Civil liberties groups have long objected that President Barack Obama has continued and even expanded on many of George Bush’s abuses in the area of national security, including blocking any investigation into the torture program. Now, civil liberties groups are targeting Obama’s continued use of an assassination list and his assertion that he can simply kill a U.S. citizen without any criminal charge or trial.
The lawsuit focuses on the reported kill order targeting U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, who is reportedly hiding in Yemen. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights have filed this interesting action, naming the President of the United States, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the secretary of the Department of Defense.
This could make for a very interesting case if the groups can establish standing, which is likely to be challenged by Attorney General Eric Holder. As usual, Congress has done little to explore the constitutionality of a president who claims the unilateral power to kill U.S. citizens upon sight.
If a President can unilaterally kill a U.S. citizens on his own authority, our court system (and indeed our constitutional rights) become entirely discretionary. The position of the Administration contains no substantial limitations on such authority other than its own promise to make such decisions with care.
Here is the complaint: Al-Aulaqi v. Obama Complaint
Source: Washington Post
Mike S.,
I would like to expand your scenario with a possibility that has been bothering me. An old friend, a former DEA agent, told me of a situation faced by members of his team on a regular basis. He called it the Gladiator Syndrome. During down times between investigations if things were particularly slow the agents, for lack of anything better to do, would start to turn on one another in what my friend called the Gladiator mode. He said it was a “normal” occurrence given the focus and training of the agents and was behavior against which they must guard.
Take that “normal” occurrence and transplant it to the government as a whole as it is now constituted in the terrorism fight and I believe that the citizenry should be particularly focused on giving its government less, rather than more, powers.
To further expound on the danger this poses consider this:
A US Senator opposes some current war and defense policies. In his opposition he creates a nationwide furor against those policies. These policies are deemed absolutely necessary by the military and by the “wise old men” who arrogate to themselves the “maturity” to set the foreign policy/military course for the rest of us. The senator in question presents a persuasive alternative view to the “wise men’s” pronouncements and gains enough of a following to threaten to undermine them.
Thus the senator is perceived as a national security risk for his/her positions. Is it a leap to imagine having the senator eliminated under powers such as these? I think not and I know this has been historically true from the birth of civilization. Do we really know what happened to JFK,RFK, MLK, Malcom X,or even Russ Feingold perchance? I have no knowledge as to the truth of this and unfortunately conspiracy theorists are either paranoid, or maligned, as the case may be. I do know historically
these solutions have been common in all civilizations and countries.
If the power of life and death is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, despite the putative nobility of their motives, this power will become a destructive force of self-justified and tautological whimsy.
I thought our President told us last night to just turn the page on Iraq, forget about the whole Iraq mess, the “enhanced interrogation”, Abu-Ghraib, the lying that led up to the war, the “torture memos”. It’s over, he says.
No, it isn’t. Good for the civil rights groups. I only wish Obama had the backbone to deliver the “Change” he promised in this particular area. Now he’s following the Bush handbook in Afghanistan and more.
This issue is one that I am surprised has not caused a bigger row. Maybe the sheeple have been desensitized to the loss of our civil rights. Prof. Turley is exactly correct when he says if they can decide who they can kill without even a judge or jury involved, then none of us are safe. Kudos to the ACLU for taking another principled stand to protect us all.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/08/rep-kucinich-wont-challenge-obama-in-primary.html
I was thinkin’ now that we are no longer at war in Iraq, maybe there would be a challenge to the expanded executive powers….but then I remembered Afghanistan…..
…….and then that damn litebulb went off………
and oh yeah boy howdy….I think Kucinich would be a definite threat and that is one threat I would welcome!
“The Tea Party can brandish its ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flags like swords and scream about socialized medicine until hell freezes over, but its members haven’t a clue about the real threats to freedom in this country.”
Amen, Brother Mike. The stone cold truth.
I agree with Daniel Baker’s analogy to the creation of death squads. The Congress, ever anxious to avoid responsibility for tough decisions, has largely ceded to the executive branch, both legislatively and by default, complete authority on matters of war as though it were simply another aspect of conducting foreign policy. At the same time, Congress has virtually abandoned any pretense of legislative oversight. As Mike S. observes, the “now this changes everything” reaction to 9/11 has led to an out-of-control executive.
In essence, we have determined on the basis of purely irrational fear that the constitutional protections afforded all citizens may be honored or ignored at the discretion of the President, an idea that I thought had been forever repudiated by the signing of the Magna Charta. The reference to the previous President as “King George” is not mere sarcasm; it is an acknowledgment of an unfortunate truth. That President Obama is unwilling to surrender his royal prerogatives should come as no surprise because a contrary position would contradict what we know about human nature.
It is deeply troubling that Rep. Kucinich is virtually the only person in Congress willing to push back on these issues. The Tea Party can brandish its “Don’t Tread on Me” flags like swords and scream about socialized medicine until hell freezes over, but its members haven’t a clue about the real threats to freedom in this country.
The first moron to utter the oft repeated “Now this changes everything” after 9/11 and those fools that then parroted that sublimely ignorant statement have brought us to this pass, where constitutional guarantees become subservient to dubious national interest. There is no one that can be trusted with powers such as these to determine who can unilaterally be murdered in the false conception of nation security. Too many of our leaders have bought into this nonsense and our freedoms continue to erode with these feeble justifications and the sufferance of leaders who forget the human propensity for either making mistakes or plotting evil against imagined enemies.
I know its hard on all of us but I dont understand how a constitutional lawyer sleeps at nite …Between Bush (a nitwit) and Obama (supposedly a constitutional lawyer) they have turned this countrys beliefs in the Constitution upside down
Buddha,
Yep … and I don’t believe he can be bought.
That’s why Kucinich should be President.
He understands the limitations of the office as set forth in the Constitution.
Keep on keepin’ on Dennis!
eniobob,
I hope that it is as well. This one has, what would you say, deadly consequences.
I see this issue as one of reviewability versus war power.
On one hand, it is expected that in a war, the president and the armed forces can kill members of the other side without putting them on trial first. One would think that in at least some circumstances, an American who joined the other side would similarly be subject to be killed without due process. I.e., if we comb the beaches of Normandy, 1944, and find a dead American in Wehrmacht uniform, we have not necessarily violated his constitutional rights.
On the other hand, it’s dangerously crazy to allow the President unilateral, unreviewable power to decide which Americans have joined the other side and which have not. And when, as in this case, the President has announced in advance that he considers a specific American citizen on the enemy side, he had better be able to prove it, and all the burden should be on him. Otherwise, it’s an open invitation to El Salvador-type death squads in America, and around the world for that matter.
We all better hope this list is more accurate than the TSAs no fly list.
From The Nation
Rep. Dennis Kucinich Seeks to Ban Assassinations of US Citizens
Jeremy Scahill
August 5, 2010
http://www.thenation.com/blog/153899/rep-dennis-kucinich-seeks-ban-assassinations-us-citizens
Excerpt:
Lawyers for US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who has reportedly been targeted for assassination by the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command, had to fight the US government to have the right to represent him. On Wednesday, following a lawsuit by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Treasury Department issued a license to the pro-bono lawyers. Now the battle for due process begins. In a statement, al-Awlaki’s new lawyers said the license would “allow us to pursue our litigation relating to the government’s asserted authority to engage in targeted killings of American civilians without due process.”
Al-Awlaki, is originally from New Mexico and now lives in Yemen. He has been accused of providing inspiration for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged “underwear bomber,” and Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood shooter.
Most lawmakers have been mute about the Obama administration’s policy to target a US citizen for assassination. Representative Jane Harman, who serves on the Homeland Security Committee, said recently that Awlaki is “probably the person, the terrorist, who would be terrorist No. 1 in terms of threat against us.” One of the few who has spoken against the policy is Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich. “The assassination policies vitiate the presumption of innocence and the government then becomes the investigator, policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury, executioner all in one,” Kucinich told me in April. “That raises the greatest questions with respect to our constitution and our democratic way of life.” He called the policy “extrajudicial.”
Kucinich is putting his money where his mouth is. He just announced he has introduced legislation to “prohibit the extrajudicial killing of United States citizens.” The bill states that “No one, including the President, may instruct a person acting within the scope of employment with the United States Government or an agent acting on behalf of the United States Government to engage in, or conspire to engage in, the extrajudicial killing of a United States citizen.” It adds: “the authority granted to the President in the Authorization for Use of Military Force…following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is not limitless.”
**********
Kucinich Bill will Stop the Extrajudicial Killing of Americans
Washington, Aug 5 –
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=202191
Excerpt:
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today announced that he has introduced H.R. 6010, which prohibits targeted killings of U.S. citizens. The announcement comes on the heels of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the government’s legal authority to prohibit pro-bono lawyers from representing U.S. citizens on lists for targeted assassination without due process.
“The U.S. Constitution cannot be amended for convenience. The constitutional rights of all U.S. citizens must be protected. The U.S. government cannot act as judge, jury, and executioner. It was unacceptable when detainees at Guantanamo were held without due process, especially since many were later exonerated. It is unimaginable that the U.S. would then replace detainment with outright killing,” said Kucinich.
It has been reported that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) maintain lists of individuals they can target for execution simply for being suspected of involvement in terrorism, in subversion of their most basic constitutional rights and due process of law. These individuals can be targeted for killing at anytime, despite being far from any battlefield, wherever they may be.
“This bill will protect American’s constitutional right to face their accusers in court,” added Kucinich.
Damn, I hate when that happens….Ya’d think we were in the USSR….or Iraq…..