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ACLU Lens: American Citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi Killed Without Judicial Process
ACLU ^ | Sep 30, 2011 | Suzanne Ito, ACLU

Posted on 09/30/2011 4:58:50 PM PDT by americanophile

Today in Yemen, U.S. air strikes killed American citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi. Al-Aulaqi has never been charged with a crime. Last year, the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights represented Al-Aulaqi's father in a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone. We argued that such killings violate the Constitution and international law, but the case was dismissed in federal court last December.

In response to today's killing of Al-Aulaqi, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said:

The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law. As we've seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts. The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific, and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the President — any President — with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country. In a hearing before a federal court last November, government lawyers argued the president should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans he has unilaterally determined to pose a threat. As National Security Project Litigation Director Ben Wizner added today: "If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the President does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state."

(Excerpt) Read more at aclu.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government
KEYWORDS: 5thamendment; alaulaqi; anwaralawlaki; assination; ronpaul
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To: americanophile

He was not the first American who was wanted dead or alive...

http://www.johnniedillinger.freeservers.com/about.html


81 posted on 09/30/2011 7:28:03 PM PDT by Enough is ENOUGH
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To: americanophile

There were American citizens fighting on the side of Germany during WWII. We shot and bombed them with the rest of the Nazis. If American want to fight on the side of the enemy, they are traitors and will die with them. The Constitution was never intended to protect them or non-citizen aliens.


82 posted on 09/30/2011 7:28:11 PM PDT by Stymee
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To: americanophile

Thank goodness the courts weren’t involved. There would have been an indefinite stay on this justified execution


83 posted on 09/30/2011 7:30:14 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: americanophile

The ACLU doesn’t want ANYONE executed, no matter how many people they have murdered. Well, no one except unborn babies.


84 posted on 09/30/2011 7:32:34 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Islam is the religion of Satan and Mohammed was his minion.)
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To: americanophile

“Unfortunately ‘enemy combatant’ is something of an (inexact) invention, and surely doesn’t trump the Constitution”

Tell that to the deceased. Go give comfort to his grieving family


85 posted on 09/30/2011 7:33:41 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: Enough is ENOUGH

Just another case of suicide by drone.

It was just like, be careful crossing the street, you might get run over by a truck. He was just plain careless. Substitute the word drone.


86 posted on 09/30/2011 7:35:36 PM PDT by Enough is ENOUGH
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To: CynicalBear
The Supreme Court once made a mistake in believing that the governmental jackbooted thugs were well represented by the public schools.

They still aren't. They're just schools with teachers and such administrators as a school might need. They do not make public policy.

So, a school run by a bunch of perverts decided a kid couldn't say he didn't care for homosexuality? That got undone quite quick. Now that the whole bunch are uncovered do you imagine they'll try it again?

87 posted on 09/30/2011 7:38:13 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Las Vegas Ron

Guess we know which side the ACLU is on.


88 posted on 09/30/2011 7:40:20 PM PDT by Humble Servant
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To: EBH
He knew he was wanted. He chose to be a target rather than a surrendering felon or enemy combatant.

Simply because he successfully evaded delivery of a summons doesn't make him immune from further applications of real force.

89 posted on 09/30/2011 7:40:20 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: xone

You’ll keep denying the rights of a citizen until you’re the last one standing. So be it.


90 posted on 09/30/2011 7:40:30 PM PDT by CynicalBear
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To: americanophile

We didn’t kill the sob in Dearborn for exercising his free speech rights. He was killed on foreign soil waging war against the USA. Where is that a violation of anything? Yemen might have cause to bitch, but they’re not


91 posted on 09/30/2011 7:40:50 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: Pecos
There were other ways to deal with this.

Such as? Especially a "such as" that does not overly endanger our forces. Seems to me he renounced his citizenship. No one worried about all the Southern boys who were killed without Due Process in the unpleasantness of the 1860s. Why? They had taken up arms against the United States. So had this scum bag.

92 posted on 09/30/2011 7:42:17 PM PDT by El Gato ("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
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To: Pecos
There were other ways to deal with this.

Such as? Especially a "such as" that does not overly endanger our forces. Seems to me he renounced his citizenship. No one worried about all the Southern boys who were killed without Due Process in the unpleasantness of the 1860s. Why? They had taken up arms against the United States. So had this scum bag.

93 posted on 09/30/2011 7:42:33 PM PDT by El Gato ("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
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To: muawiyah

Did they keep trying to make same sex marriage legal? How about abortion? How about no praying in school or any religious references? Once Christianity is illegal you will also be a enemy combatant.


94 posted on 09/30/2011 7:43:26 PM PDT by CynicalBear
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To: americanophile

Wanted, dead or alive. Check out the legality of that


95 posted on 09/30/2011 7:44:20 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: Enough is ENOUGH
Poor John. He used to go to the old family church. Then, he married grandpa's first cousin ~ she later on died in childbirth ~ the twins wouldn't come out that easily.

If he'd quit robbing banks and settled down properly he'd lived to a good long life. But, he was an idiot. Preferred the bright lights and easy women of Chicago ~ like Obama.

He and his fellow private militiamen wouldn't stay in one place long enough for a warrant to be served. They had to be shot in the field.

These people bellyaching about this guy and his misguided buddies getting killed in Yemen have probably never had a real bandit close to them.

The cold, hard fact is the professional bandits must be killed. They are too dangerous for civilized life.

96 posted on 09/30/2011 7:46:07 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: americanophile

We should have simply tried him for treason in absentia

Why? So some *ickhead lawyers get a paycheck at taxpayers expense? He was wanted dead or alive. We got him the good way, and it was legal without lawyers and judges ruling on it


97 posted on 09/30/2011 7:49:08 PM PDT by Figment ("A communist is someone who reads Marx.An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx" R Reagan)
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To: CynicalBear
That's why we have to castrate the USSC eventually.

They've strayed beyond the constitution into trivial municipal codes. The Congress is authorized by the constitution to restrict jurisdiction ~ whatever that might mean.

98 posted on 09/30/2011 7:49:25 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: CynicalBear
You’ll keep denying the rights of a citizen until you’re the last one standing. So be it.

Save the sanctimonious BS for someone else. Read LOAC, then get back to me. If you are offended by the jihadi's death there is a legal recourse. When some Christian in America not bearing arms against it gets whacked by a hellfire get back to me, you'll have a case. Just 'declaring' someone a 'enemy combatant' doesn't cut it. Killing this POS was Constitutional.

99 posted on 09/30/2011 7:51:50 PM PDT by xone
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To: NoControllingLegalAuthority

Keep in mind this - our current government thinks gun owners who believe in the Constitution may be terrorists. Want them bombing cabins on some pretense?


100 posted on 09/30/2011 7:53:11 PM PDT by Liberty Tree Surgeon (Mow your own lawn!)
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