[tptacek]

I'm guessing it just means the indictment is sealed, and maybe (but probably not) that the accused and their counsel are under some kind of gag order.

There's no statute or authority or even articles at ACLU or in law journals I can find that suggest that federal law enforcement can detain US citizens without counsel in "secret arrests", or, for that matter, suspend habeas.

Obviously: they can do that. But it's a very big deal when they do. They had to back off charges from Jose Padilla because of how they mishandled that case.

[joering2]

good start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...

... under the NDAA "an American citizen can be detained forever without trial, while the allegations against you go uncontested because you have no right to see them"

[tptacek]

The 2012 NDAA policy you're citing requires the detainee to be a member of Al Qaeda.

[dragonwriter]

> The 2012 NDAA policy you're citing requires the detainee to be a member of Al Qaeda.

No, they don't either in principal (the application in the text is much broader than specifically al-Qaeda -- it includes al-Qaeda, the Taliban, "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners", and other who commit a belligerent act against the US or its coalition partners that is seen to be "in aid to" those organizations), nor in practice, because the specific allegations justifying the detention need not be disclosed, nor even the specific detention publicly disclosed, and detentions under the act, while they permit trial by military tribunal, do not require any juridical process or access to counsel to be provided -- that's rather the point of indefinite detention -- there's essentially no practical boundary to their application (if some sympathetic third party becomes aware of the detention, its possible they might be the subject of habeas corpus proceedings, which would require some showing that there was reason to believe that the person was within the fairly broad scope in the text of the act, but that's by no means a certainty in any particular detention.)

[tptacek]

You're responding to me as if I'm justifying the indefinite detention clause of the NDAA. I am not. I am saying it does not apply here, and none of the additional color you've provided changes that --- that there are other parties named in current live AUMF's doesn't make this doofus contractor a member of one of them.

You might also look at Obama's signing statement of the NDAA for more evidence for that argument.

[dragonwriter]

> You're responding to me as if I'm justifying the indefinite detention clause of the NDAA. I am not.

No, I'm respodning to you as if you were making an inaccurate fact claim about the NDAA, which you were, whether you refer to what the act says on its face or, even moreso, what the practical result of the authority in the act is.

> I am saying it does not apply here

No, that's not what you said that I responded to. Had you said that, I would not have responded as I did. In any case, theft of secrets in aid of an enemy is a belligerent act, so (even if subsequent investigation ruled out that the acts were done in support of al-Qaeda), were the Administration to, in good faith, believe that the acts were carried out on behalf of or in aid of al-Qaeda, the act here would fall within the ambit of the bare text of the NDAA.

(It wouldn't fall within the requirements of PPD-14, but PPD-14 by its own terms addresses only executive policy on the applicability military custody requirement of Section 1022 of the NDAA, a requirement which applies to a subset of the population for which indefinite detention is authorized by Section 1021 of the NDAA.)

Note I am not saying that the administration treated this as a detention under the NDAA, merely that the concept that the NDAA could -- consistent with the text of the Act -- have been applied here is not at all farfetched.

[tptacek]

From what reporting anywhere are you generating the notion that this guy stole secrets in the aid of Al Qaeda or some other enemy named in a current AUMF? You're dodging.

Again, also, please take a moment to read Obama's NDAA signing statement. He is still the President.