “Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

Poet Maya Angelou previously said the truncated version made King sound like “an arrogant twit” because it was out of context.

Salazar gave the National Park Service, which the Interior Department oversees, a month to consult with the King Memorial Foundation, which led the effort to build the memorial, as well as family members and other interested parties. The committee is supposed to come up with a more accurate alternative to the quote.

Ed Jackson Jr., the executive architect of the $120 million project, previously said King’s words were shortened for space reasons and that he stood by the paraphrased line.

He said in an emailed statement on Friday evening that the cost to make changes to the inscription will be assessed but none of the existing stone work will be removed.

“A few very carefully selected words will be added to the existing phrase; that will further amplify his statement about his role in America during the mid-20th century as a leader, a social advocate, a messenger, a voice of the people … for freedom, justice, hope and peace,” he said.

Harry Johnson, president of the King Memorial Foundation, said it wasn’t yet clear what the alternatives might be. The group would look at all the ways a change could be made, he said.

Angelou was named among the memorial’s Council of Historians tasked with selecting the inscriptions for the memorial. But she did not attend meetings about the inscriptions, Jackson said. Project planners also explained the shortened quote to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which ultimately approved the memorial’s design.

At least one other recent memorial has undergone changes after being opened to the public. After the Franklin D. Roosevelt memorial opened in 1997, advocates for the disabled campaigned to have a statue added portraying Roosevelt in his wheelchair. Originally, only one statue in the memorial alluded to the fact Roosevelt lost the use of his legs after contracting polio as an adult. That statue portrayed him seated with small wheels on the back of his chair.

In 2001, a bronze sculpture depicting Roosevelt in his self-designed wheelchair was added to the entrance of the memorial. Disability groups raised $1.65 million for the addition.

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Report: The N.W.O. (New World Order) is already here and you don’t even know it. NDAA 2012

BARACK OBAMA THE WHITE HOUSE, December 31, 2011.

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from NDAA 2012)

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012^[1] was signed into United States law on December 31, 2011 by President Barack Obama.^[2][3]

The Act authorizes $662 billion^[4] in funding, among other things “for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad.” In a signing statement, President Obama described the Act as addressing national security programs, Department of Defense health care costs, counter-terrorism within the U.S. and abroad, and military modernization.^[5][6] The Act also imposes new economic sanctions against Iran (section 1045), commissions reviews of the military capabilities of countries such as Iran, China, and Russia,^[7] and refocuses the strategic goals of NATO towards energy security.^[8] The Congressional Research Service provides a summary of the many provisions of the Act, available on the web.^[9]

The most controversial provisions to receive wide attention are contained in Title X, Subtitle D, entitled “Counter-Terrorism.” In particular, sub-sections 1021 and 1022, which deal with detention of persons the government suspects of involvement in terrorism, have generated controversy as to their legal meaning and their potential implications for abuse of Presidential authority. Although the White House^[10] and Senate sponsors^[11] maintain that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) already grants presidential authority for indefinite detention, the Act states that Congress “affirms” this authority and makes specific provisions as to the exercise of that authority.^[12][13] The detention provisions of the Act have received critical attention by, among others, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and some media sources which are concerned about the scope of the President’s authority, including contentions that those whom they claim may be held indefinitely could include U.S. citizens arrested on American soil, including arrests by members of the Armed Forces.^{[14][15][16][17][18]}

Contents [hide] 1 Indefinite detention without trial: Section 1021 2 Requirement for military custody: Section 1022 3 Actions from the White House and Senate leading to the vote 4 Controversy over indefinite detention 5 Sanctions targeting the Iranian Central Bank 6 See also 7 External Links 8 References

Tuesday morning, nearly 3,000 died in the attacks of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001.

Indefinite detention without trial: Section 1021

Pursuant to the AUMF passed in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the NDAA text affirms the President’s authority to detain, via the Armed Forces, any person “who was 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,” and anyone who commits a “belligerent act” against the U.S. or its coalition allies, under the law of war, “without trial, until the end of the hostilities authorized by the [AUMF].” The text also authorizes trial by military tribunal, or “transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin,” or transfer to “any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.”^[19] An amendment to the Act that would have explicitly forbidden the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens was rejected by the Senate.^[20]

Addressing previous conflict with the Obama Administration regarding the wording of the Senate text, the Senate-House compromise text, in sub-section 1021(d), also affirms that nothing in the Act “is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” The final version of the bill also provides, in sub-section(e), that “Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.” As reflected in Senate debate over the bill, there is a great deal of controversy over the status of existing law.^[21].

Yes, Americans will be targeted as Terrorists under the NDAA. With no questions asked and no answers giving.

Requirement for military custody: Section 1022

All persons arrested and detained according to the provisions of section 1021, including those detained on U.S. soil, whether detained indefinitely or not, are required to be held by the United States Armed Forces. The law affords the option to have U.S. citizens detained by the armed forces but this requirement does not extend to them, as with foreign persons. Lawful resident aliens may or may not be required to be detained by the Armed Forces, “on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States.”^[22][23]

Actions from the White House and Senate leading to the vote

In an executive statement to the Senate (11/17/11) President Obama expressed his administration’s oposition to the provision as follows: “The Administration strongly objects to the military custody provision, which would appear to mandate military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects… Moreover, applying this military custody requirement to individuals inside the United States, as some Members of Congress have suggested is their intention, would raise serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.” The White House threatened to veto the Senate version of the Act,^[10] arguing that while “the authorities granted by the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, including the detention authority… are essential to our ability to protect the American people… (and) Because the authorities codified in this section already exist, the Administration does not believe codification is necessary and poses some risk.”

During debate within the Senate and before the Act’s passage, Senator Mark Udall introduced an amendment intended to forbid the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens^{[24][citation needed]}; the amendment was rejected by a vote of 37–61.^[25] Udall subsequently voted for the Act in the joint session of congress that passed it, and though he remained “extremely troubled” by the detainee provisions, he promised to “push Congress to conduct the maximum amount of oversight possible.” ^[26]

The Senate later adopted by a 98 to 1 vote a compromise amendment, based upon a proposal by Senator Dianne Feinstein, which preserves current law concerning U.S. citizens and lawful resident aliens detained within the United States.^[27] After a Senate-House compromise text explicitly ruled out any limitation of the President’s authorities, but also removed the requirement of military detention for terrorism suspects arrested in the United States, the White House issued a statement saying that it would not veto the bill.^[28]

While Senator Feinstein and others have argued that current law does not allow the indefinite detention of American citizens, the Obama Administration, Senators Carl Levin and John McCain have argued that it may still allow it.^[11] In his Signing Statement, President Obama stated his executives’ position: “”I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed…I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.” ^[29]

So who does the U.S. government label as terrorists (aside from violent Islamic extremists)?

Controversy over indefinite detention

Section 1021 and 1022 have been called a violation of constitutional principles and of the Bill of Rights.^[30] Internationally, the UK-based newspaper The Guardian has described the legislation as allowing indefinite detention “without trial [of] American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay;”^[31] Al Jazeera has written that the Act “gives the US military the option to detain US citizens suspected of participating or aiding in terrorist activities without a trial, indefinitely.”^[32] The official Russian international radio broadcasting service Voice of Russia has compared the Act to legislation passed by the Third Reich;^[33] the Act has been opposed by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, and received criticism from The New York Times,^[34] and other news organizations.^[35][36]

On December 31 and after signing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 into law, President Obama issued a statement on it that addressed “certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of terrorism suspects.” In the statement Obama maintains that “the legislation does nothing more than confirm authorities that the Federal courts have recognized as lawful under the 2001 AUMF. I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. […] My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law. […] As my Administration has made clear, the only responsible way to combat the threat al-Qa’ida poses is to remain relentlessly practical, guided by the factual and legal complexities of each case and the relative strengths and weaknesses of each system. Otherwise, investigations could be compromised, our authorities to hold dangerous individuals could be jeopardized, and intelligence could be lost. I will not tolerate that result, and under no circumstances will my Administration accept or adhere to a rigid across-the-board requirement for military detention.”^[37]

The American Civil Liberties Union has responded that despite claims by the Obama Administration to the contrary, “The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision… [without] temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.” The ACLU furthermore commented that “While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had ‘serious reservations’ about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA,” and maintains that “the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.”^[38]

Oil prices would soar with Iranian blockade. If Iran carries out its threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, the impact would be immediate. 50% increase within days!!!!!

Sanctions targeting the Iranian Central Bank

Main article: U.S. sanctions against Iran

As part of the ongoing dispute over Iranian uranium enrichment, section 1245 of the NDAA imposes unilateral sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran, effectively blocking Iranian oil exports to countries which do business with the United States.^[39][40] The new sanctions impose penalties against entities — including corporations and foreign central banks — which engage in transactions with the Iranian central bank. Sanctions on transactions unrelated to petroleum take effect 60 days after the bill is signed into law, while sanctions on transactions related to petroleum take effect a minimum of six months after the bill’s signing.^[40] The bill grants the U.S. President authority to grant waivers in cases in which petroleum purchasers are unable, due to supply or cost, to significantly reduce their purchases of Iranian oil, or in which American national security is threatened by implementation of the sanctions.^[40][41] Following the signing into law of the NDAA, the Iranian rial fell significantly against the U.S. dollar, reaching a record low two days after the bill’s enactment, a change widely attributed to the expected impact of the new sanctions on the Iranian economy.^{[42][43][44][45]} Officials within the Iranian government have threatened to close theStrait of Hormuz, an important passageway for Middle East oil exports, should the U.S. press forward with the new sanctions, as planned.^[43][46]

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