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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.
"Alleged" operational leader. No trial. Bam! You're dead.
Welcome to Soviet USA.
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...amendments to the Constitution?
Obama is turning out to be just as bad as the Neo-Cons when it comes to "protecting us from ourselves."
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Worse, actually. They never did this.
Ex post facto ex parte: We think you're guilty of a crime, so we're going to kill you and come up with the justification later.
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Or you just never heard about it.
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Racist idiot.
Why doesn't anyone use the correct term.
Well, if you live within 100 miles inside the boarder, you have no Rights anyway. Stands to reason it would be even more so outside the border.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
about striking an us citizen as opposed to say an Iraqi, an Albanian, a German, or a Mexican? They do not seem to have problems with most Arab countries. Not people? Not deserving a trial?
The memo cites case law to justify the suppression of 4th and 5th amendment rights. For example:
at least where high-level government officials have determined that a capture operation overseas is infeasible and that the targeted person is part of a dangerous enemy force and is engaged in activities that pose a continued and imminent threat to U.S. persons or interests the use of lethal force would not violate the Fourth Amendment. and thus that the intrusion on any Fourth Amendment interests would be outweighed by "the importance of the governmental interests [that] justify the intrusion," Garner, 4 71 U.S. at 8, based on the facts that have been represented to us.
and:
In Hamdi, a plurality of the Supreme Court used the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test to analyze the Fifth Amendment due process rights of a U.S. citizen captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and detained in the United States who wished to challenge the government's assertion that he was a part of enemy forces, explaining rbat "the process due in any given instance is determined by weighing 'the private interest that will be affected by the official action' against the Government's asserted interest, 'including the function involved' and the burdens the Government would face in providing greater process." 542 U.S. at 529 (plurality opinion) (quoting Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976)).
So if I'm reading this correctly, 4th amendment rights don't apply if the government deems that its interests outweigh yours, and 5th amendment rights don't apply if the the government deems that its interests outweigh yours or the government asserts that it would be excessively burdensome to give you due process.
The only reasonable interpretation of this is that the government of the United States has become exactly what the Framers feared: an utterly autocratic organization that asserts its own interests over and above the interests of citizens who may come into conflict with it.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
If you support the killing of this man I happily support putting you in a cage for the rest of your life.
Are you in the streets demanding the same consequences for President Obama? For any of his staff?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
This is unconstitutional, period. No person shall be punished for any crime without a trial, read your Bill of Rights. There is no exception clause for US Citizen, it's all people. Them claiming "We think he's going to do something" does not even meet their own criteria. Should we all post on Facebook that Angelina Merkel is going to bomb a post office so that she can be killed by a drone? Yes, that is exactly why they killed the person in question. No proof of any plans, just that they believed it was eminent (I'm sure that they believe in the Easter Bunny too, as long as it's a convenient excuse to do something they want).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The PDF is interesting, but essentially boils down to:
Americans killing Americans is sometimes justified.
Nope. Sorry. The USA may be a lot, but they ain't no USSR.
The rent's WAY too high, the food way too expensive, and you're actually expected to be at work during work hours and work. That's not the worker's paradise!
But aside of that, you're getting close.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
al-Aulaqi declared himself an enemy combatant and a member of a group which we are at war with, which Congress has authorized "necessary and appropriate" force against.
So, now that we have AUMF, we make sure that the DOD played by the rules of war -- check.
And finally, since it's illegal (generally speaking) to kill people, we make one last check to see if it's "murder" to kill a US citizen when they switch sides in a war. ...turns out it's not.
Boom.
That IS a major turning point. There is a huge difference between occasionally killing people in secret and declaring that the government has the right to kill citizens without a trial. Secret killings need to be limited in number or they can't be kept secret. Once execution without trials is in the open, what limits the numbers?
You should find it fascinating. Outside of moral grounds, there are bonds that empower the government of the US that also places limits on the government. One of those limits is the right to due process when you are in US jurisdiction. A US citizen is in US jurisdiction wherever they are. A terrorist or even a school teacher who looks like a terrorist in another country might not be. Put those same people in the US, and they have the same right to due process.
Now right may be the wrong words here. The bonds that empower the federal government, the Constitution, forbids the government from denying due process to "we the people" except in a narrow window in which habeas corpus can be suspended- but that requires custody of the person and does not allow extrajudicial punishment outside of holding a person.
So no matter how contrived they can make an excuse to execute a foreigner on foreign soil, the government is expressly forbidden to do so on a US citizen who has not been afforded due process or is not showing an imminent threat to others. Of course in one of these instances, it seems to be collateral damage. It would be like a cop shooting at a suspect shooting other people and in the process killing a citizen with a stray bullet 2 blocks away. Not a criminal act, but the state is still responsible.
I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. The United States--theoretically of course--does not violate the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights of *anyone*. That is, if you're a foreigner, even one in the country illegally, you are afforded due process just like any other citizen. But that's for matters occurring within the boundaries of the United States.
For the USA to kill a foreigner on foreign soil, I would say that constitutes an act of war, thus the laws of war (Geneva Conventions, et al.) should apply. In this case though, the USA killed someone on foreign soil, but he was technically an American citizen. A reprehensible one, and one who repeatedly had called for violence against Americans and their allies, but he was an American citizen. He was born in the United States and therefore was a citizen.
A person can renounce American citizenship, or it can be revoked, but neither of those things had happened. I've heard that in his various rants that seem to be why we wanted to kill him, al-Awlaki had verbally renounced his citizenship, but that is not the same (to me at least, IANAL) as actually going through the process of renunciation (I think you have to send them your passport and fill out a form explaining why you don't want to be a citizen of the USA anymore). It could be argued that he had de facto renounced his citizenship by his actions but that's something for a court to decide, and that's my problem with the whole affair.
Given how incendiary this guy seemed to be, it should have been very simple a matter to revoke his citizenship. But that never happened. Given that he was imprisoned in Yemen more or less at the behest of the United States, it should have been a very simple matter to try and convict him--even in absentia--for whatever crimes the US gov't thought it was worth drone striking him over. But that never happened. That we summarily execute anyone in the name of truth, justice and the american way or whatever nonsense was used as justification is an abomination to me. But it is especially worrisome to me that we are willing to do this to another American citizen, as we were supposed to be doing this in the name of preserving our way of life--a way of life that includes all those pesky rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
Um, this is the first term where he had super-majorities in both house and Senate? Where they could have passed absolutely any partisan crap they wanted? How we got Obamacare?
What exactly would it take for the Dems to "own it"?
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Common mistake, but the important thing to note is that he isn't being punished. He's being killed in the pursuit of war, authorized under article 1, section 8 of the constitution: "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"
As such "but did his involvement rise to the level of a capital crime? Is there even a death sentence for conspiracy to commit murder?" are two irrelevant questions. As a member of the opposing military faction that the USA is at war with*, there needs be no crime for him to be targeted and killed. That he's in a leadership position simply raises him to a level where 'servicing' him specifically is a military priority with the intent of disrupting command & control**.
*I know that actual declarations of war have been rather sparse for the last 50 years or so, but the actual authorization of military force by congress is there.
**Military speak for: Without orders the lower levels are unlikely to be able to perform coordinated actions which increase efficiency. Ergo, disrupting systems, from destroying communication abilities to the very ability to give orders(IE kill the leaders) is a method for furthering their objectives in the war.
I don't read AC A human right
the real threat to your freedom is an ultra wealthy oligarchy that's been steadily chipping away at your wages for 40 years. More than anything else money is freedom, since if you're financially destitute you'll do what they say when they say. Dictator's don't oppress for the shear giddy joy of it, whatever the sci-fi books you read when in high school/college say. They oppress because they've taken a disproportionate amount of wealth for themselves and oppression and poverty is how you keep it.
I'd like to see us stop blaming a few well meaning bureaucrats and administrators for the horrors wrought by the ultra wealthy. Probably not gonna happen though, what with them controlling the media and all...
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