Cassandra Joiner
SACRAMENTO – Assemblyman Donnelly’s Assembly Bill 351 – the Liberty
Preservation Act – passed out of the Senate Public Safety Committee
today with a 7-0 vote.
On the eve December 31, 2011, President Obama reauthorized the
National Defense Authorization Act – a military spending bill that
specifies the United States Department of Defense’s annual budget and
expenditures – with two additional sections which provide the federal
government the power to indefinitely detain any American citizen without
charge or trial.
“The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or
geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to
militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield,” said
Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU’s Executive Director in a recent press
release.
A.B. 351 would prohibit California authorities from complying with
sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA. Both of these statutes violate the
First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eight, and Fourteenth Amendments of the
United States Constitution.
“A.B. 351 will preserve Californian’s rights from a government that
has grown far beyond its morally or Constitutionally justifiable
authority,” Assemblyman Donnelly said, “We cannot allow the federal
government to unilaterally strip us of our rights.”
A.B. 351 was referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee.