Firstly, look again at the actual legal powers of detention just to be clear on what can and can't be done.
Yeah, this law did something new : it clarify and make definitive the right to arrest and to detain indefinitely without trial or civil supervision, any civilian suspected of supporting terrorism. And that's why Obama must go down.
Not really. If it were to be used in that way it would be fragrantly unconstitutional and struck down. Expect far more restrained abuse, if there is any, similar to we have seen in the past. A congressional hand wave does not grant permission to ignore the constitution.
If you want to attack Obama on his civil liberties/executive power/war powers record, go ahead. I'll hand you
the ammo. But let's make sure we are criticising the right things. I find it very hard to back people when they spend all their time beating on strawmen, and the willingness of people to take a strawman version of this bill rather than deal with the actual issues directly has been really off-putting.
Congress acting on this issue is a
good thing. It makes the debate public and gives people a real chance to vote on it. No president is going to unilaterally give up these powers. Hell, I doubt even Ron Paul would. It would be an uphill battle against the institutions required to run the country (CIA, military, State Department, etc). It would have massive political costs while reducing your toolkit for dealing with problems down the line. In the end it might be the right thing to do but it would be untellably hard, weaken the presidents position inside and outside of the administration and cost more in blood and treasure down the line. In particular the problem is unlikely to be even reconsidered till the current detainees have been dealt with and no more are pouring in from active conflicts. Arguably Obama has been taking steps to make that day come, although few have been particularly happy with the exact direction of those steps.
We shouldn't want the president to have this power, but that means either hoping the courts rule against it (which they haven't and won't) or congress steps in and applies it's own limits.
The current political climate, within congress at least, is to keep their hands clean and away from these issues entirely. However, some political point scoring was available and so they had a go on the detention mandate and GTMO closure blocks. That meant they had to at least put their hands on the issue, however lightly. Their debate was utterly inconclusive, with no appetite for changing or even really defining the limits of the detention program.
But now it is a congressional issue. It's a valid reason to consider your votes and something congress-critters should be answering and talking about during their campaigns. Hopefully this means that a couple years down the line we might have something approaching sanity in detention policy. It means it's going to be brought up during the elections and Obama will be forced to answer to the worst aspects of his presidency so far.
While the bill was a bad one, for the reasons usually ignored (
and I doubt people even noticed the sexiest part - the US may now actively engage in offensive cyberwarfare), it's secondary effects on detainee policy in the long view might be massively more positive than if the issue was never brought up in congress. I'd rather we had a congress that would have implemented sensible controls first, but then if we had the congress I prefer I doubt the USA would still be united. So there we go.
