We have previously discussed the President’s “kill list” policy under which Obama claims the right to be able to kill any American based on his sole judgment and discretion. A confidential Justice Department memo now sheds more light on that policy and states a broader basis for such killings than previously suggested by the Administration. It is also not clear why this memo was kept secret by the Administration since it deals only with legal interpretations — not classified operational information.
Last March, Attorney General Eric Holder appeared at the Northwestern University Law School to present the new policy, claiming that the President did not need any conviction or even a charge to kill an American citizen. While he stressed that this was based on a rationale that the citizen posed “an imminent threat of violent attack,” I noted at the time that any such limitation was purely discretionary under the theory of executive power being advanced by the Obama Administration.
It now appears that the Administration lawyers reached the same conclusion. The memo notes that there does not need to be an imminent attack in terms of an unfolding plan or operation: “The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”
In plain language, that means that the President considers the citizens to be a threat in the future. Moreover, the memo allows killings when an attempt to capture the person would pose an “undue risk” to U.S. personnel. That undue risk is left undefined.
The memo, entitled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force,” is a tour de force of an imperial presidency. It was provided previously to both Democratic and Republican members of Congress on the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees. However, those members did nothing to stop such an extreme assertion of unilateral presidential power or to alert the public that the president was claiming far greater latitude in ordering the killings of citizens.
In an Orwellian twist, the memo insists “A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination.” It is more like a very pointed expression of presidential displeasure.
Here is the memo: 020413_DOJ_White_Paper
Source: NBC
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones
The Year of the Drone
An Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2013
In Brief:
“According to data compiled by the New America Foundation from reliable news reports, 349 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan have killed an estimated 1,953 to 3,279 people since 2004, of which 1,526 – 2,649 were reported to be militants.
This means the average non-militant casualty rate over the life of the program is 18-23 percent. In 2012 it was around 10 percent, down sharply from its peak in 2006 of over 60 percent.”
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/dashboard
AP explains participation in Saudi drone-base secrecy
Posted by Erik Wemple on February 6, 2013 at 12:35 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/02/06/ap-explains-participation-in-saudi-drone-base-secrecy/
“The AP’s account provides a stark look at the considerations that weigh on editors in conversations with national security officials. Who wants to be responsible for putting U.S. installations at risk? Or for hampering counterterrorism efforts?
The flip side: Who wants to be responsible for keeping the American public in the dark on the particulars of a U.S. counterterrorism program that has killed thousands of people overseas?”
(AP = Associated Press, of course 😉 )
———-
New York Times editor: Obama administration ‘continued to object’ to Saudi revelation
Posted by Erik Wemple on February 6, 2013 at 1:46 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/02/06/new-york-times-editor-obama-administration-continued-to-object-to-saudi-revelation/
WikiLeaks earns $84,000 from crowdsourced campaign
Source: Freedom of the Press Foundation
05 February 2013
http://www.finextra.com/News/Announcement.aspx?pressreleaseid=48354
Excerpts:
Freedom of the Press Foundation is launching its second fund-raising campaign in support of cutting-edge journalism focused on transparency and accountability, after its first six-week campaign ended on Sunday with over $196,000 in crowd-funded donations.
The second campaign will feature three new investigative journalism organizations—Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Center for Public Integrity, and Truthout. This time around, donors will be able to support specific, secrecy-busting investigative projects that have been tailored for Freedom of the Press Foundation.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism aims to expand its groundbreaking report on secretive US drones strikes with its “naming the dead” project. The Bureau will provide accurate and verifiable evidence identifying as many individuals as possible killed by drones strikes, whether they are militants or civilians.
…
Freedom of the Press Foundation was founded in the winter of 2012 to crowd-fund a variety of journalism institutions—both start-ups and established organizations—who are dedicated to aggressive, uncompromising journalism in the vein of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. The Foundation’s Board of Directors is comprised of journalists and free expression advocates, including John Perry Barlow, Daniel Ellsberg, Xeni Jardin, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Josh Stearns, Rainey Reitman, Trevor Timm, and John Cusack.
ap:
Just a few questions raised by your comment:
One wonders how revealing secret military methods and means furthers the nation’s interests in its struggle with terrorists or is even protected free speech.
One also wonders why, if the information was deemed too sensitive to reveal initially by the Post, it is not too sensitive now. A new CIA Director’s confirmation is hardly a reason to reveal government secrets he may have been involved with. I saw no news stories about military projects that Hagel may have been involved with during his time as a senator when he was questioned as part of his confirmation.
If the Post got a story that Seal Team 6 was hovering over a compound where OBL was suspected of hiding would any of the founders have believed that the First Amendment must be honored by broadcasting that news to our adversaries?
If we lose that base due to the adverse publicity and we are crippled in our ability to strike al-Qaeda while alienating our allies at the same time, will any American deaths flowing therefrom be on the heads of the editors of the newspaper?
Some surely will ask these same questions and I’m not sure the Post has satisfactory answers.
02/06/2013
Targeted Killings
ACLU Court Filing Argues for Judicial Review of U.S. Targeted Killings of Americans
By Noa Yachot, Communication Strategist, ACLU at 11:54am
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/aclu-court-filing-argues-judicial-review-us-targeted-killings-americans
Posting:
The courts have a crucial role to play in determining the lawfulness of U.S. drone killings of three American citizens in Yemen in 2011, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights argued in a brief filed last night in a lawsuit challenging the killings (you can read the brief here).
Our lawsuit charges that U.S. citizens Anwar Al-Aulaqi, Samir Khan, and 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi were killed in violation of the Constitution’s fundamental guarantee against the deprivation of life without due process of law. In December, the government filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing, in essence, that the courts should not be involved in determining the lawfulness of the targeted killing of U.S. citizens. As we say in the brief filed yesterday:
This case concerns the most fundamental right the Constitution guarantees to citizens: the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law. Defendants respond with various arguments for dismissal of the case, but they all boil down to a single assertion: The Executive has the unilateral authority to carry out the targeted killing of Americans it deems terrorism suspects—even if those suspects do not present any truly imminent threat, even if they are located far away from any recognized battlefield, and even if they have never been convicted (or even charged) with a crime.
The filing of the brief came just one day after the release by NBC News of a Justice Department white paper, which summarizes a secret Department of Justice legal memo purportedly justifying the addition of Anwar Al-Aulaqi to the government’s secret kill lists. (We’re separately seeking that legal memo in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit).
The unchecked authority the government claims is dangerous, and the potential for abuse is clear. Under our Constitution and its system of checks and balances, the executive branch cannot decide alone that it can strip a citizen of the right to life. As the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, “[w]hatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.”
The targeted killing program is conducted in near-total secrecy. In our lawsuit, the defendants argue, in essence, that the government can kill citizens without presenting evidence to any court before or after a killing is carried out and without even acknowledging to any court that their claimed authority to kill has been exercised.
But as we say in response, “Defendants’ argument that the Judiciary should turn a blind eye to the Executive’s extrajudicial killing of American citizens misunderstands both the individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the courts’ constitutional duty to safeguard those rights from encroachment.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/02/06/new-york-times-broke-informal-arrangement-on-drones/ (“New York Times broke ‘informal arrangement’ on drones”)
Jill, seeing is selective for most. We see what we want to believe we see.
Au contraire, Alan Pasch. Do you not remember the famous words of Anatole France? “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
““The rule of law only applies to the poor and powerless.””
OK, with the exception of Madoff 😉 But really he was pretty small potatoes, but large enough and with powerful enough clients to be forceful individually and collectively heard, so as to get some attention and, incidentally, be the poster child for the system “working”. And while don’t lament the system working in that case, Bernie was an obsessed shiester, he wasn’t a systemic cancer as a Citibank or Countrywide.
This information has been available for some time. My questions is why it was ignored by the people of this nation, both right and left, who re-elected a dictator who not only claimed this right, but exercised it, to include exercising his “rights” on a 16 year old boy.
It is what most disturbs me about the US. We are in trouble because the executive is acting as a dictator. He is not opposed by Congress, most of the judiciary and the vast majority of our population. Obama is greenlighted by the supposed other branches of the govt. Obama is greenlighted by voters who elected him, knowing who he is and what he had done. I have not seen the people who voted for him hold his feet to the fire. I do not see you in the streets.
This is a terrifying nation. This is exactly how dictatorships get a foot hold in a society. It is happening before our eyes.
“You’ll never see it coming. You think I’m joking.” -Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize winner
http://youtu.be/WWKG6ZmgAX4
““Do unto others…” And when there’s a drone strike on American soil with collateral damage?” (AP)
We know how easily propagandized the American people are, and there’s a substantial subset of citizens who are already convinced the government is coming for them , their freedoms and their guns. So this is a perfect storm of the government’s own making. When that first errant drone, or similar, strike falls on the US, the sensationalist driven media will not be able to resist reporting (unless they’re all threatened with prison — which just might happen). It’s all downhill from there and the government will not be able to contain the outrage, or, rather they will contain the outrage with increasingly draconian tactics.
There was no need to unleash this peremptorily bad policy. Take out the ‘bad guys’ with drones instead of methods that would put Americans in harm’s way. But we have become addicted to a global game of cops and robbers. What could possibly go wrong?
We’ll check back later to see if this is all fantasy. The US seems to be losing a grip on the world’s narrative. Americans may be lazy and gullible, but when the counterproductive nature of US policy actually is too patent to avoid seeing someone will have to pay.
The Committee to stop FBI has a list of numerous letters to Holder from congressman to investigate Muellers surveillance of anti war activists
… http://www.stopfbi.net/statements-legislators-about-case …
Allen Pasch:
“The rule of law only applies to the poor and powerless.”
***********************
Somebody should have told that to billionaire Bernie Madoff before he pled out.
Woody, the site has been quirky on occasion. WordPress is not my favorite site host.
If you got a moderation banner, it means that you included more than two outside links, or you used one of the four “forbidden” words in the filter.
The discussion for a legal basis for targeted killings serves only as a moot mental exercise. It is clear that those in power will do what they want regardless of the absence or presence of proper authority. If an action is later deemed unlawful, the law will be changed or will continue to be ignored. The rule of law only applies to the poor and powerless.
Someone erased my first post…the agency wouldnt be manipulation these emails…..?????
DonS,
When he delivered that particular joke, I found it troubling… It was in very poor taste, at best.
I’m hoping for more leaks over the course of the next few days.
The Brennan hearing tomorrow may represent the best opportunity in who knows how long to try to nail down this power-grabbing White House. However, I expect it will more likely be a case of Breena dissembling, hedging, claiming state secrets, bullying (he might not be able to help it) and the like. But I doubt the committee will be overly assertive because, as President Obama totally tactlessly has reminded us: “I have two words for you: Predator Drone”. Oh, if we only knew he wasn’t joking.
My though is that the timing of the white paper release was meant as an information sink of sorts to allow Brennan to dissemble by alluding to all the answers being thorough;ly covered therein. But will the committee members (those inclined to be substantive) go for it?
“Do unto others…” And when there’s a drone strike on American soil with collateral damage?
“Are US drones terrorising civilians?”
A new report reveals the programme is counter-productive and causing great harm to civilians and US national security.
Inside Story Americas Last Modified: 27 Sep 2012 09:24
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/09/20129279631498599.html
Excerpt:
Living under drones report:
There is significant evidence that US drone strikes have injured and killed civilians even though the US government rarely acknowledges this.
Extensive interviews in northwest Pakistan shows that beyond deaths and injuries, drone strikes cause considerable harm to the daily lives of ordinary citizens.
The hovering of drones 24-hours a day over communities terrorises residents and has a devastating impact on social and economic life, which includes symptoms of intense psychological trauma among the civilian population.
The evidence that the strikes have made the US safe overall is ambiguous at best. The strikes have stoked hostility toward the US and motivated further violent attacks on US targets.
The drone strikes undermine respect for the rule of both international and domestic US law. There are doubts on the legality of strikes not targeted at individuals linked to the 9/11 terror attacks or those who do not pose an immediate threat to the US.
The report highlights the US government’s failure to ensure basic transparency and accountability for the programme, or to set out the legal basis for operational rules.
The drone strike policy may establish dangerous precedents for other governments who want to use lethal force.
(We will reap what we sow.)