Leaked: Obama's Rules For Assassinating American Citizens 800
cathyreisenwitz writes "For over a year now journalists, civil liberties advocates, and members of Congress have been asking the Obama administration to release internal memoranda from the Office of Legal Counsel justifying Obama's targeted killing program. While the White House continues to deny that such memos exist, NBC is reporting that it has acquired the next best thing: A secretish 16-page white paper from the Department of Justice that was provided to select members of the Senate last June." Spencer Ackerman at Wired says the leaked rules "[trump] traditional Constitutional protections American citizens enjoy from being killed by their government without due process" by redefining the concept of "imminence."
incorrect leftist BS (Score:4, Interesting)
Its important to set clear boundaries. Joining the US Communist party or neo-nazis should not have had the same consquences because it never declared war on the US.
Plus I am concerned about growing use of domestic drone technology like for the in the Alabama kidnapping this week. Only a short step to arm them.
Re:Bush Sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
The Bush policy was extraordinary rendition and a stay at Guantanamo until guilt or innocence could be determined -- and that was for non-citizens!
Re:clear and present danger (Score:5, Interesting)
I care. It's why, among so many other reasons, I voted for Johnson. Obama and Bush have both committed impeachable offenses that absolutely dwarf Clinton's perjury. Throw in the stupidity of the Reagan/Bush years, and you've got to go back to Carter to find an honest president. And he was incompetent. It's a tough job to do with integrity and principle. And honestly, I would never ever want to be president.
Re:Oh, the surprise. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"it isn't real, you are a flake" (Score:3, Interesting)
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh, the surprise. (Score:4, Interesting)
Our country is theoretically "at war"
theoretically "at war"
theoretically
"at war"
Remind me again when Congress declared war on Al-Qaeda?
Re:Your best bet is to (Score:2, Interesting)
Which shows just how ideologically blind many libertarians are, given how intimately the "original design" of this country depended on the labor of certain "3/5 people".
Another victim of two party politics (Score:4, Interesting)
I voted for Obama in both of the previous elections. I didn't vote for him because i honsetly thought he would Change anything. One can always hope, but i didn't believe it would really happen, so i wasn't that disappointed when it didn't. I voted for him because i believed he wouldn't do _most_ of the things the Republicans said they wanted to do, and _maybe_ he'd actually manage to do one of two good things. And that's pretty much what happened. He's managed to do a couple things i view as good, and _mostly_ hasn't done the things the Republicans said they wanted.
I would rather have had a president who didn't do _any_ of the crappy things i believe the Republicans would do, but realistically there was no way to achieve that. In game theory terms i got the best outcome (from my perspective) that was possible under the current system. Under any kind of instant run-off system Obama would not have been my first choice. He might not even have been my second or third choice.
And both the Republicans and the Democrats know they can get away with a lot of crap exactly because of the two party system. "What are you going to do, vote for the Greens or Libertarians instead? Ha ha, go ahead, see how well that works out for you."
totalitarianism (Score:3, Interesting)
A few observations:
Some people, with reasonable cause, do not trust Obama. Their suspicions have been vindicated.
Re:Oh, the surprise. (Score:5, Interesting)
We are all ignorant, that's for sure. Perhaps if the US government had given US citizens due process, as required by the Constitution, then we would know what Abdulrahman was doing over there, and whether he was an enemy combatant.
And, even if Abdulrahman were taking up arms against the US [citation needed], and even if he weren't a US citizen, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 37, limits the punishment of anyone under the age of 18, specifically excluding capital punishment of the type that was meted out to Abdulrahman.
Due process is an amazing thing. You see, the government isn't always right. Sometimes they accuse the wrong person. Certainly the man who launched the "Amerithrax" attack on America is an evil terrorist who deserves no rights, correct? Lucky for Dr. Steven Hatfill, we still had due process back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill [wikipedia.org]
Or how about the guy who bombed some trains in Madrid in 2004? They found his fingerprints on the bag containing the bombs. Open and shut case, right? Well, lucky for Mr. Brandon Mayfield, we still had due process back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield [wikipedia.org]
And those are just US citizens! If we expand the scope of government fuckups to include foreign nationals, the list gets much bigger, much faster. Off the top of my head:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhdar_Boumediene [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Kurnaz [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Anvar [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Tourson [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Helil_Mamut [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huzaifa_Parhat [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emam_Abdulahat [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalal_Jalaladin [wikipedia.org]
All were alleged terrorists. They weren't delivering pizza (Boumediene in particular was a member of the Red Crescent, which is a lot like our Red Cross), but all were eventually proven innocent of being terrorists.
We need to talk big ideas. (Score:3, Interesting)