The Non-Detention Act of 1971 was passed to repeal portions of
McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, specifically Title II, the "Emergency Detention Act". The
United States statute repealed the Emergency Detention Act of 1950 provisioning the
United States Attorney General powers for
detention of any American or non-American citizen deemed as a threat to the
national security of the United States. The 64 Stat. 1019 statute was codified within ''Title 50 War and National Defense'' as §§ 811-826.
The H.R. 234
legislation
Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to ...
was passed by the 92nd United States Congressional session and enacted into law by the
37th President of the United States Richard Nixon on September 25, 1971.
Content of the Law
The McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 allowed for detention of suspected subversives without the normal Constitutional checks required for imprisonment. The Non-Detention Act requires specific Congressional authorization for such detention. Passed as Public Law 92-128, 85 Stat. 347 (1971), it was codified at 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a).
§ 4001. Limitation on detention
:(a) No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress.
In recent years, the statute has been used to challenge military detainment of U.S. citizens accused of terrorist activity. A Congressional Research Service report on the history of the Non-Detention Act concluded,
Legislative debate, committee reports, and the political context of 1971 indicate that when Congress enacted Section 4001(a) it intended the statutory language to restrict all detentions by the executive branch, not merely those by the Attorney General. Lawmakers, both supporters and opponents of Section 4001(a), recognized that it would restrict the President and military authorities.
Judicial Proceeding of Law
The
Supreme Court of the United States originally took the case of ''
Rumsfeld v. Padilla'' to decide the question of whether Congress's
Authorization for Use of Military Force authorized the President to detain a U.S. citizen, but did not give an answer, instead ruling that the case had been improperly filed.
See also
*
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War ...
*
''Ex parte Quirin (1942)''
*
Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist, broader than just Hollywood, put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War. The blacklist involved the practice of denying empl ...
*
House Un-American Activities Committee
*
''Korematsu v. United States (1944)''
*
Red Scare
*
Rex 84
Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984, was a classified scenario and drill developed by the United States federal government to detain large numbers of United States citizens deemed to be " national security threats" in the event that the pres ...
References
External links
Text of the statuteCRS Report for Congress: Detention of U.S. Citizens
United States federal criminal legislation
1971 in law
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