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Administration Ordered To Divulge Legal Basis For Killing Americans With Drones
An anonymous reader writes "In a claim brought by The New York Times and the ACLU, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the administration must disclose the legal basis for targeting Americans with drones. From the article: 'Government officials from Obama on down have publicly commented on the program, but they claimed the Office of Legal Counsel's memo outlining the legal rationale about it was a national security secret. The appeals court, however, said on Monday that officials' comments about overseas drone attacks means the government has waived its secrecy argument. "After senior Government officials have assured the public that targeted killings are 'lawful' and that OLC advice 'establishes the legal boundaries within which we can operate,'" the appeals court said, "waiver of secrecy and privilege as to the legal analysis in the Memorandum has occurred" (PDF).'"
Good it passed appeals; the administration will likely appeal the decision and this is the kind of thing the SCOTUS will take. Frankly it's about time some of the "war on terror" policies were seriously and heavily scrutinized for their legality.
History dictates that Obama will declare "executive privilege" or some other nonsense. He has already done this for himself and his AG; the latter currently in contempt of an ineffective Congress which is unlikely to do anything about it. With a Democratic Senate, there will be no impeachment.
These are the facts, and I commend all of you who could read them before down-moderation.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The government can kill it's own citizens with drones because it has a legal basis, which it can't tell you, because it's a secret. wat
It raises my blood pressure to think that these a**holes believe they have a right to make secret laws. That is all.
we have not followed the law of the land for some time. why start now?
more meaningless proclamations.
I wont hold my breath that he wont hide behind executive privilege or use bushes favorite "Turruiists!!!" but one thing I do know is that obama will find some way to avoid having to explain himself. Most transparent president in history and all....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Laws? We don't need no stinking laws!
We have Obama the Lightbringer to save us!!!!
So let me get this straight, it's perfectly OK to kill people with drones as long as they're not American citizens?
I am -- and the court seemed -- appalled at the idea that "secret laws" can apply in a constitutional republic.
I doubt SCOTUS will touch this, as they tend to kick the can down the road on big issues like this, which, of course, will let it stand.
Since when is it permissible for any government to employ military force against its own (civilian) citizens? I'm pretty sure that armed (combat) drones are military technology.
You sure understand what it means to be living in a country that's supposed to be filled with free and brave people. You're an ally of democracy, due process, and individual liberties in general.
Just because some of these so called "Americans" had a US passport doesn't mean they can take up arms against their country without consequences. I'm glad we can just blow these fuckers to smithereens and save taxpayer money on these enemy combatants. They should know not to fuck with US and should scare their buddies from thinking they can do the same.
Yeah, fuck due process, fuck the constitution! The United States Constitution is un-American!
its easier to simply do something and say you're sorry later than to ask for permission or follow the rules. We've locked up japanese americans during the second world war for nothing more than being japanese. We've tortured and detained without trial in secret military prisons the nationals of other countries in which we've declared a war upon something so ephemeral as 'terror.' We shackled and enslaved thousands of africans throughout our history in direct defiance of the charter that all men are created equal. We exterminated more native americans than hitler killed jews, an entire race of natives, just because we could. We branded countless celebrities communist, forever obliterating both their good name and their gainful employment.
in short, this administration as every one before it will invoke the same rhetoric to assert the privilege of spying on, and murdering, american citizens. that to think otherwise is unpatriotic, that to question it at all is tantamount to unamericanism. "Because fuck you, thats why."
Good people go to bed earlier.
The funny thing is that this is one of the two things that Obama can't blame Bush for, the other one being ObamaCare. So it'll be interesting to see what happens when the administration loses.
Since when is it permissible for any government to employ military force against its own (civilian) citizens?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Nobody (including US) seems to obey that rule, however . . .
Since when is it permissible for any government of the United States to employ military force against its own (civilian) citizens? I'm pretty sure that armed (combat) drones are military technology.
fixed that for you.
That doesn't mean that it will actually happen though.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Oh wait, that's right, in China you can deploy the military against anyone you want and kill someone for a blog post and in North Korea, they can kill you for absolutely any reason and in most Middle East countries it's very similar and um...yeah, so everywhere else is as or more fucked up than the US.
We're not really better, I guess. Just different.
Since they've got the guns, and you don't. That means they can do whatever they want. All of Amerikan history is the task of keeping that knowledge from the proles. Most of you still don't seem to get it.
Note that "convicted" doesn't mean "we know" - it means there was a trial of some sort, with rights preserved and arguments presented before sentence is carried out.
I don't think anyone's suggested otherwise. But we enacted laws that say what the consequences are, and all the evidence suggests the laws are being violated.
That would be an example of ignoring the laws. Thing is, what you're talking about isn't necessarily a bad idea, but nobody ever enacts a new law making that become legal. YOU puss out in the voting booth every time, and pick the R or the D instead. And that's the problem: you talk tough, but you always act like a pussy and vote for someone else. So intead of making it legal for the government to just kill anyone suspected of crimes, you are keeping it illegal, thus this court case is happening and someone might get in trouble for doing what you say you want. In other worse, being a pussy isn't working out for you. Maybe it's time to change how you vote.
Or change how you think and reconsider how bad that whole "trials" idea really is.
You do your beliefs ill service by rabidly posting invective. 'Speak' more calmly - less people may hear you, but more will listen.
the law that prevented using the military inside the US was repealed under the Bush administration.
I did say it was a broader question.
"Military (force|technology)" is an arbitrary distinction. "law enforcement" agencies of all sorts, national and local, use all sorts of technologies. As far as i have heard there is no legal distinction between a military and non-military technology. For example. The proliferation of violent commando raids against non-violent suspects.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
... if you Democrats and you Republicans will, just this once, stop trying to frame this massive criminality as something that Those Awful Others are chiefly to blame for. On this matter - as in all matters of true importance to the Empire - the two wings of the Money Party are in complete, intimate, and profound agreement.
as proof, and thank you for the up.
If I had to venture a guess, the Obama administration would say, "We did it because we can. Who's going to stop us?"
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
Didn't work with my parents, either.
I am confused on this issue. I'm not sure I even understand the question. Here is my thinking, so please comment:
Suppose the US was at war with Country X. Men with guns attacked a US military base in Country X. The US troops fire back, killing the forces of Country X. But aha! One of the enemy was actually a US citizen! So does that mean the US troops cannot shoot at that one person?
Suppose the US was at war with Country X. Country X had terrorists bombing buildings in Country X. The US send drones to shoot at the men who have been bombing buildings. But aha! One of the bombers was actually a US citizen! So does that mean the US troops cannot send drones to shoot at that one bomber?
I'm unclear why the citizenship of the person has anything to do with the military action used against them. I am also unclear why the method used to fire upon the person changes anything either. Would it make a difference if the person was a US citizen because they were born here but left 2 days after birth? What if they were a naturalized citizen who was a resident for more than 7 years?
Why is it okay to target non-US citizens with drones, but not US citizens? Why is it okay to shoot them, but not with drones?
Obviously we are at war. In war we have always, out of need, deliberately killed civilians and at no time have we asked for a national ID to determine whether an enemy was a citizen of any nation or not. To make it simple even on American soil a cop has the right to apply lethal force to an individual who refuses to surrender. Whether such a person is brought down by a sniper on a swat team or by a drone dropping a grenade through a window means nothing at all. Now are we to suppose that American citizens, who have become enemies of our nation and are aiding our enemies in a combat zone should not be killed? Has anyone bothered to think of the consequences of risking the escape of such people? Frankly drones are savers of innocents in combat. In the past we would bring down an entire city just to get at a few enemies within that city. With drones we need not do massive bombings but usually can target a small and specific target with very few innocents caught in the blasts. Look at what we did in Iraq as an example. We knock out sewer, water and electric sources. Obviously when one takes away sewer, water and electricity it is expected that many civilians will perish as a consequence. People can not go to work. Pay checks end and innocents starve to death, get sick or suffer neglect. War is designed to be nasty. We do too good a job of limiting the applied misery as it drags out wars which otherwise might be quickly ended thus saving both our troops and innocents caught in the conflict zones.
It's turned into a bunch of paranoid libertarians trying to one up each other with how outraged they are.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This isn't a new problem for the United States. The US has dealt with the same or similar problems in the past. The American renegades get all the due process needed for the circumstances. In fact, American renegades today are almost certainly getting more due process than has been performed in the past.
You can see a depiction of Americans in a similar legal status and how they were dealt with here.
Constitutionally it is fine. Arrests, formal legal charges, trials, judges and lawyers are not needed. If the renegades want that they can surrender and get those instead.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I'll leave it up to you to decide who is "levying war": the person on the sending end or the receiving end of the missile.
Justifying executive branch abuses as "war powers" has gone on for years. It's about time that people point out the plain truth: if you use war powers against American citizens, you are levying war against these states, and you are a traitor per the definition.
No my dear moderator, that was not "flamebait." That is what is called an opinion, and a reasonable and justifiable one at that. The fact that you don't like my opinion doesn't make it flamebait. The fact that I invoke the history of previous dealings with similar problems does not make it flamebait. You have misused your modpoint, no doubt because you don't have a counterargument. You penalize me for your shortcoming.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Or are you a racist?
Since October 26, 2001. Patriot act passed and made it perfectly legal.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
(OPINION): Legal != Permissible.
"Enemy Combatant" is an illegal status.
One is either member of a national armed force and thus must be made prisoner of war, or one was not, in which case you are a civilian (whether insurgent or criminal).
That extra "no rights whatsoever" 'middle' that was invented has no place on a civilized world.
In societies that value property you can do what you want with it. What is there to think divulge
"Military (force|technology)" is an arbitrary distinction.
Military technology is an arbitrary distinction, yes. The OP used the phrase "military force".
Military force is when the military is used to apply force, and it is completely distinct from "military technology". A US Army PFC acting under his commander's order wielding an ax to stop someone looting a grocery store in the US is still a violation of posse comitatus even if the technology isn't "military" in nature, because it is still military force.
The saddest thing of this fiasco is that it applies only to Americans. (Un-)People of other nations are of no concern whatsoever. Obama can bomb the hell out of them and no one cares - at least in the US it not discussed at all. This looks pretty much like taken straight from nazi playbook. It emphasizes hipocrisy of all Americans proud of being "the greatest democracy in the world" (which it isn't).
By what right did the US Government kill all those confederates at Antietiam and Gettysburg? The US always maintaned and stills maintains that they were US citizens. What about their due process rights? Shouldn't they have all been served warrants and had their day in court before they were killed? Maybe their families have a right to sue for violation of civil rights.
Oh wait, they were bearing arms in open rebellion and making war on the Republic.
Same deal here. If you openly wage war, even against your own state, you can be killed. I'm not even sure why a "justification" beyond that is required. Why do we let lawyers cloud our minds with nonsense and sophistry?
AUMF that allow's it. It is overly broad. I congress person voted against it and was labeled a traitor by most American at the time.
Listen to Radiolabs : 60 words.
http://www.radiolab.org/
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Since when is it permissible for any government to employ military force against its own (civilian) citizens? I'm pretty sure that armed (combat) drones are military technology.
When those citizens take up arms as part of a military force at war with the United States, and the US Congress has authorized military force against them.
Al Qaida declared war in 1996 and has conducted many attacks since then. The US Congress authorized military action in 2001.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Since it's Obama, it barely gets mentioned.
If GWB tried to implement something like this, it would headline news every day. And dems would scream it proves how evil those repubs are. Since it's Obama, most dems will look the other way.
Suppose...there was a relevant analogy here. Because none of the people being assassinated are killed on the battlefield - that's why they're assassinations. Markets, weddings, apartment buildings...those are the sites of your typical drone strikes, where people are minding their own business. Not in a firefight with Marines or plotting the next strike with the Legion of Doom. Like Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was blown up at a cafe with his cousin because he was born to the wrong father.
It's not that it's "okay", it's that the Constitution provides greater protections for citizens than for non-citizens. But even for non-citizens, it's not okay to target them with signature strikes, where we don't even know who we're killing,
None of this is new. Start here to get your feet wet. Continue on at the Guardian, and finally to the presdent day. If that's too tl;dr, just know that the USG didn't stop being full of shit at every level with the invasion of Iraq. That if a "senior administration official" tells you that water is wet, you just might want to verify their claims.
It is consistent with appropriate due process against the enemy during war*, including American turncoats, to attack them. If you don't agree then you are apparently against the Constitutional war making powers of Congress, and the President's role as Commander in Chief. You may notice the courts don't have a role there.
* Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force, equivalent to a declaration of war.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I'm guessing it'll be, "If those guys didn't want to explode, they wouldn't be in Derkaderkastan."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think you mean, "fewer people".
Actually, there are significant distinctions. E.g., it's against treaty for a military organization to use tear gas or other chemical weapons against a foe, but not against treaty for a police organization to do so.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Exercise: read through the constitution, including all amendments, and count the number of instances of the word "citizen".
US citizenship entitles you to enter the country and live in it - and that's about all. It does not entitle you to any additional immunity or resistance to military or police action, US or anyone else's.
14th amendment: "No state shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".
Re: "...officials' comments about overseas drone attacks means the government has waived its secrecy argument."
Why does it matter, at all, that officials commented? As far as I'm concerned that is irrelevant. If the US is a nation of laws, the government must spell out the law under which they are permitted to take action. Quote chapter and verse. Simple.
Therefore I am in agreement with the ACLU argument on this one.
To do otherwise is to take a step backwards to a dark past. It was called the Star Chamber at one time, although it has had many other names too.
No, actually, it is always been acceptable to kill people during war without checking their passport. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
You don't have to like that Congress declared war on various non-state entities, it suffices here just to understand that it happened.
"Except that they didn't make war on the Republic"
Yes, they DID . When anti-slavery Republican president Lincoln won the presidency, the southern Democrat slave owners went nuts and decided to destroy "The Union" (the form of the United States that existed pre-Civil War, when we had a small central government, was thought of as a union of states more than a single monolithic nation). As they seceded from the union, the confederates took control of federal military bases. There were attempts to negotiate a peaceful resolution, but these failed and so the southern forces opened fire on Fort Sumpter on 12 April 1861. You are either ignorant of the facts, or just a plain old vanilla liar when you say the southern states did not make war on the republic
"they simply wanted to be independent as they were different, culturally, politically and economically"
Oh, drop the crap already. The ONLY thing about their culture that was in conflict with the north was that they used black people as slaves. The ONLY thing about their politics that clashed with the north was that they wanted new states added to the union to be slave states. The ONLY thing about their economics that clashed with the north was that northerners either did their own labor or paid employees to do it, whereas in the south they thought they could just declare black people to be less than human and then use their labor for free. The ONLY issue the souther states were fighting over was SLAVERY. Yes, the rich Democrat slave owners probably used their control of the press in the south to convince lots of ignorant lower-class people that the fight was about "states' rights". Certainly most southern footsoldiers marched to war thinking "states' rights" was their cause (one need only read their letters to see that) but the guys running the Confederacy were all-in for the slavery issue (slavery was what made them rich and powerful); for them it was about "states' rights [to have slaves]". This was NOT about the rights of southern states to have different drinking ages, or different speed limits, or different rules for clean water, or different regulations for insurance or stock trading etc. THE conflicts between northern and southern states that were significant enough to cause a fight were ONLY related to slavery. It had NOTHING to do with crawfish, cornbread, the southern drawl, southern attire, or any other cultural difference.
I'm a Conservative who's sympathetic to the TEA party and I've long loved the (unrelated to the Confederacy) yellow Gadsden flag, but I've always been disgusted by anybody who'd fly a confederate flag knowing the history, and disappointed in anybody who'd fly it in ignorance of the history (usually young men who think it's a "rebel thing" like some James Dean or Che' T-shirt). The Confederate flag is a flag of people who tried to tear the nation down and destroy the Republicans over a demand that southern Democrats could own black people and use them like cattle. Rich Democrats imported blacks into this country for cheap labor and they tried to use them for votes (by having them counted for purposes of congressional seat apportionment, which was partly thwarted by the "3/5ths amendment" to the Constitution) just as they now import a new wave of dark-skinned people (this time from Mexico and Central America) into the country for cheap labor and future votes.... it's disgusting. Half the laws Democrats pass have racial clauses, they campaing making primises to racial groups, they even allocate tickets to their conventions along racial lines (so they look "diverse" on national TV). The amazing thing is that they keep getting away with the accusation that the Republicans (who do NOT now and NEVER have favored policies that consider race as a factor) as the ones who are "racists". Several facts for those who've been brainwashed into thinking Conservatives/Republicans
Killing civilians using drones is illegal. There is no doubt about this. The only issue is whether these are war crimes or "ordinary" crimes.
If the so-called terrorists who are being murdered are combatants then killing them in this way is a war crime. If they are civilians then this is simply murder.
Isn't it a bit racist to make a difference between killing americans and other people?
I don't understand why, in cases like this, so much attention is given to the question whether it's lawful or not.
Who cares?! Of course it's lawful, the governments of the world have made sure to have enough overly broad "war on terror", "won't somebody think of the children", "national security" laws on the books to make it possible to find a legal loophole justifying anything. Fuck the law.
Surely the question should be whether it's moral or not?
If you're using treason in this context, you arguably missed out on the fact that treason was the only crime spelled out in the Constitution, and that there was a good reason for that.
Since when is it permissible for any government to employ military force against its own (civilian) citizens?
There are a large number of countries which have no equivalent to posse comitatus, and the US didn't have posse comitatus until 1878 -- 100 years after the Constitution was enacted. In those countries it is permissible for the government to use military forces against their own citizens.
I'm pretty sure that armed (combat) drones are military technology.
Military technology is not the same as military forces, and it a pretty nebulous term, kinda like "assault weapon".
Bigoted, nationalistic, tribal, and evil but not racist.
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