Non-Detention Act
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The Non-Detention Act of 1971 is a United States statute enacted to repeal portions of the
McCarran Internal Security Act The Internal Security Act of 1950, (Public Law 81-831), also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, the McCarran Act after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), or the Concentration Camp Law, is a United States f ...
of 1950, specifically Title II, the "Emergency Detention Act". The law repealed the Emergency Detention Act of 1950 provisioning the
United States Attorney General The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal government of the United States, federal government. The attorney general acts as the princi ...
with powers for detention of anyone in the US deemed to be 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. H.R. 234 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.


Contents

The McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 allowed for the detention of suspected subversives without the Constitutional steps 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.
The statute was used to challenge military detention 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 The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
originally took the case of '' Rumsfeld v. Padilla'' to decide 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 * ''Ex parte Quirin'' (1942) *
Hollywood blacklist The Hollywood blacklist was the mid-20th century banning of suspected Communists from working in the United States entertainment industry. The blacklisting, blacklist began at the onset of the Cold War and Red Scare#Second Red Scare (1947–1957 ...
*
House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative United States Congressional committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 19 ...
* ''Korematsu v. United States'' (1944) * Red Scare * Rex 84


References


External links


Text of the statute

CRS Report for Congress: Detention of U.S. Citizens
United States federal criminal legislation 1971 in American law {{US-fed-statute-stub