Senator Udall has proposed an amendment which is pretty much the best we can do. This is summary of Udall's amendment No. 1107:
Here’s a summary of the Udall
Amendment:
The amendment by Senator Mark
Udall would strike all of the detention provisions from the Defense
Authorization bill and, in their place, mandate a process for Congress to use
an orderly process to consider whether any detention legislation is
needed. Under the Udall amendment, the Administration would have 90 days
to report to Congress on its detention authority and any deficiencies, and
Congress would have 45 days to hold hearings and another 45 days to report out
any needed legislation. Instead of the rushed and confused process that
has created the current convoluted and harmful bill, Congress would follow
regular order and carefully review the issue. This is the type of
approach (even if it may be opposed by sponsors of the NDAA, who don’t want the
detention provisions stripped at all) that should be able to draw wide support
even from Senators who may be on the fence about the merits of the
issues.
The consensus of those opposing
the detainee provisions of the Defense Authorization bill is that the best
course now is to throw all effort into urging Senators to support the Udall
Amendment, rather than seeking tweaks to the language of any of the detainee
provisions. If you get any feedback from the Senators’ offices re where
they stand on the Udall Amendment, please shoot me an e-mail to let me know so I can pass it on to those working on this.
If you make calls, you might
also urge the Senators to vote against an amendment offered by Susan Collins
(we don’t have the Amendment #) that would make permanent some of the onerous
transfer restrictions.
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