Attorney General Eric Holder was at Northwestern University Law School yesterday explaining President Barack Obama’s claimed authority to kill any American if he unilaterally determines them to be a threat to the nation. The choice of a law school was a curious place for discussion of authoritarian powers. Obama has replaced the constitutional protections afforded to citizens with a “trust me” pledge that Holder repeated yesterday at Northwestern. The good news is that Holder promised not to hunt citizens for sport.
Holder proclaimed that “The president may use force abroad against a senior operational leader of a foreign terrorist organization with which the United States is at war — even if that individual happens to be a U.S. citizen.” The use of the word “abroad” is interesting since senior Administration officials have asserted that the President may kill an American anywhere and anytime, including the United States. Holder’s speech does not materially limit that claimed authority. He merely assures citizens that Obama will only kill those of us he finds abroad and a significant threat. Notably, Holder added “Our legal authority is not limited to the battlefields in Afghanistan.”
The Obama Administration continues to stonewall efforts to get it to acknowledge the existence of a memo authorizing the killing of Awlaki. Democrats previously demanded the “torture memos” of the Bush Administration that revealed both poor legal analysis by Judge Jay Bybee and Professor John Yoo to justify torture. Now, however, Democrats are largely silent in the face of a president claiming the right to unilaterally kill citizens.
Holder became particularly cryptic in his assurance of caution in the use of this power, insisting that they will kill citizens only with “the consent of the nation involved or after a determination that the nation is unable or unwilling to deal effectively with a threat to the United States.” What on earth does that mean?
He was more clear in establishing that due process itself is now defined differently than it has been defined by courts since the start of this Republic. He declared that “a careful and thorough executive branch review of the facts in a case amounts to ‘due process.’” Of course, from any objective standpoint, that statement is absurd and Orwellian. It is basically saying that “we will give the process that we consider due to a target.” His main point was that “due process” will now longer mean “judicial process.”
That last statement goes to the heart of the controversy. Many reporters have bought into the spin of the Administration that there are real limits to this power because they perform their own constitutional analysis for each killing. This starts with the presumption that the Constitution does not require these determinations to be made by a court or that they be subject to court review. They then redefine the protections of due process as a balancing test within the administration. This Administration has consistently maintained that courts do not have a say in such matters. Instead, they simply define the matter as covered by the Law Of Armed Conflicts (LOAC), even when the conflict is a war on terror. That war, they have stressed, is to be fought all around the world, including the United States. It is a battlefield without borders as strikes in other countries have vividly demonstrated.
The result is that they are claiming that they are following self-imposed “limits” which are meaningless — particularly in a system that is premised on the availability of judicial review. The Administration has never said that the LOAC does not allow the same powers to be used in the United States. It would be an easy thing to state. Holder can affirmatively state that the President’s inherent power to kill citizens exists only outside of the country. He can then explain where those limits are found in the Constitution and why they do not apply equally to a citizen in London or Berlin.
All the Administration has said is that they closely and faithfully follow their own guidelines — even if their decision are not subject to judicial review. The fact that they say those guidelines are based on notions of due process is meaningless. They are not a constitutional process of review. They are a dressed claim of process for a unilateral power. Presumably, the President can override the panel or disregard the panel. The panel is an extension of his claim of inherent unilateral authority.
If the “limit” is the internal review described by the administration, we are speaking a different language. Any authoritarian measure can be dressed up as carefully executed according to balancing tests, but that does not constitute “fifth amendment analysis,” “fourth amendment analysis,” or any constitutional analysis that I know of. It is at best a loose analogy to constitutional analysis.
This is precisely why the Framers rejected the “trust me” approach to government, as discussed in this column.
Since last year, U.S. drones have killed three Americans overseas.
Source: LA Times
Jonathan Hughes:
“That means the world is anti Christ. The world needs to wake up.”
*****************
More like a-Christian. Christianity (which is composed of about 33,820 denominations with differing orthodoxies) claims about 33% of the world’s population. The rest believe in something else or nothing at all. Good luck on “waking up” two-thirds of the world’s population to your way of believing. You’ve got your work cut out for you and, by the way, you’ve got a one in three shot of being correct, statistically speaking, and assuming only one of the mutually exclusive philosophies is correct. Here’s the estimates of the number of followers:
1.Christianity: 2.1 billion
2.Islam: 1.5 billion
3.Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
4.Hinduism: 900 million
5.Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
6.Buddhism: 376 million
7.primal-indigenous: 300 million
8.African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
9.Sikhism: 23 million
10.Juche: 19 million
11.Spiritism: 15 million
12.Judaism: 14 million
13.Baha’i: 7 million
14.Jainism: 4.2 million
15.Shinto: 4 million
16.Cao Dai: 4 million
17.Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
18.Tenrikyo: 2 million
19.Neo-Paganism: 1 million
20.Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
21.Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
22.Scientology: 500 thousand
Mespo,
This makes you warm and fuzzy all over…. I can tell….
Jonathan Hughes:
“Jesus does not even throw a grain of sand.”
*************************
14 In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
~John 2:15
I guess he was fanning them.
holder needs a hellfire missile or an IED to find him under his ride to work some day. this is NOT ACCEPTABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!
Arthur–“Such targeted people can turn themselves into US authorites or stop their activities of waging war against the US.”
Just curious; exactly how is a person selected for a targeted killing supposed to “turn themselves in”, when the US government is trying to kill them the moment they show their face?
Have NOT reaxd all the posts, so with the risk of repeating inadvertently………
Has anyone realized that we have been Egyptized??????????????
I mean, the Army has a right to hold our asses without trial, move us to secret places, hold us their incognito, with no communication to attorney, no habeas corpus, and sit on us as long as the eternal war on terror exists.
I mean, we’ve been using NDAA as a “hot word”. How well known is that to the public? Nada.
So let’s say INSTEAD that we have been EGYPTIZED.
Maybe that’ll provide a clearer understanding of what has happened to us.
And new ideas and realizations for fighting this tyranny.
Of course the comparison with executive branch star courts, the “show trials” of “arranged” terrorists, the lethal machinations of the intelligence services, etc. can be reviewed. But another time.
Any takers????
Gene H. I am telling the truth nothing more, and nothing less. I am of no named religious. Therefore how could I be proselytizing? How about you stop breathing the Mythological air you never made, and stop eating from the bounty of the earth? Humans never made it therefore by your standards it must me mythological. Humans like you value Physical things. but God values love, kindness, mercy, forgiveness these things are things you can’t touch like God. The intangible things are from God you can’t see working through humans.. Humans make all kinds of things from Gods store house. Lucifer is in you killing your soul. Tell him in Christ name to get out of your soul . When he is gone bettor words will come out of you because better things will be in you to give.
Gene H. I am telling the truth nothing more, and nothing less. I am of no named religious. Therefore how could I be proselytizing? How about your stop breathing the Mythological air you never made,and stop eating from the bounty of the earth? That would kill you. You never made it. Humans make all kinds of things from Gods store house. Lucifer is in you killing your soul. Tell him in Christ name to get out of your soul . When he is gone bettor words will come out of you because better things will be in you to give.
Bob Kauten I am not a religion. The one that accuses is in you. Accusing is what the devil does.
Religions are against me bowing in an idol being divided against themselves teaching one lie after another. I defend humans that humans without God want to hate. With out God making life you would not have no spaghetti to eat to turn into a substance the equivalent to the words existing your mouth that no other animal would have exiting their mouth good times or bad.
Obama is not holding the neocon status quo – he is propelling it forward (or backward). Even Bush II never claimed the right to kill Americans without judicial process. Remember when all the liberals/progressives talked about how horrible Bush II was when he refused to grant clemency to Karla Faye Tucker? He was terrible but that was nothing compared to targeting Americans for capital punishment without any evidence made known to the public and certainly without anything approaching judicial process. And while this assault is going on against our very basic rights, the liberals/progressives are knocking themselves out over Limbaugh.
How are people who kill a 16 year-old boy anything other than psychopaths? We don’t have to wait for a Romney or a Santorum to be elected; the psychos are here and in charge.
And, yes, it is “ironic” that two black Democrats are leading this assault on law that has been established for centuries. It’s almost as if there were one-percenters in charge of our government and they figured out that only Nixon could go to China.
Jonathan Hughes,
Do you amass points in some mystical, mythical system for the number of religious proclamations you write? No human is reading this off-topic proselytizing you’re posting. It’s unreadable and boring.
Do you really think that your invisible friend is reading the comments on this blog, and giving you credit for them? Does this count as ‘testifying’?
Your endless monologue is not effective in converting me to whatever odd book-worshiping you’re into. My only reaction is annoyance, from having to scroll down further to find something meaningful. Like that last post from Gene H. Now THAT was good.
I already worship ‘Catch-22,’ by Joseph Heller. The Flying Spaghetti Monster revealed it to me.
Jonathan Hughes is at least on the right track, I’d rather have him telling us what his god wants than Tootie; her god was hate filled and vicious. Am I the only one here that remembers “God is love”? 🙂
Bob Kauten, your points are valid and they reinforce how great the divergence from the law and democratic principles these new policies are. As those policies are codified by the President and Congress into new laws to supersede previous laws our democracy is degraded.
The law of man in ,and of itself is degraded. That is because the body of man can do nothing that is good .A human without the Love of God in him that despises war will have humans commit adultery against Jesus by bowing to the devil. Obama going Booya with a proud look in a white military uniform shouts that loud, and clear. Jesus is not like that, but the devil is.
Cone on down Holder, and one on one, just make my day…….clumsy you….
Haha, I told my stupid boss today that Obama was more right-wing than George W. Bush. How very right I was. He of course got pissed as hell. He is too stupid to tell the truth, but he knows that I am smart and do not say things out of hand. That is what unnerves him.
Jonathan Hughes,
You’ve mistaken me for somebody interested in your proselytism of your bronze age fantasy book of fairy tales. Jesus was a wise teacher and said some really cool things, but most of you holier than thou self-labeled Christians really missed the point. I’m like Gandhi. I like your Christ, but you Christians? Not so much with the exceptions of ones like Oro Lee who actually understood what they read in the Bible in the proper context (and pssst! The proper context isn’t that the Bible is the literal word of God). But I’ll never be one of you. You waste your time and distract from a very important topic being discussed in this thread: the erosion of the the civil rights owed to all American citizens by matter of Constitutional law.
Jesus ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.
Lottakatz The Loving Lord that made all good things for this body that can do no good thing is in you loving like God loves.Your soul is safe to live peaceably with all men forever. You give joy, and will therefore receive joy.
Gene H. I am showing you where it says, I am anointed in the old, and new testament. You don’t grasp the seriousness of my words. Eternity for some strange reason means nothing to you. Give good get good.
Let’s see. Things that remain ignored by most, in this discussion:
1. The United States of America has not declared a war against anyone since the 1940s. So any talk of someone doing something in a ‘state of war’ is not valid. Congress declares war. We are not at war.
2. If you suspect that a U.S. citizen has taken up arms against his country, it is NOT legal to murder him, even in wartime. You can execute him only after you have proven his guilt in court.
If the U.S. citizen is attempting to murder another citizen, at that moment, you may take his life to protect yourself or others. None of these extra-judicial killings featured any imminent danger to anyone.
3. Discussing how things have improved in other areas of U.S. justice has nothing to do with the subject of killing U.S. citizens without trial. We’re only talking about the latter, in this discussion.
Ever since Adam,and Eve passing the buck humans have been at war. Our country was built on war.That is an oxymoronic statement for nothing good can be built from something that is destructive. By having a military, police,and condemning legal system there has been a silent war going on with police killing humans one at a time not even considering the eternal consequence. If that is not being in a military state I don’t know what is. That means the world is anti Christ. The world needs to wake up.