Ripping up the Magna Carta.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Comment - National Defense Authorization Act

One of the promises Barack Obama made when he was running for President the first time around was to defend our civil liberties and restore our reputation overseas. But by signing the National Defense Authorization Act at the end of the year, he broke that promise.

This new law builds another floor atop the edifice of repression that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney erected while they were in office. It's right up there with the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the act that expanded domestic spying by the NSA in destroying the guarantees we thought we had to due process in America. It also makes it official: The United States is now a lawless country because key provisions of this act violate the Geneva Conventions.

The act enshrines the Bush-era practice of indefinite military detention without trial. And it greatly expands the categories of people the President can nab and throw into a military dungeon or kidnap and send abroad. U.S. citizens may now be in these expanded categories.

Under Bush's Authorization for Use of Military Force, which Congress passed after 9/11, the President was "authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons."

Under Section 1021 of the new law, this group has been expanded to include not just anyone who "was a part of or substantially supported" A1 Qaeda and the Taliban, but also broad and undefined "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces."

Note that the term "belligerent act" is not defined here. Nor is "associated forces." And note that anyone engaged in hostilities against "coalition partners" can be nabbed by the President and held indefinitely without trial. This gives the President the right to act as the Godfather against any person or group that is rebelling against one of our coalition partners, no matter how repressive that partner may be. So a Saudi or Bahraini dissident could conceivably fall within this category.

The new act says that those detained under the law of war may be placed under "detention ... without trial until the end of the hostilities." And since there is no end in sight for...