Last year, when Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with its contentious passages endorsing the mandatory military detention of terror suspects, there was uproar across the political spectrum from Americans who believed that it would be used on U.S. citizens.

In fact, it was unclear whether or not that was the case. The NDAA was in many ways a follow-up to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which was passed by Congress the week after the 9/11 attacks and which authorized the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”