Mostly, I'm saying that "sure, they may have determined now that is theft was not to aid al-Qaeda, but they may have initially believed it was for that purpose; an NDAA detention on that basis would be supported by the text of the NDAA -- and uncontradicted by any public executive policy -- and consistent with the 'secret arrest' description, and not inconsistent with a later determination that that status did not apply accompanied by a decision to pursue normal criminal charges in the civilian justice system."
(I did mention further upthread that the procedural nature of the NDAA detention also practically makes pretextual ascription of association with al-Qaeda or other groups covered within the NDAA a real risk, but that wasn't my primary contention.)
> The NDAA has nothing to do with this story.
I've actually explicitly said that that is most likely the case.
> I don't know why you're so diligently trying to make the case that it does.
I'm not. I only got into the NDAA because of your factually inaccurate description of its requirements in your overzealous attempt to support your equally factually incorrect claim that there is no statutory basis for federal law enforcement to detain U.S. citizens without counsel in "secret arrests".
Had you merely argued that the circumstances here made it appear unlikely that the statutory authority authorizing such detention would either be strictly applicable or invoked by the administration, the character of my response (if I even saw a point to responding) would have been very different.
