It is time to turn that page. Related Issues Detention National Security. Leave this field blank. The new Executive Order gives the government, through the Secretary of Labor, the right to proactively mobilize U.
What is extraordinary about the Executive Order is that, like the NDAA, this can all be done in peacetime without any national emergency to justify it. The language of the Order does not state that all these extraordinary measures will be done in the event of "national security" or a "national emergency. As Orwell famously said in , "War is peace. Peace is war. Finally, the NDAA was hurried through the House and Senate almost like a covert op with minimal public attention or debate.
It was then signed by the president at PM on New Year's Eve while virtually nobody was paying attention to much other than the approaching new year. This new Executive Order was written and signed in complete secret and then quietly released by the White House on its website without comment. All this was done under a president who studied constitutional law at Harvard. When can the government declare it? Who does so? How is all of this done? First, like we mentioned in our last post , martial law means more than merely the military showing up.
That often happens in just about any national crisis. For example, the military went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to provide aid, but that was not martial law. Instead, martial law not only involves military presence, but the suspension of habeas corpus. Either way there is no denying that security is an issue going forward and that the overreaction of governments to a myriad security risks poses its own set of problems and challenges.
I've written in the past that people concerned with civil liberties should begin to walk away from the old left-right dichotomy entirely and focus on electing civil libertarians to congress whether these are members of the left like Russ Feingold or of the right like Rand Paul. We have few options available to us at this point. The NDAA may be challenged in the courts, and this will almost certainly happen if the president or a future president actually makes use of the powers related to US citizens.
Even then, however, the courts could come down on either side. The Supreme Court is not exactly filled to the brim with civil libertarians. Until that time, however, we can try to abandon politics-as-usual and focus on electing politicians who care more about curtailing government excess than expanding government power endlessly in our never-ending War on Terror. And we can use technology, social media, and other tools at our disposal to act outside of politics altogether to work to create alternate institutions and communities.
Look at what Reddit has done with its boycott of GoDaddy. The power of online activism is only just emerging.
Technology may only be a tool, but I think we'll discover that it's a powerful one. Read my Forbes blog here. This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here. More From Forbes. May 6, , am EDT. Feb 9, , am EST.
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