We previously discussed how Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter confirming that the President would have authority to kill citizens on U.S. soil without a charge or conviction. His answer triggered a principled filibuster by Sen. Rand Paul and another embarrassment to Democratic Senators who, again, chose personality over principle in staying silent. Now, Holder has issued a new statement. No, President Obama still claims the right to kill U.S. citizens on his sole authority. However, Holder now says that, if the citizen is “not engaged in combat on American soil,” the President cannot vaporize him. The answer leaves the constitutional claim of Obama even more confused and conflicted. Does this mean we have a third category now under the policy: citizen, citizen terrorist, and citizen non-combatant terrorist? The difference appears to determine whether you can be vaporized or speak to counsel but Holder is not explaining to the citizenry.
In his prior letter, Holder answered a question about whether the President was claiming the right to kill citizens on U.S. soil. This follows the release of a memo showing that Holder’s description of the policy at Northwestern University Law School was narrower than the actual policy described within the Administration. A memo leaked to the press shows that the Administration has adopted a virtual limitless definition of imminence: “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.”
Last week, Holder said “It is possible I suppose to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”
After the filibuster, Holder wrote a short terse response to Paul: “It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no.”
It is not clear how this “additional questions” differed from the first or why Holder did not answer the question previously. The use of “it has come to my attention” adds a wonderfully dishonest element to an evasive answer. It is not clear what Holder means by “engaged in combat” since the Administration memo shows that the Administration is using an absurdly broad definition of “imminent” threat under the kill list policy. Since the Administration has continued to assert that terrorists are engaged in a war against the U.S., the terse reply of Holder seems designed to preserve later flexibility.
Moreover, there is nothing in the constitutional claim of the Administration that reflects such a limitation. Deciding on where to kill a citizen would be an discretionary policy under the sweeping presidential authority described by the Administration. As noted in earlier columns (here and here and here), it is astonishing how citizens, including so many liberals and civil libertarians, Obama is saying that his appointment of a non-binding committee satisfied due process and relieves any need for judicial review. Moreover, if the President has the inherent authority to kill a citizen in Canada, it is not clear why such inherent authority would not exist a few hundred yards away in Detroit. The Administration has said that it can use the unilateral power when it considers a capture to pose undue risk to its personnel.
What is particularly striking is that we have a president who is asserting the right to kill any citizen but the Administration has classified memos on that authority and the Attorney General will only give a Senator a terse two line conclusory statement on scope. The Administration appears to believe that there is little need to explain the details on killing citizens, such as how it defines “combat.” Obviously, if there is a war occurring in the United States, a president has the right to put down insurrection or attacks on the federal government. These strikes concern targeting terrorists. One can easily foresee this or a future president insisting that an alleged terrorism conspiracy is a form of combat.
It would seem an obvious thing to explain how they define combat and whether an alleged terrorist would fall into it. Does this mean that there will be a category of non-combatant terrorists for domestic strikes? How is that defined? It seems like a hole big enough to fly a drone through.
Since police can already use lethal force to stop an attack in progress, the answer leaves more questions than it answers in my view. For a citizen it would mean that he or she can be killed abroad on the basis of the Administration’s wildly broad definition of “imminent” but domestically would fall under a different “combat” definition. Where is the line between an “imminent” threat and “combat” drawn? Does Holder mean there is a different meaning to imminence when someone steps over the border? We already have the definition of “imminent” and the Administration’s new definition of “imminent.” Is this yet a third option?
Published on Monday, April 30, 2012 by Common Dreams
Jeremy Scahill: US Has Become ‘Nation of Assassins’
US Peace conference puts face to drone victims
– Common Dreams staff
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/30-2
Excerpt:
International law experts, peace activists, journalists and human rights advocates from around the world gathered in Washington, DC over the weekend to inform the American public about US drone policy and the impact it is having on human populations throughout the world.
Peace group CODEPINK and the legal advocacy organizations Reprieve and the Center for Constitutional Rights hosted the first International Drone Summit as a way to build an organizing strategy against the growing use of drones, call an end to airstrikes that kill innocent civilians, and to prevent the potentially widespread misuse both overseas and in the United States.
“Drone victims are not just figures on a piece of paper, they are real people and that’s why it is important to see what happens on the ground when a missile hits a target,” said Pakistani attorney Shahzad Akbar, according to the Pakistani newspaper DAWN. “We have to see what exactly is happening on the ground, what is happening to the people,” he told the Washington conference.
During his speech, journalist Jeremy Scahill, who has done in-depth reporting on the US drone program in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, questioned the Obama Administration’s policy of assassination. “What is happening to this country right now?” asked Scahill after noting that recent legislation in the US Congress opposing the assassination of US citizens abroad without due process received only six votes in the House of Representatives. “We have become a nation of assassins. We have become a nation that is somehow silent in the face of — or embraces, as polls indicate — the idea that assassination should be one of the centerpieces of US foreign policy. How dangerous is this? It’s a throwback to another era — an era that I think many Americans thought was behind them. And the most dangerous part of this is the complicity of ordinary people in it.” [Note: See below, Part 4 at the 5:30 mark]
Scahill was emphatic in his talk that the drone and assassination programs have received wide bi-partisan support and lamented those in the US who ceased to voice their concern over such policies as soon as President Bush left office. “President Obama has shown us in a very clear way that when it comes to the premiere national security policy of this nation, there is not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.”
“What is this “social contract” of which you speak?”
It is the underpinning of the theory of government (as in all forms of government) by where people join together for mutual benefit which is sometimes derived from the limitation of absolute rights found in the state of nature. Inalienable is not the same thing as absolute.
“When did I enter into said contract?”
When you were born into an organized society with a government and not into some lawless state of barbarism.
“How do I forfeit my right to participate?”
In the United States, you may simply renounce your citizenship. Be prepared though that if you seek citizenship in any country with a government, you will simply be trading one social compact for another.
“I never signed a contract where half of my money was to be stolen by the mafia in power aka government.”
The consent to the social compact upon birth is implicit. You may – in many but not all countries – expressly opt out upon reaching the age of majority by renouncing your citizenship.
“I was born here, I should not have to move to have my property not stolen from me.”
Argument by false equivalence and incomplete comparison. Taxes are not theft. They form the funding base for every form of government so no matter where you move – unless you choose some lawless hellhole where the only law is the law of the gun – you are going to be paying taxes.
These are the facts of political science and the theory of government.
If you don’t like them, I hear the Somali pirates are hiring.
To who wrote about the ‘social contract’ above: I never signed a contract where half of my money was to be stolen by the mafia in power aka government. I was born here, I should not have to move to have my property not stolen from me.
What is this “social contract” of which you speak? When did I enter into said contract? How do I forfeit my right to participate?
How do I waive rights which are inalienable?
Convenience is no excuse for making crap up.