Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy (right in Constitution photo montage, opposite Madison) wrote a piece for PJ Media describing an article about the NDAA written by Joe Wolverton in The New American as "hysteria" and "absurd."

Readers will recall the words of James Madison, who warned:

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

As for the NDAA’s creation ex nihilo of a presidential power to deploy the military to arrest Americans suspected of posing a military threat to the homeland, McCarthy argues that, “the NDAA does not authorize the military to arrest American citizens inside the United States. Instead, it codifies the pre-existing constitutional authority to hold enemy combatants in military detention. Domestic apprehensions are still done by the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies, not the armed forces.”

Again, one would expect an attorney trained in the language of the law, as was Andrew McCarthy, to be a bit more capable of appreciating nuances in the text of the statutes, including the NDAA.

To aid his understanding, we suggest that McCarthy read the words of Section 1021 of the NDAA more closely. This provision says that the military is not required to detain American citizens. That is hardly the same as saying that the military is forbidden from doing so.

Click here to read the entire article.