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ACLU Sues Over Legality of "Targeted Killing" By Drones
MacAndrew writes "The ACLU has sued the United States Government to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for 'the release of records relating to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles — commonly known as 'drones' — for the purpose of targeting and killing individuals since September 11, 2001.' (Complaint.) The information sought includes the legal basis for use of the drones, how the program is managed, and the number of civilian deaths in areas of operation such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. The ACLU further claims that 'Recent reports, including public statements from the director of national intelligence, indicate that US citizens have been placed on the list of targets who can be hunted and killed with drones.' Aside from one's view of the wisdom, effectiveness, and morality of these military operations, the inclusion of US citizens suggests that summary remote-control executions are becoming routine. Especially given the difficulty in locating and targeting individuals from aircraft, risks of human and machine error are obvious, and these likely increase as the robots become increasingly autonomous (please no Skynet jokes). This must give pause to anyone who's ever spent time coding or debugging or even driving certain willful late model automobiles, and the US government evidently doesn't want to discuss it."
What's done in war time on foreign soil against non-American citizens doesn't seem to fall within the domain of the American Civil Liberties Union.
IMHO, they have no right to call themselves a "civil liberties union" as long as they refuse to defend the 2nd amendment and continue to cling to the discredited notion that the 2nd amendment only protects a "collective" right. They interrupt every other amendment in as broad of a manner as possible while ignoring the plain text of the 2nd amendment and claiming that "In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue."
What a bunch of hypocrites.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Its a US Constitutional Amendment and US Federal Law to have the right to own and bear arms.
The ACLU's stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States."
http://www.aclu.org/about-aclu-0
"The Scalia majority invokes much historical material to support its finding that the right to keep and bear arms belongs to individuals; more precisely, Scalia asserts in the Court's opinion that the "people" to whom the Second Amendment right is accorded are the same "people" who enjoy First and Fourth Amendment protection."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
And it was Waco TX, and they weren't going to overthrow the Government, they were just nut jobs with a lot of guns that the Clinton White House and DoJ wanted to make an example out of.