Ayotte Amendment

Via e-mail, ACLU of Maine Executive Director Shenna Bellows says that her organization is "very concerned" about Sen. Collins' vote in favor of the Ayotte amendment, which would have banned the use of civilian courts for many terrorism cases.

Some more background from an ACLU prepared statement:

The failure of the Ayotte amendment...should be a wake-up call to anyone who still thinks there is a binding deal for the National Defense Authorization Act detention provisions. Top leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee have repeatedly said they struck a deal on detention issues when the Committee passed its bill behind closed doors earlier this year. But now it turns out that literally all six Republicans on the Armed Services Committee who supported the NDAA detention deal by voting against a nearly identical Ayotte amendment in committee markup (McCain, Graham, Wicker, Chambliss, Scott Brown, and Collins) flipped sides this morning and voted for the Ayotte amendment.

“It should be clear now that the bipartisan NDAA detention 'deal' is a farce.

Sen. Snowe also supported the amendment.