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 ...
Adam Gadahn
Earth to ACLU: Shove it up your collective smelly Obamas
And if one of your slime just happens to be in the sights of another drone, I’d gladly push the button anyway with no ... that’s as in zero, zilch, nada....regrets.
Show me the facts?
Thank you for putting this in perspective.
Same here. There have been 3 or 4 threads on this subject. On one thread I read through 120 posts and not one of them thought to mention the constitution as it pertains to an American Citizen. It scares the crap out of me to think that if the government declared as sector of the population combatants what those on this forum would do. No wonder the government got away with Waco and Ruby Ridge. We have some dangerous times ahead and there aren’t going to be many that I can see who are going to stand and fight.
Is he in Yemen?
That makes you and enemy combatant doesn’t it? After all, you just stated your intentions against a US citizen.
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.
Oops. Lets have a do over.....oh, wait!
He was a US citizen was he not? Does the constitution give rights to US citizens or does it not? Who declares someone and “enemy combatant? Are you an “enemy combatant because you want to overthrow the current leaders in the US?
TWO US Citizens were taken out. I said if it had been Yemen forces...my mouth is shut.
No, this was the CIA with an order from 0bama against an untried US citizen. Some are saying to have at least an in-absentia trial. They could have used a military tribunal.
Others say he needed to show up for court....where's the court order? We're sending non-citizens to trial in our courts and it is ok to snuff out several citizens? Free speech: I may not agree with you, but I'll defend your right to the death to say it.
Fox News reporting that 0bama signed the order.
What stuns me is that average CITIZENS due process is ignored, subverted, abrogated by law enforcement agencies and government types EVERY F###ING DAY in this country and people just sit on their hands.
This dumbass put himself out there on front street.
And got his dumbass handed to him.
What color were his eyes?
Blew. One blew this way and one blew that way.
YAY for us.
I guess Obama can say he authorized it for the “greater good.” As Saul Alinsky said: Rule #4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” Obama has a real problem here. Normally he’d be hanging with the ACLU on this issue.
Does it matter?
Yes it does, in Yemen he is outside the reach of US law.
Christians in the US can be legal enemy combatants if they advocate or attempt the overthrow of the US.
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
Kids suspended for that should be suing the crap out of the system. Town clerks whose job it is to give out marriage licenses have a duty to give them out if gay marriage is legal in their jurisdiction. It is their job, render to Caesar. If they can't for reason of their conscience, they should quit.
At this point in time we need to uphold the constitution at all costs.
LOAC is in compliance with the Constitution.
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.
illegal = unlawful
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