Our Nazi government taking away our rights

While we were distracted by the Republican circus in Iowa or celebrating the New Year, President Barack Obama was busily signing the infamous National Defense Authorization Act, which had passed both the House and the Senate by huge majorities of both Republicans and Democrats.

NDAA forfeits our most basic civil liberty — actually, all their civil liberties — apparently without a whimper from the citizens or the media. It empowers the government to designate any U.S. citizen within the country as a terrorist and to have the military hold him indefinitely without trial and without the right to habeas corpus, the right to be brought before a court for a judgment on the legality of one’s imprisonment.

In effect the legislation is a declaration of martial law throughout the country.

And, in case you are not sufficiently alarmed, consider the recent order from our government to activate our concentration camps. Those are among the more than 600 installations constructed by Halliburton during the Dubya Bush administration and modeled after the infamous death camps of Nazi Germany. When the former governor of Minnesota investigated a number of the prison camps, he saw huge piles of coffins just waiting to be stuffed.

And what makes you think that you won’t be joining me in one of those gulags for some minor infraction or rumor?

JOSEPH WYTHE

Sandpoint