WASHINGTON – Barely two months after President Obama authorized the indefinite detention of Americas, two members of U.S. Congress are asking fellow lawmakers to approve a bill that will repeal a controversial provision of the NDAA.

U.S. President Barack Obama inked the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year’s Eve, essentially allowing the American Armed Forces to indefinitely detain any suspected terrorist, including Americans, without ever bringing them to trial. Though President Obama has spoken out against the act — the very same one he signed — the legislation is currently in effect and allows the U.S. government to grossly strip away rights otherwise guaranteed by the country’s Constitution.

The federal government has already gone to the NDAA to support the continued detention of alleged foreign terrorists, but two members of Congress, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington and Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, are asking other lawmakers in the House and Senate to sign their name on a bill that will make sure anyone — American or not — will be given a fair trial.

“The goal here is to have clarity, first of all, on how these people are handled in the U.S., and second of all, to reassert the primacy and the importance of our civil justice system,” Smith says of the proposed bill. “It is our contention that our civil justice system absolutely protects us from the threat in this case.”

Although he signed the NDAA into law, President Obama has opposed the own legislation that his administration helped create. Since being authorized last year though, some lawmakers have proposed solutions of their own even before Smith and Udall offered their alternative. Elected officials in the states of Virginia, Washington and Utah have already drafted legislation of their own that reverses the indefinite detention provision, Section 1021 of the NDAA, in their own state. Additionally, Texas congressman and presidential hopeful Ron Paul has offered a bill on his own that would negate the controversial conditions within the act. As none of these laws have yet to be approved, though, Smith and Udall hope that the federal government will give in to increased pressure and pull the plug. 

“More than 10 years later, one thing has become absolutely clear: our criminal justice system in the U.S. is 100 percent adequate to take care of this problem,” says Smith. “But at the same time, on the books we have a law that gives the executive branch the power to indefinitely detain people here in the U.S., even U.S. citizens. And we believe that we should take that off the books.”           

-RT