Senate Votes to Guarantee a Freedom That Everyone Thought Was Granted by the Constitution After the Revolutionary War

Better 230 Years Late Than Never

When the heroes of the Revolutionary War won, one of the things everyone thought they had won were basic rights, like the right that the government could not arrest someone and lock them up indefinitely.  Turns out that was apparently not true.  So now the U. S. Senate has just passed a law saying that it is true, that the United Stated Government cannot arrest and detain indefinitely.

The Senate voted late on Thursday to prohibit the government from imprisoning American citizens and green card holders apprehended in the United States in indefinite detention without trial.

 And yes there were opponents to this move.  Some of them had good intentions.

While the move appeared to bolster protections for domestic civil liberties, it was opposed by an array of rights groups who claimed it implied that other types of people inside the United States could be placed in military detention, opening the door to using the military to perform police functions.

And some not.

Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, objected to the restriction on security grounds, saying that even American citizens arrested inside the United States on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack for Al Qaeda should be held under the laws of war and interrogated without receiving the protections of ordinary criminal suspects, like a Miranda warning of a right to remain silent.

Of course, Sen. Ayotte is angling for a place on the Republican ticket in 2016, so throwing a few basic American freedoms under the bus should be expected as she tries to appeal to the anti-American block of voters, ie, conservatives.