Court has addressed and upheld the issue of indefinite detention of U.S. citizens, this argument is misleading. The provision I am most concerned about would authorize the government to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen apprehended on U.S. soil, and the U.S. Supreme Court has never addressed this issue. Moreover, it is not for the Supreme Court to decide for Congress what is and what is not constitutional. As James Madison and Thomas Jefferson explained, each branch of government must carefully and conscientiously interpret the Constitution for itself. Accordingly, as a U. S. Senator, I have an independent obligation, consistent with and required by my oath to our founding document, to uphold the Constitution of the United States. And that means having more restraint than simply doing everything the courts will tolerate. During the debate over the NDAA, I was an original cosponsor of a bipartisan amendment to ensure that the full constitutional rights of American citizens would be protected. Our amendment would have ensured the proper balance between individual liberty and national security; however, it failed in a vote and was not added to the bill.
Several weeks later I helped introduce the Due Process Guarantee Act (S.2003), which clarifies that a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force by Congress does not authorize the indefinite detention of American citizens or legal residents who are apprehended in the United States. Americans who commit treason, or plot treasonous acts, should and will be punished for their crimes. But granting the United States government the power to deprive its own citizens of life, liberty, or property without full due process of law goes against the very nature of our nation’s constitutional values. Preventing tyranny is, at the same time, empowering liberty. And where there is more freedom, there is greater prosperity. Our constitutional guarantees have made this the most prosperous nation on earth, and thereby one of the safest. We should not be tampering with the wisdom that produced these results.
We simply cannot give up on the Constitution every time we feel threatened. The Constitution does not lose meaning when the country faces such threats; rather, that is when the Constitution’s meaning is most profound and most needed.
Mike Lee is a U.S. Senator from the state of Utah and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
15 Young American Revolution