Drone Killings vs. Due Process of Law
Outrage is slowly growing over President Obama’s use of drones (unmanned, ariel vehicles) to kill Americans while refusing to provide any legal basis for doing so. This past week, a 16-page document leaked to NBC showed a ”glaring lack of legal definition for key words that act as steps in determining a citizen’s guilt and subsequent death penalty.” The memo claims that any “high-level official” has the lawful power to decide when to kill an American citizen without due process of law. It also stated multiple times that “citizenship” does not “immunize” an individual against “lethal” attack. Disturbing.
Although the program has gone on in secret for more than 10 years, drone attacks have drastically increased from 52 under Bush (eight years) to the current 372 under Obama (four years). The expansion of this presidential power, with basically no Congressional oversight, was highlighted during this week’s Senate confirmation hearings for John Brennan. Brennan, nominated to replace Gen. David Petraeus as head of the CIA, is larged credited with the administration’s dramatic rise in the use of drones against terrorist suspects.
This policy was highly critized when Obama sent drones to kill Anwar al-Awlaki , an American citizen, in the Yemen desert, Sept. 30, 2011 . The drone attack also killed Samir Khan, an American citizen born in Pakistan traveling with Mr. Awlaki. The strike was the first time in the war on terror that an American citizen had been deliberately targeted and killed by American forces.
Two weeks later, Awlaki’s Colorado-born son — 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki — was targeted and killed by another U.S. drone strike in Yemen. The teen had not renounced his citizenship and was underage. When questioned about the decision, Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs defended the strike, not by arguing that the son was a threat, or that killing him was an accident, but by saying that his late father irresponsibly joined al Qaeda terrorists. What? Our president can authorize an attack on children for their parents crimes?
The Constitution allows such force when the US has been attacked or when an attack is imminent. One of the questions the committee submitted to Brennan in advance of the Senate hearing asked how it was determined that an individual was associated with al Qaeda and that a threat was imminent. His answer: on a “case-by-case” basis.
For now, our executive branch decides who lives and dies. Daniel Goure, national security expert from the Lexington Institute, expressed his concerns by stating: “Is this a power you really want to turn over to the president of the United States and the intelligence community? It’s not policing, and it’s not war. This is dangerous as hell, and it’s the weapon of choice for this administration, which is terrifying.”
http://www.elaineseverydayeco.com/drone-killings-vs-due-process-of-law/
Don't think I'll be able to work for her.
of the bill authorizes the use of propaganda inside the US, which had previously been banned since 1948 when the Smith-Mundt Act was passed.
