FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Benjamin Selecky

ma@alternetmedia.com/panda

Three and Counting: Webster, MA Blocks NDAA

Editor’s Note: Due to the launch of the Take Back Campaign, spreading like wildfire across America, this release has been delayed. It was slated to publish on October 22nd, the day after the victory.

Webster, MA – PANDA Massachusetts is pleased to announce its latest civil rights victory. Webster Massachusetts has passed the Webster Restoring Constitutional Governance Resolution (RCGR) by a near unanimous margin. This resolution provides inhabitants of Webster their first legal defense against indefinite detentions since passage of the 2012 NDAA. The overwhelming support for Webster's RCGR tells elected officials throughout Worcester County and all of Massachusetts that the citizens here in the Cradle of Liberty will never give up their cherished basic civil rights.

Many Massachusetts towns, including Webster, make policy via Town Meetings whereby everyday citizens vote on issues that come up for debate. Each issue requires a number of signatures to qualify for the meeting agenda; once on the agenda, the townspeople decide on the issue directly.

Webster residents voted 95% in favor of the PANDA-sponsored resolution. Local resident Ken Mandile successfully presented the case for a Yes vote.

“America's Founding Fathers would be proud of the people of Webster. They expected local and state governments to defend their people against sweeping civil rights abuses and that is exactly what we have done here in Webster," Mandile said. "With our growing momentum at the local level, PANDA's pending State House legislation will have the vitally important grassroots backing it will need to pass statewide next year.”

About PANDA and the NDAA

The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011. The 2012 NDAA declared the United States is now a battlefield in the war on terror and Sections 1021 & 1022 authorized the indefinite detention, without charge or trial, of any person, including American citizens, accused by the President of undefined "support" of terrorist activity or commission of a ‘belligerent act."  This vagueness violates multiple provisions of the US Constitution, in addition to the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th amendments.

People Against the NDAA (PANDA) is a national, nonpartisan organization founded in January 2012. PANDA is committed to reversing the NDAA’s unconstitutional sections by passing civil rights protections at the state and local levels which reassert and uphold the Bill of Rights as the highest law of the land.  PANDA originated in Bowling Green, OH and has since expanded into over 30 state teams nationwide.

The tide is now turning against the NDAA’s detention provisions. Webster’s Resolution states:


“…it is unconstitutional, and therefore unlawful for any person to:

a. arrest or capture any person in Webster, or citizen of Webster, within the United States, with the intent of “detention under the law of war,” or

b. actually subject a person in Webster, to “disposition under the law of war,” or

c. subject any person to targeted killing in Webster, or citizen of Webster, within the United StatesÍž…”

Unlike the Liberty Preservation Acts introduced and/or passed in several states, including Virginia and California, the Restoring Constitutional Governance Act/Resolution prohibits any person, local, state, federal, or international, from utilizing the powers of the “law of war” under the 2012 NDAA or any similar law or authority, in any city, county, or state.

Three weeks, three cities. The movement is growing, fast. Take part, and take back your town now.

Over 150 people are taking back their towns. Is yours next?

http://pandaunite.org/takeback/