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 ...
Really, all branches of the current gov't?
Oh BOO HOO...this sorry A$$ was a traitor...drones are always targeting terrorist...who even knew the bassturd was even in that location. These monsters move around all the time...too bad he happened to be there...due process my arse...if you are an up standing American Citizen then don’t live and breed in a terrorist camp...
I am not stunned by your inventing God given rights to our sworn enemies. Are you an attorney? If he’d been captured alive, sure, try him at gitmo and then hang him. He went out the way “He” chose.
That had to be the lamest post on this thread.
Just the one that decides what citizen can be killed.
We have a bunch of folks on FR who will have neither liberty or security when all is said and done.
But then the ACLU will have to prove it wasn’t an accident. Damn hellfire missiles have a mind of their own sometimes.
Lamest point ey? They have already labeled TEA party people terrorists. Think that was by accicent?
No wonder the government got away with Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Wow. You really wander around in your rants.
All this hand-wringing for a case of a friendly-fire casualty? We were going after the other terrorists in the convoy!
Does it matter? If Christians, or any other group, were declared “enemy combatants” because of their beliefs that the government had become tyrannical can you tell me that you would back the government in killing them wherever they are?
At this point it’s easy to see where the government will turn on us as citizens. Kids in school are being suspended for simply stating their belief that homosexuality is wrong. Town clerks are being fired for not giving marriage licenses to same sex couples.
At this point in time we need to uphold the constitution at all costs.
How did you get from killing a terrorist in Yemen to that ridiculous rant?
AQ and Al-Aulaqi declared war on USA before 9-11, and they are still shooting. It was self defense, not an execution.
I’m not surprised you don’t get the connection. I’ll bet you don’t connect the TEA party being called terrorists either.
Hyperbolic bs.
You wouldn’t understand.
Does the constitution give rights to US citizens or does it not?
No it doesn’t. The Constitution clearly states they are rights bestowed on us by our creator. You ought to get someone to read it to you sometime
Just couldn’t get by without the invectives could you. Those tactics should have been given up in grade school.
If that had been a Republican President I can only imagine the uproar. At some point they are going to “sign it” against in country citizens just like Waco and people on this site will sit back and claim it was “justified” for some reason or another. Until it’s their turn to be “signed” on.
I agree with you on the first sentence and then you ramble on into ridiculous again
Yes, but your conclusion is simply wrong!
Do you realize that even Geraldo Rivera clearly states the same position I gave you?
Once he took up arms as an enemy combatant, he lost any right to judicial process, or any other perceived Constitutional protections.
There is no dilemma here.
Go tell your mother she wants you.
Keep digging
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