HB1160

II am concerned that the HB1160's prohibition against the participation of Virginia government agencies and employees in the indefinite detentions of US citizens under NDAA is indirect and as of now subject to great flexibility in interpretation.  There are two principal reasons for this. 

A.  Even though a person knowledgeable in the Fifth Amendment and the Virginia Declaration of Rights can tell without hesitation that NDAA is unconstitutional, most Va. state employees and possibly even state and county law enforcement officers are not knowledgeable in these areas, and given the fact that the NDAA provision in question has not been held contrary to either the US or Va. constitutions or laws of Va., many could find themselves in a precarious situation in deciding whether to cooperate.  The addition of the governor's word "knowingly" only makes matters even worse.    

B. Under a variety of easily imaginable circumstances, the US military could ask for State assistance without giving the State any explanations as to the intent of the detention, or even the identity of the targeted person(s).  They would be even less likely to do this in light of HB1160.

In my view, a bill with real teeth would say that the state agencies and employees may participate in operations that could conceivably subject US citizens to indefinite detention, only fi and when the US military provides specific and official guarantee that the requested cooperation is NOT to facilitate detention of US citizens pursuant to the offending provisions of NDAA.

Actually, my bill would prohibit all cooperation of the Virginia State agencies, employees, state and local law enforcement with the US military unless and until the NDAA's provisions allowing indefinite detention of US citizens is removed.