Posted on 02/07/2013 6:40:48 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Congressional intelligence committee members are going to find out today how the Justice Department has rationalized the killing of Americans by drone strike without due process. The Obama administration has authorized the release of a classified report that goes into detail about how DoJ arrived at their controversial conclusions on not only drone strikes, but rendition and certain "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a committee member who had pressed the administration to provide the opinion, left open the possibility he might still try to block Brennan's nomination. He said turning over the opinion was a good first step.
"I'm committed to making sure that we get all the facts," Wyden said on NBC's "Today" show. "Early this morning, I'm going to be going in to read the opinion. We'll go from there."
Wyden said "there are still substantial questions" about how the administration justifies and plans drone strikes. "The Founding Fathers thought the president should have significant power in the national security arena. But there have to be checks and balances," Wyden said. "You can't just skirt those checks and balances if you think it's inconvenient."
An unclassified memo leaked this week says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior al-Qaida leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans, even if there is no evidence of a specific imminent attack.
That unclassified memo is based on classified advice from the Office of Legal Counsel that is being made available to the intelligence committees' members, the official said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the decision and requested anonymity.
You wouldn't hesitate to kill a fellow American if you were facing him on a battlefield.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I don’t see why Americans truly fighting against us cannot be tried in abstentia for treason when we know who they are.
I see the need for a quick trial, but I do not see the need to eliminate trial by one’s peers.
Of course, this only applies to targeted killings. Americans that are in effect embedded with foriegn enemies are running the chance of being killed in a general fashion.
For instance, had we mounted a specifc raid to kill Tokyo Rose during WWII (like Reinhard Heydrich and Admiral Yamamoto were specifically targeted), and we knew that she was a U.S. citizen, we should have tried her in abstentia first to establish that she was guilty of treason. However, if the mission were simply to destroy the Japanese radio stations and she were killed in the process, then it would not have been a targeted killing.
Right... and the determination they're aiding and abetting the enemy will be arrived at by some in the bowels of this administration that may very well be lacking concrete proof.
Interesting that overseas telephonic surveillance of a US citizen requires a hearing and order from a FISA judge, but not killing them.
I doubt many of us grieve the loss of terrorists, but a lack of due process opens the Pandora’s Box of who determines the terrorist status. This slippery slope almost surely will end in abuse of power.
Bingo. All military technology finds its way into domestic police use just as quickly as the military allows it to.
You know if drones became another tool for domestic law enforcement, another Waco or Ruby Ridge situation wouldn’t go on for days, or maybe even for one day. After a couple of hours, somebody would simply make the call, “drone ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out”.
Well, if they’d had drones up, Waco and Ruby Ridge could have been written off as “gas explosions”. Anyone who said any different would have been written off as “conspiracy theorists” or had their own isolated incident which never made the newspapers outside their county.
From the US Code,18 USC § 2381 - Treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
From Art. 3, section 3 of the US Constitution:
"No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
The dead "American" terrorists most certainly have levied war against the US and adhered to our enemies, and are according to the US Code "guilty of treason and shall suffer death".
They probably couldn't meet the two-witness standard put forth in the Constitution, but IMHO, that doesn't change the fact that they were actively engaged in treasonous activity, and it doesn't require that they be brought to trial. They are enemy combatants.
It really sticks in my craw to hear these maggots described as "Americans", because as far as I'm concerned that's an honor they forfeited when they signed up for Al Qaeda. They should have been brought to justice, whether that's a military trial or a smoking hole in the desert. Kill them all. Death to traitors.
US uses Tony Blair defence to justify drone killings
A defence of Britain’s role in the war on terrorism given by Tony Blair’s government after the invasion of Iraq is secretly being used by the Obama administration to help justify its drone campaign against al-Qaeda, it has emerged.
As long as they start with liberals I’m fine with it.../s
Adam Gahahn? Worthy of an AGM-114 if anyone is.
Bingo. Bears repeating.
IMO if you take up arms against the United States over seas...you deserve a warhead on your forehead!
I am afraid I bought into the scare tactics of the GOP during the last 12 years or so that compared what we are facing then and NOW with Hitler and Tojo. There is NO comparison. Yet we are willing to give the govt MORE power in some regards than it had then? This is just natural extension of what the govt has been doing for a while.
This is an after-the-fact consequence of not answering the question, “Should we be examining access to citizenship more closely?”
Another problem is that we can’t trust our government even a little. We can’t trust them not to kill us.
A president who's word is worth less than the contents of my sock drawer.
Plus, for all we know, he believes 2nd Amendment supporters are terorists too, especially us at Free Republic.
Yup. The short answer is hell, yes. Particularly when their citizenship is in name only. When you make war against your country or your constitution, you've effectively renounced that citizenship if, indeed, you didn't lie when accepting the citizenship in the first place.
The real question is who should make that determination. Unless there is eminent danger such as a battlefield situation, it shouldn't be one person alone, no matter what their rank.
Even a president (especially this one) is unlikely to show any more restraint than an FBI agent aiming at an unarmed woman holding an infant at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
I read through the “evidence” against the Hutaree and it was tame compared to some of what I see posted at FR every day. Folks will have to excuse me if I don’t automatically assume the government will do the right thing.
That case was so bad that a black, female, Clinton appointee acquitted all members and slapped the feds for trying to convince her that the Hutaree were guilty of anything more than being rednecks. Thank God the feds couldn’t just kill them.
Sadly, many Americans gave them an unwarranted trust, instead of de facto viewing it with suspicion.
Count on it.
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