[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 166 (Friday, December 21, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8336-S8340]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AIR FORCE STRUCTURE
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the National Defense
Authorization bill and how it will impact the structure of the Air
Force moving forward.
Of particular concern to me and my constituents is the Pittsburgh Air
Reserve Station, home of the 911th Airlift Wing located outside
Pittsburgh. In its FY13 request, the Air Force proposed the retirement
of the installation's C-130 fleet and, by connection, the closure of
911th. I have worked closely with the Pennsylvania delegation to fight
against this proposed closure and I would in particular like to thank
Senator Toomey and Congressmen Murphy, Doyle and Critz for all of their
work on this critical issue.
We all fought so hard against this proposed closure because we
believe that the Air Force proposal did not reflect a thorough analysis
of the merits of the 911th Airlift Wing, nor its associated cost
savings. In its FY13 Force Structure proposal, the Air Force did not
provide any analysis on how the closure of the 911th would impact the
local community. The lack of transparency associated with the Air
Force's initial proposal and infrastructure changes around the country
is extremely troubling. This is why I supported the freeze and the
establishment of the National Commission on the Structure of the Air
Force as mandated by the FY13 NDAA reported out of the Senate Armed
Services Committee.
The 911th is a very efficient and cost effective unit installation
that is truly part of the proudly patriotic community in the Pittsburgh
area. Its aircraft maintenance program has resulted in an increase of
aircraft availability days while saving the Pentagon more than $42
million over the last five years. Additionally, the Pentagon pays only
$20,000 to lease more than 100 acres for the Wing, which is a small sum
when compared to the parallel costs at other bases and installations.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, an incredibly skilled and
experienced workforce is employed at the 911th installation, a
significant and irreplaceable resource for the Air Force. It would be a
terrible waste of taxpayer dollars if this installation were to close
at this critical time.
I am disappointed in the conferees for removing language that we
voted on here in the Senate which would have frozen any infrastructure
changes within the Air Force in FY13. I think that this decision was
misguided and wrong.
But I understand that the bill also requires the Air Force to
maintain an additional combination of 32 C-130s and C-27s. I strongly
believe that the 911th is a prime candidate for a new mission that is
commensurate with the decades long experience of its workforce and
support from the community. On its merits and in the interests of the
taxpayer, a sustainable mission should be instituted at the 911th. I
think we are in a very strong position to make that case and I look
forward to working closely with the Air Force to protect this critical
installation.
It is in our National interests that our best citizens are able to
continue serving their country. In Pittsburgh, some of these citizens
have served our country proudly for generations. We should do all we
can to support this tradition of service because it makes economic
sense and is in our best national security interests.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to address the conference
report for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013
which we will vote on later today.
I will vote yes on this bill as I did on last year's bill even though
nothing in it effectively addresses indefinite military detention,
which 67 Members of this body are now on record opposing.
My colleagues will recall that I introduced, with a large bipartisan
group of cosponsors, an amendment that provided that U.S. citizens and
lawful permanent residents who are apprehended on U.S. soil cannot be
detained indefinitely, without charge or trial. The Senate passed this
amendment by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, 67 to 29. I am saddened
and disappointed that this detention amendment was dropped in
conference. I don't understand why we could not ensure that, at the
very least, American citizens and green card holders cannot be held
indefinitely without charge or trial. As I have said over the past few
days, to me this is a no-brainer and is a real missed opportunity.
The main reason I support this bill is because it authorizes $640.7
billion for fiscal year 2013 for the Department of Defense.
This funding ensures our troops deployed around the world--especially
those in Afghanistan--have the equipment, resources, and training they
need to defend this Nation. For example, the Defense bill fully funds
the President's budget request of $5.7 billion to build the capacity of
the Afghan National Security Forces so those forces can take over for
U.S. forces and take the security lead throughout Afghanistan by 2014.
The Defense authorization bill will also provide the resources
necessary to support our defense strategies and allow our military to
modernize equipment worn out after 11 years of war in the difficult
battlefield environments of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Such resources include investments in our Global Hawk unmanned
aircraft, which provide critical intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance information. These aircraft have also provided crucial
support for disaster response efforts, including for rescue workers in
the wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Japan.
To increase diplomatic security around the world and so that we learn
from the mistakes that took the lives of four Americans in Benghazi,
this bill requires the Secretary of Defense to develop a plan to
increase--by up to 1,000--the number of marines in the Marine Corps
security guard program to be able to deploy them to troubled facilities
to protect our personnel abroad.
As I mentioned, the Senate overwhelmingly passed, on a 67 to 29 vote,
the amendment to ban the indefinite detention of U.S. persons--citizens
and green card holders--without charge or trial.
The amendment would have updated the Non-Detention Act of 1971, which
clearly states:
No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the
United States except pursuant to an act of Congress.
The amendment would have built on the Non-Detention Act of 1971 so
that it applies to not just U.S. citizens but also to green card
holders. It would have provided that no military authorization allows
indefinite detention of U.S. citizens and green card holders
apprehended inside the United States.
The detention amendment stated:
An authorization to use military force, a declaration of
war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the
detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful
permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the
United States unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes
such detention.
Unfortunately, as soon as the amendment passed, the language was
misrepresented by critics on the left as well as proponents of
indefinite military detention on the right, particularly after a
handful of Senators who previously opposed this effort switched their
vote at the last minute.
Make no mistake, the amendment is not a Trojan horse designed to
surreptitiously authorize indefinite detention in the United States.
The text of the amendment is clear, and the legal experts I consulted
on the amendment agree.
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For example, Stephen Vladeck of American University, a law professor
who has litigated military detention issues in the Supreme Court and an
expert on national security law, testified this year before the Senate
Judiciary Committee on S. 2003, the Due Process Guarantee Act, which is
almost identical to the detention amendment to the Defense
authorization bill. Professor Vladeck reviewed the statements of
support for the amendment by Senators Carl Levin and Lindsey Graham--
both of whom advocated indefinite military detention powers in the
past.
Professor Vladeck wrote:
The Graham/Levin colloquy sought to cast [the Feinstein]
language as doing exactly the opposite of what it says, i.e.,
as confirming that U.S. citizens can be detained even within
the territorial United States pursuant to the logic of the
Supreme Court's opinion in Hamdi [v. Rumsfeld].
Professor Vladeck concluded that Senators Levin and Graham were
``exactly wrong'' because ``the plain text of the bill is simply
irreconcilable with that understanding.''
In another article, Vladeck and Georgetown Law Professor Marty
Lederman, another expert on military detention and national security,
wrote:
If it were to be enacted, the amendment would ensure that a
future president could not construe the September 18, 2001
Authorization for Use of Force (AUMF), the FY2012 NDAA, or
any comparable statute to authorize the military detention of
citizens and LPRs [lawful permanent residents] apprehended
within the United States.
I agree with these law professors--with whom I worked, in fact, on
the drafting of my bill and amendment. It is true the courts have
previously reached ambiguous and conflicting decisions regarding
whether U.S. persons apprehended on American soil may be subject to
indefinite detention under the laws of war. However, far from adding to
this ambiguity, I am confident this amendment would bring much-needed
clarification to this area of the law.
The Feinstein detention amendment would have updated the Non-
Detention Act of 1971 which Congress passed to repudiate the shameful
Japanese-American internment experience during World War II. That 1971
landmark legislation, which liberal critics of the detention amendment
have made no effort to overturn, protected only U.S. citizens from
detention. In contrast, the amendment broadens protections from
indefinite detention, protecting both green card holders, called
``lawful permanent residents'', as well as citizens.
At a time when civil liberties are under attack, we should not let
the perfect be the enemy of the good. As Professors Lederman and
Vladeck note, ``The new Feinstein amendment . . . does protect the vast
majority of persons in the United States from noncriminal detention
without express statutory authorization . . . .''
As I said during the floor debate on the amendment, I would support
extending the protections in the amendment to all persons in the United
States, whether lawfully or unlawfully present, but so far we have
lacked sufficient support in the Senate to do this. Most Republican
cosponsors of the bill said they would not support the legislation if
it went that far.
Other critics misrepresent the language of the amendment by charging
that it could be read to imply there is an authorization to
indefinitely detain illegal immigrants and legal visitors in the United
States. In doing this, they ignore the language in paragraph 3 that
explicitly prevents such an interpretation. Paragraph 3 of the
amendment clarifies that the text to be added to the Non-Detention Act
of 1971 ``shall not be construed to authorize the detention of a
citizen of the United States, a lawful permanent resident of the United
States, or any other person who is apprehended in the United States.''
Again, don't take my word for it. Professors Lederman and Vladeck say
that the amendment ``would do nothing of the sort.''
The bottom line: Indefinite military detention is incompatible with
our values, and this amendment would have been a major step forward to
make sure we never return to the dark chapter of American history when
we detained Japanese-American citizens out of fear during World War II.
Mr. President, some have pointed to section 1029 of the conference
report and said that it accomplishes what the Feinstein amendment would
have done. That is not true.
The amendment offered by Congressman Gohmert regarding habeas corpus,
which is now section 1029 of the underlying conference report, does
nothing except restate that constitutional rights to file a habeas
claim can't be denied.
Consider the exact text of this section, which reads:
SEC. 1029. RIGHTS UNAFFECTED.
Nothing in the Authorization for Use of Military Force or
the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012
shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of
habeas corpus or to deny any Constitutional rights in a court
ordained or established by or under Article III of the
Constitution to any person inside the United States who would
be entitled to the availability of such writ or to such
rights in the absence of such laws.
This provision doesn't do anything to add to the rights of
individuals inside the United States, such as citizens, because the
writ of habeas corpus is a constitutional right to appear before a
judge to challenge the legality of an individual's incarceration.
During the colonial period, habeas corpus was understood as a writ
available to a prisoner, ordering his jailer to appear with the
prisoner before a court of general jurisdiction and to justify the
confinement.
In the Constitution, after enumerating the powers of Congress, the
drafters inserted language guaranteeing the right to habeas when they
stated, ``The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be
suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public
Safety may require it.''
So habeas is a constitutional right that already applies to all
individuals found in the United States, and habeas rights even extend
to noncitizen detainees held in Guantanamo, who have never even set
foot in the United States.
This was the issue before the Supreme Court in the case of Rasul v.
Bush, 2004 where, in a 6-to-3 opinion written by Justice John Paul
Stevens, the Court found that noncitizen detainees at Guantanamo had
habeas corpus rights. Justice Stevens also wrote that the right to
habeas corpus is not dependent on citizenship status. The detainees
were therefore free to bring a habeas claim challenging their detention
as unconstitutional.
Because the Constitution already grants this right explicitly--
legislation purporting to grant this right is ineffective and simply
empty words, meant to make lawmakers feel good but not actually adding
anything to the rights of the American people.
The question is not whether Americans still have constitutional
rights to habeas. Of course that right and others that are guaranteed
by the Constitution remain in place. Rather, the question is, Should
the military be allowed to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens in the
first place? Should we allow the military to patrol our streets and
pick up citizens? I believe the answer to that question--both here in
the Senate and across the Nation--is a resounding no.
So I will continue to work to correct the flaws of the Fiscal Year
2012 National Defense Authorization Act, and I look forward to the
continued support of the 67 of my colleagues who voted for the
Feinstein amendment this year.
I am confident that eventually we will build the support for this
amendment that we need on the House side too. Therefore, it is only a
matter of time before we prevail. The Feinstein detention amendment is
what the American people want, and it would guarantee the fundamental
liberty that they deserve.
Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. President, last August Congress
enacted, with broad bipartisan support, the Iran Threat Reduction and
Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, a comprehensive sanctions bill I
coauthored. That legislation, blending various measures introduced by
my colleagues with new ideas developed by the Banking Committee,
imposed a range of tough new sanctions on the Government of Iran and
those who do business with it. This was done to tighten further the
squeeze on Iran's major revenue sources, and force its leaders finally
to come clean on Iran's illicit nuclear program. The third major piece
of Iran sanctions legislation to be enacted in the last 2 years, it
followed the Banking Committee's Comprehensive
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Iran Sanctions and Divestment Act in July of 2010, and the sanctions
imposed on Iran's oil purchases 1 year ago. Those combined sanctions
have had a powerful effect on Iran's economy, reducing its oil revenues
by up to $5 billion per month, and causing the value of its currency to
plummet.
The Defense Authorization conference report being considered today
includes a set of additional measures aimed at Iran which broaden and
deepen U.S. sanctions against its shipping, energy, shipbuilding and
military sectors, and those who deal with entities in these sectors.
They also require new sanctions against those supplying Iran certain
strategic materials, and expand the sanctions net to those who provide
Iran certain financial or insurance services.
All of these new sanctions, and those provided for in our legislation
in August which will come online soon, will be implemented at a
sensitive time, as the U.S. and our P5+1 allies prepare for what
President Obama has described as a renewed push to develop a negotiated
solution to this problem. The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is the
most pressing foreign policy challenge we face, and we must continue to
do all we can--politically, economically, and diplomatically--to avoid
that result. In the coming months, it will become clear whether Iran
will be willing finally to change course, and agree to the terms of the
international community to bring an end to its illicit nuclear program,
allow for intrusive international inspections of its nuclear sites and
activities, and stop its continued support for terrorism and abuses of
human rights. Given Iran's track record, there is considerable reason
to be skeptical. But the President continues to press to resolve these
issues diplomatically if possible, and if that can be done it is
obviously preferable to any military alternative. Isolated
diplomatically, economically, and otherwise, Iran must understand that
the patience of the international community is fast running out. Iran's
leaders can end the repression against their people, come clean on
their nuclear program, suspend enrichment, and stop supporting
terrorists around the globe, or they can continue to face sustained
multilateral economic and diplomatic pressure and deepen their
international isolation.
Let me say a final word about the process. The new measures contained
in this bill were offered as a Senate floor amendment, and did not come
through the Banking Committee. My view has always been that any
innovative legislative ideas that may help force Iran to engage in
successful negotiations are worthy of serious consideration. Even so,
in negotiating these provisions in a hurried conference committee
process, procedural objections raised by House Ways and Means Committee
majority staff because of the way the new provisions were offered
prompted them to insist on inserting certain exceptions related to
import restrictions on certain goods. While I regret that these
exceptions were added by the conferees, and think they may need to be
addressed in future legislation, they cannot be allowed to weaken or
undermine implementation of these sanctions or of the broader sanctions
regime already in place. Our staff worked hard, on a bipartisan basis,
to ensure that the final version preserves all of the President's very
powerful sanctions tools provided for under the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act, and does not undermine that authority in any way.
I am concerned that as we forward on sanctions an approach which is
inattentive to these existing authorities might actually
unintentionally undermine them.
As we all recognize, economic sanctions are not an end--they are a
means to an end--to apply enough pressure to secure agreement from
Iran's leaders to fully, completely and verifiably abandon their
illicit nuclear activities. The Banking Committee will continue to
assertively oversee the President's implementation of the comprehensive
sanctions regime, and do all we can to provide all the tools he needs
to resolve these issues with Iran.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of our time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, let me thank Senator Pryor for his
tremendous contribution to this bill and to this body. The fight he is
waging here is the correct fight. This was not done well by the Air
Force, to put it mildly. We froze it. They amended it. We have some
problems with the amendment, but we had to reach a compromise with the
House, which favored their modified bill, and there are some rough
edges to it.
The Senator from Arkansas has very eloquently pointed out one of
those rough edges. We put in this place in this bill a commission to
try to avoid these kinds of problems in the future. That does not help
this year. I wish it could. But, nonetheless, it is because of the
efforts of the Senator from Arkansas and others, who pointed out the
defects in the process this year, that we have been able to, hopefully,
avoid a repetition of this in the future. I thank him for the many
contributions he has made to this bill. His fight for his home State is
passionate and effective, and I commend him for it.
Mr. President, I yield back our time, if we have any remaining.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
The question is on the adoption of the conference report.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Massachusetts (Mr. Brown), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr.
DeMint), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from
Kansas (Mr. Moran).
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 81, nays 14, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 229 Leg.]
YEAS--81
Akaka
Alexander
Ayotte
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Blumenthal
Blunt
Boozman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Graham
Hagan
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Johnson (WI)
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
Manchin
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Rubio
Schumer
Sessions
Shaheen
Shelby
Snowe
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Toomey
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Vitter
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wicker
NAYS--14
Barrasso
Crapo
Durbin
Enzi
Franken
Grassley
Harkin
Leahy
Lee
Merkley
Paul
Risch
Sanders
Wyden
NOT VOTING--4
Brown (MA)
DeMint
Kirk
Moran
The conference report was agreed to.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as a Senator, I have no greater
responsibility than to work to ensure our Nation's security. Our Armed
Forces must have the tools they need to keep our country safe. That is
why I support the vast majority of the provisions in the National
Defense Authorization Act and why I supported the bill that passed the
Senate. I particularly note provisions that increase pay and benefits
for our servicemembers and retirees, ensure a drawdown of our troops in
Afghanistan, allow female servicemembers access to basic health
services if they are victims of sexual assault, and limit the annual
increases in TRICARE prescription drug premiums. All of these
provisions I support and believe are important.
I oppose this bill because I do not believe it adequately reflects
our principles. I believe we can do a better job of protecting our
national security without compromising important values than what is
contained in this legislation.
This Nation has long been a beacon of liberty and a champion of
rights throughout the world. Yet since 9/11, in the name of security,
we have repeatedly betrayed our highest values. The
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past administration believed it could eavesdrop on Americans without a
warrant or court order. It utilized interrogation techniques long
considered immoral, ineffective, and illegal, regardless of laws and
treaties. And, it intentionally sought to put detainees beyond the rule
of law. Thankfully, the current administration has ended the worst
abuses of these practices, despite the efforts of some of my colleagues
to stymie these efforts.
However, I am deeply concerned that the conference report continues
us on a dangerous path of sacrificing long-held principles.
To begin, this bill fails to make clear that under no circumstance
can an American citizen be detained indefinitely without trial. When
the bill was considered in the Senate, I was proud to join 66 of my
colleagues in supporting an amendment, authored by Senator Feinstein,
which sought to clarify that the law does not authorize the President
to indefinitely detain an American seized in the United States and
indefinitely detain them without charges and without due process. I am
heartened that President Obama has made clear he will not attempt to
exercise such power, but I am greatly disappointed that the conference
report omitted this language.
Moreover, the bill would make it much more difficult to close the
detention center at Guantanamo Bay. There simply is no compelling
reason to keep the facility open and not to bring these detainees to
maximum security facilities within the United States. The detention
center has been, and continues to be, a stain on our Nation's honor. I
agree with former Secretary of State Colin Powell who said ``we have
shaken the belief that the world had in America's justice system by
keeping [the detention center at Guantanamo Bay] open. We don't need it
and it's causing us far more damage than any good we get for it.''
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration declared
a broad and open-ended ``war on terror.'' I have always considered this
a flawed description of the challenge that confronted us after the 9/11
attacks. After all, ``terror'' is an endlessly broad and vague term.
And a ``war on terror'' is a war that can never end, because terrorism
and terrorists will always be with us. Because of the never-ending
nature of this so-called ``war on terror,'' it offers a rationale for
restricting civil liberties indefinitely. This is not healthy for our
democracy or for our ability to inspire other countries to abide by
democratic principles.
We will not overcome terrorism with secret prisons, with torture,
with degrading treatment, with individuals denied basic rights. Rather,
we shall overcome it by staying true to our highest values and by
insisting on legal safeguards that are the very basis of our system of
government and freedom.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today, the Senate voted, by voice vote, to
approve the conference report to accompany H.R. 4310, the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013. As it always
does, the NDAA included a number of important provisions, including
critical authorizations for our troops in uniform, for essential
defense programs to promote and protect our national security both at
home and abroad, and for important programs that keep ours the greatest
military in the world.
The conference report approved today also includes two important
provisions which I was proud to support. The Dale Long Public Safety
Officers Benefits Improvements Act will fill a gap in existing law and
extend the Federal Public Safety Officers/Benefits program to
paramedics and emergency medical technicians who work or volunteer for
nonprofit ambulance services, and their families, when they are
disabled or killed in the line of duty. And important measures relating
to Department of Defense law enforcement officers are also included.
While I am pleased this conference report includes important elements
such as these, I remain deeply concerned about several troubling
provisions that remain in the law relating to the indefinite detention
of individuals without charge or trial and the conference report drops
the Senate amendment we adopted to protect against abuses. The
indefinite detention and mandatory detention provisions that were
enacted in last year's defense authorization bill undermine our
Nation's fundamental principles of due process and civil liberties, and
I have worked to eliminate or fix these flawed provisions.
Earlier this month, during debate on the Senate bill, we took a
positive step toward fixing these flawed provisions by adopting an
amendment offered by Senator Feinstein that I supported to clarify that
our government cannot detain indefinitely any citizen or legal
permanent resident apprehended in the United States. More than two-
thirds of the Senate voted in favor of this amendment, and I viewed
this as a constructive part of our efforts to undo some of the damage
from last year's NDAA. During the Senate debate on the detention
provisions this year, I stated again my belief that the vital
protections of our Constitution extend to all persons here in the
United States, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.
Nonetheless, I voted for this amendment to affirm that indefinite
detention has no place in our justice system.
Inexplicably, however, the Feinstein amendment was stripped from the
final bill during conference negotiations between the House and Senate.
Despite such broad Senate support for the Feinstein amendment, the
conference report no longer expressly reaffirms that U.S. citizens and
legal permanent residents in America cannot be detained indefinitely
without charge or trial. Instead, we are left with the status quo of
restrictions and prohibitions on the transfer of detainees that leaves
us no closer to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo once and
for all.
I have repeatedly said that I am fundamentally opposed to indefinite
detention without charge or trial. I fought against the Bush
administration policies that led to the current situation, with
indefinite detention as the de facto policy. I opposed President
Obama's executive order in March 2011 that contemplated indefinite
detention, and I helped lead the efforts against the detention-related
provisions in last year's NDAA. A policy of indefinite detention has no
place in the justice system of any democracy--let alone the greatest
democracy in the world.
The American justice system is the envy of the world, and a regime of
indefinite detention diminishes the credibility of this great Nation
around the globe, particularly when we criticize other governments for
engaging in such conduct, and as new governments in the midst of
establishing legal systems look to us as a model of justice. Indefinite
detention contradicts the most basic principles of law that I have
pledged to uphold since my years as a prosecutor and in our senatorial
oath to defend the Constitution. That is why I have opposed and will
continue to oppose indefinite detention.
In addition to failing to rectify the indefinite detention provisions
from last year's NDAA in the conference report, I also continue to be
deeply disturbed by the mandatory military detention provisions that
were included in last year's NDAA through Section 1022. In the fight
against al Qaeda and other terrorist threats, we should give our
intelligence, military, and law enforcement professionals all the tools
they need. These limitations abandon our full arsenal of powers. I
remain concerned that the mandatory military detention requirements are
overly broad and threaten core constitutional principles. Once
sacrificed, our treasured constitutional protections are not easily
restored. After all, the policy directive of this President can be
undone by a future administration.
I find the detention provisions enacted through last year's NDAA and
the failure to fix them this year deeply troublesome. I am also
concerned about the extension of overly burdensome restrictions and
conditions on the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo, even those who
have already been found to have had no connection to terrorism. These
provisions do not represent Vermont values, they do not represent
American values, and they have no place in this world. As a result of
the failure of the conferees to seriously address these fundamental
wrongdoings and support the principles of our Constitution, I am unable
to support final passage of this year's NDAA. Moving forward, as I did
last year, I hope to foster a broader discussion about these issues and
work to
[[Page S8340]]
make concrete changes to protect American values and champion the rule
of law. We need a bipartisan effort to guarantee that the United States
remains the model for the rule of law to the world.
There is one additional provision that has been excluded from this
conference report that is of concern to me and a number of Senators and
Congressmen. Both the House and Senate approved in their defense
authorization bills language to freeze Air National Guard and Air Force
Reserve manpower and force structure in the wake of the Air Force's
announced intention to disproportionately target the National Guard as
it prepared for Budget Control Act cuts. I joined Senator Graham,
Representative Hunter and Representative Walz in leading a letter to
the conferees signed by 87 members of Congress in support of continuing
the freeze and preserving the National Commission on the Structure of
the Air Force which was included in the Senate-passed Defense
Authorization Act.
I was surprised to see that the conferees rewrote these provisions,
instead adopting in this conference report an Air Force proposal that
had been neither reviewed nor debated by either chamber. While the
final conference report does preserve the National Commission on the
Structure of the Air Force, I believe it does not go far enough to
protect the fundamental needs and strength of our Air National Guard.
I will continue to work with others here in Congress who believe, as
I do, that the Guard represents much of what is best about our
country's military.
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