In the March hearing, the US lawyers had confirmed that yes, the NDAA
does give the President the power to lock up people like journalist
Chris Hedges and peaceful activists like myself and other plaintiffs.
Government attorneys have stated on record that even war correspondents
could be locked up indefinitely under the NDAA.
Judge Katherine Forrest
had ruled for a temporary injunction against an unconstitutional
provision in this law – after government attorneys refused to provide
assurances to the court that plaintiffs and others would not be
indefinitely detained for engaging in first amendment activities. Twice
the government has refused to define what it means to be an “associated
force”, and it claimed the right to refrain from offering any clear
definition of this term, or clear boundaries of power under this law.

This past week’s hearing was even more terrifying: incredibly, in this
hearing, Obama’s attorneys refused to assure the court, when questioned,
that the NDAA’s provision – one that permits reporters and others who
have not committed crimes to be detained without trial -- has not been
applied by the US government anywhere in the world -- AFTER Judge
Forrest’s injunction. In other words, they were saying to a US judge
that they could not or would not state whether Obama’s government had
complied with the legal injunction that she had lain down before them.
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