Court Releases DOJ Memo Justifying Drone Strike On US Citizen

An anonymous reader writes in with news that the memo presenting a case for killing Anwar al-Awlaki has been released thanks to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday released a secret 2010 Justice Department memo justifying the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S citizen killed in a drone strike in 2011. The court released the document as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union to make the document public. Then-acting Assistant Attorney General David Barron, in the partially redacted 41-page memo, outlines the justification of the drone strike in Yemen to take out al-Awlaki, an alleged operational leader of al Qaeda.

Comments

Since when does as assistant atty general

[Virtucon]

Since when does a fucking bureaucrat, an acting assistant attorney general put some shit like this together and allows a capricious administration to decide who lives and dies, especially if they're a citizen of this country. Yes it was for our esteemed retard Eric Holder who ignores laws he doesn't agree with but that's beside the point. The US Military killed a US Citizen here without due process under the guises that it was "justified." Shit, If any of us tried that the judge would laugh at us and lock us up and throw away the key if we committed premeditated murder. True Anwar al-Awlaki could have been considered a terrorist but he still was a citizen of this country and by the governments labeling him a terrorist that now suddenly makes him a valid target? This sounds like Ruby Ridge all over again and I'm sorry I thought we were a nation of laws where the rights of the accused were protected. This administration has obviously gone way the fuck over the line here in this.

Go capture him, put him on trial but what gave this administration the right to start bypassing constitutional and civil rights afforded to all citizens? This is abhorrent.