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Maybe. I would think this kind of administrative spin is the kind of thing every president from now on would want to avoid. Who wants to be known as the Prez that codified assassination?
Actually, both.
Maybe. I would think this kind of administrative spin is the kind of thing every president from now on would want to avoid. Who wants to be known as the Prez that codified assassination?
Fox News calling out Democrats in this video segment for going after Bush on torture and war crimes, but staying silent when Obama murders Americans, etc.
(The claim is what's worse.. torturing three people or murdering Americans?)
White House, Justice officials defend drone program after release of memo
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...rone-concerns/
The White House and Justice Department on Tuesday adamantly defended the administration's authority to use unmanned drones to kill terror operatives -- even if those operatives are U.S. citizens -- following the release of a controversial memo on the program.
President Obama's advisers are also trying to tamp down concerns about the targeted killings ahead of the confirmation hearing Thursday for CIA director nominee John Brennan -- the counterterrorism adviser and drone-program supporter who has come under criticism from Democrats.
Pressed repeatedly about the complicated cons utional and legal questions raised by the targeted killing of Americans, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that the president takes those issues "very seriously."
But he noted that Al Qaeda is in a "state of war against us," and defended what he described as "targeted strikes against specific Al Qaeda terrorists."
"We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, to prevent future attacks and to save American lives," Carney said. "These strikes are legal, they are ethical and they are wise."
Carney would not describe the legal criteria for ordering those drone strikes.
A Justice Department official, though, told Fox News there are at least three conditions that have to be met in order for a strike to be ordered -- there has to be an "imminent" threat, the target has to have engaged in terrorist activities, and the target has to be unable to be captured.
Separately, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the government is "confident that we're doing so in a way that is consistent with federal and international law."
Under Obama, the U.S. drone program has ramped up dramatically since the George W. Bush administration. It has become one of the most important tools in the administration's counterterrorism campaign -- particularly in Pakistan, but also in the expanding fronts of the war against Al Qaeda and its affiliates.
Scrutiny of the program follows a 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed two Americans -- Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. It marked the first time an American citizen was targeted for death by a U.S. president and killed in a drone strike.
On Monday, a bipartisan group of 11 senators wrote a letter to Obama asking for "any and all legal opinions" that describe the basis for the authority to "deliberately kill American citizens."
The questions come in advance of Brennan's confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee. Several of the authors of the drone letter sit on that committee. Obama's nominee for Defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, also had his confirmation hearing last week. The letter Monday made a blunt threat suggesting that withholding information on drones could imperil those nominations.
"The executive branch's cooperation on this matter will help avoid an unnecessary confrontation that could affect the Senate's consideration of nominees for national security positions," the senators wrote.
As the letter was released, a Justice Department do ent surfaced in news reports describing the administration's drone-attack authority.
As first reported Monday night by NBC News, the memo says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior Al Qaeda leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans -- even if there is no intelligence pointing to an active plot against America.
The 16-page do ent says that delaying action against individuals continually planning to kill Americans would create an unacceptably high risk. It adds that the threat posed by Al Qaeda and its associated forces demands a broader concept of when a person continually planning terror attacks presents an imminent threat.
It's unclear whether that will satisfy lawmakers' concerns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the intelligence committee, said in a statement Tuesday that the do ent was already provided to the committee last year.
"The committee continues to seek the actual legal opinions by the Department of Justice that provide details not outlined in this particular white paper," she said. Feinstein was not among the senators who signed the letter to Obama Monday.
While Awlaki was considered a powerful terror operative for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, he was never charged. In their letter Monday, the senators said they believe there are "cir stances" where a U.S. president can use "lethal force" against Americans who "choose to take up arms" against their country, "just as President Lincoln had the authority to direct Union troops to fire upon Confederate forces during the Civil War."
But they said "it is vitally important" for Congress and the public to understand how the administration interprets the limits on that power. They complained that the administration has ignored prior requests for legal opinions from the Justice Department.
Brennan, a vocal supporter of the drone program and other controversial counterterrorism tools dating back to the George W. Bush administration, is facing a level of criticism from Democrats that no other Obama nominee has encountered. Eight Democrats and three Republicans penned the letter to Obama Monday. One of them, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has previously pressed Brennan on the drone issue.
Another, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said last week he was "deeply disappointed" coming out of a meeting with Brennan. He claimed the White House counterterrorism adviser was "unprepared" to discuss a recent report on the CIA detention and interrogation program.
make sure you post about 10 a day on this subject on facebook alone.
Ouch...scorching article from Salon.com
Too big to Curtail
Who can’t be on Obama’s “kill list”?
A DOJ white paper reveals White House rationalization for drone strikes -- and an out of control power structure
By David Sirota
Last month, America saw in graphic detail how the destructive notion of Too Big to Jail means for an executive branch that refuses to prosecute a single banker connected to the financial meltdown. Today, with the release of a secret Justice Department white paper about the president’s so-called kill list, we are learning about another radical jurisprudential notion being pioneered by the Obama administration. Call it Too Big to Curtail.
That’s the most accurate label to describe the machinery of the government’s ever-expanding drone war. As the white paper asserts, that war — which is likely creating more terrorists than it is neutralizing — cannot be curtailed by laws or the Cons ution. Therefore, the argument goes, the president no longer merely claims the power to detain and torture people without due process, nor does he merely claim the power to execute American citizens without indictment or trial. Those extra-cons utional powers, which only a few years ago were seen as utterly illegal, are quaint compared to the new assertion that the president can now do all of this without any concrete intelligence suggesting a citizen is linked to terrorist activity.
This is the most harrowing takeaway from the white paper, which was released as a bipartisan group of senators belatedly demands answers about the drone war. As NBC News reports (emphasis added):
It refers, for example, to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” than actual intelligence about any ongoing plot against the U.S. homeland.This new claim that evidence is not required to kill someone is the true foundation of Too Big to Curtail. To really appreciate how extreme the whole concept is, understand that it is already blatantly illegal for a president to execute an American citizen without so much as a indictment. Indeed, if the cons utional notion of “due process” means anything at all, at minimum it means at least being formally charged with a single crime.
The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the memo states.
But in the new white paper, the Obama administration isn’t just laying waste to that most basic of ideas — it is going further and insisting that even within the extra-cons utional “kill list” deliberations inside the White House, the president doesn’t actually need evidence to order someone’s death.
This, of course, creates a legal architecture to justify the administration’s heretofore shocking declaration that, according to the New York Times, “it in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.” It also explains why Obama’s spokesman said the president was justified in executing a 16-year-old U.S. citizen simply because the kid “should have [had] a far more responsible father.” According to the Justice Department white paper, those killings are all now perfectly legal because supposedly the law “does not require the United States to have clear evidence” in order to kill anyone, much less posthumously identify them as a threat.
In the context of the administration’s other high-profile legal moves, this is nothing short of a tectonic shift in long-term jurisprudential standards. When it comes to Obama campaign contributors on Wall Street, Too Big to Jail means no amount of overwhelming evidence can prompt a single white-collar prosecution, regardless of the scope of financial terrorism. Meanwhile, when it comes to any U.S. citizen the president unilaterally deems a terrorist, Too Big to Curtail means that not a single shred of actual evidence is needed not just to prosecute him, but to outright execute him.
Should the Congress continue to do nothing about this shift — say, for instance, by confirming the CIA nomination of one of the architects of Too Big to Curtail, John Brennan — this double standard will be the new assumed normal, one that (heads up, liberal Obama defenders!) will be exploited by Democratic and Republican presidents alike. As evidenced by its statements to the Times, the Obama administration clearly knows that to be the case — and is now doing its best to guarantee that its radical precedents are cemented for the long haul.
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/05/who_...ist/singleton/
May have already been done tbh. Assassinations have been more the rule than the exception for the last century +.
if ur white, this doesnt concern you guys at all....
i see what they are trying to do here...any legal reasons to get rid of minorities...
4th I get the frog hot water.Actually, both.
5th, I have issue with us feeling en lement to rights more than others just because we were born on American dirt.
The Obama administration’s internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. In a secret Justice Department memo, the administration claims it has legal authority to assassinate U.S. citizens overseas even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the United States. We’re joined by Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you look at the memo ... there’s no geographic line," says Jaffer. "The Obama administration is making, in some ways, a greater claim of authority [than President Bush]. They’re arguing that the authority to kill American citizens has no geographic limit."
Democracy Now: Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens "Has No Geographic Limit"
Last edited by SA210; 02-05-2013 at 06:48 PM.
I see your argument, but it is an American do ent.
This. And I can't believe I'm agreeing with the cuck, but srsly, who gives a ?
Here's question: Do you think you can "waive" your cons utional rights by allying with a terrorist organization?
Question's not directly responsive to this thread, but it has some relevance.
I don't see any mechanism that accomplishes this, so no.
With no clear proof?
Formal mechanism? Absolutely not. But I'd argue by analogy to waiver of cons utional rights to counsel when a suspect talks to the police.
This is a novel "war." Cons utional law from 200+ years ago can't deal with the problems engendered by the WOT. The law is gonna go through some severe changes to be able to deal with modern day reality.
Was there an absence of clear proof re Al-Awlaki?
And what evidentiary standard is clear proof?
That's a fair point, vy, but it sorta hinges upon duress, no?
Well, even the White House refuses to answer that question or provide any proof. They can say what they want about him, but they wont release any proof.
Credit to Jake Tapper for pressing this fact.
I think an even more important question is, what did his 16 year old American son from Colorado do to warrant being targeted 2 weeks later and killed? "He should have had a more responsible father", apparently is the answer given for the taking of his American life without charge or trial.
This is big, it's truly criminal, it's truly murder.
I'm not sure. It's been a while since I've looked at that particularly question, but from what I remember, the waiver has to be voluntary and/or intelligent to be effective - so if the waiver is given under duress - it probably wouldn't be effective.
I was just suggesting that because there is waiver of of cons utional rights in other contexts, the concept might apply here as well.
the refusal to provide evidence =|= the absence of evidence
I really cant argue the point....I'm just not up to speed on the legality. Kinda going with my gut instinct here. Usually not a great idea.
Not to mention he wasn't in a "war" or "combat" zone nor an immediate threat against America at the time of his killing, he could have been detained and charged.
Is this the time when I'm supposed to say GFY or something? Or did I miss that already?I really cant argue the point....I'm just not up to speed on the legality. Kinda going with my gut instinct here. Usually not a great idea.
I'm suggesting that the concepts of war and combat zone have changed and the law has to catch up.
How could he have been detained and charged? One of the three elements in the white paper is impossibility of detainment.
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