PA Senate Candidate Scaringi: US Citizens’ Rights Must Not be Surrendered in War on Terror

The “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, wrote, “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” Regrettably, tyranny and oppression have already arrived in America in certain sections of the Patriot Act, the TSA’s invasive procedures at our airports and presidential-ordered assassinations of U.S. citizens among other examples. Now, the Congress is poised to violate the Constitution again in the name of the War on Terror.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has co-authored S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Section 1031 of this bill will allow the U.S. military to capture and detain indefinitely an American citizen on U.S. soil who the President suspects is involved in terrorism. Thus, this bill will deny U.S. citizens basic Constitutional rights such as the right to a trial, to bail, to an attorney, to be presented with the charges against them and other rights and protections afforded to all Americans under the U.S. Constitution.

Furthermore, not only does this bill strip U.S. citizens suspected of being involved in terrorism of their Constitutional rights, Section 1031 also essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a staunch supporter of this bill, declared on the floor of the U.S. Senate this bill declares all of the United States is now part of the “battlefield,” and he apparently intends for U.S. troops to be engaged on the ground here in America.

Senators McCain and Graham are urging two dangerous proposals that will infringe substantially upon the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and push America closer to a dictatorship under martial law. That is why I congratulate Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) for taking to the U.S. Senate floor recently to challenge Senator McCain and to defend the Constitutional rights of the American people. That is also why I support Senator Paul’s amendment, S. 1062, to strike the offending section, S. 1031, of the National Defense Authorization Act.

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