We recently wrote about the president's new ability to kill Americans by executive order.(It still shocks me to write that — it's so stark — but that's a fair description. It also shocks me that my concern about this power is surrounded by a cone of silence from my countrymen and women.)Our earlier article quoted lawyer Jonathan Turley at length on the subject. Here's Salon's Glenn Greenwald discussing the same topic with Sam Seder on Majority.fm.This is a great walk-through by Glenn. He starts with the beginning of the practice by Obama, the comparison with Bush II legal opinion, and the implications of AG Holder's speech. An extremely clear, focused interview. (Don't miss the comparison to Bush II at about 17:00 — the key point, Obama can get away with stuff that Bush could never do. Guess why.)More generally, think about "targeted killing" — executive assassination — for a minute. 1. This power-grab has implications for our "reasonable positions" discussion about voting in 2012, but I'll save that for later.2. If Julian Assange were traveling in a country where the collateral damage, extra dead bodies, would be brown people ("Unpeople" like Afghans for example), would Obama order a drone strike to kill him?After all, Bradley Manning is being held without trial, and because WikiLeaks is "known bad," it's all good with our freedom-loving fellow citizens. Manning's an invisible man. 3. How long before this power starts being used for political takedowns? (They call that "feature creep" in the tech biz; you start with code that adds two numbers, and end up with code that measures the distance to the sun.)4. In particular, how long before the next Scott Walker, as president, jumps in with both feet and just uses it to the full? Republicans use every ounce of power they get; always.This really is a kingly power, you know. But hey, isn't there a game on? (Maybe if Civil Liberties had a basketball team, people would care.)
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Obama AG Holder: Obama can kill you ... any time he wants to
http://www.americablog.com/2012/03/obama-ag-holder-obama-can-kill-you-any.html
Did you know that U.S. President Barack Obama can now order you killed? Read on.
Barack Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder recently raised himself on his hind legs to explain to the nation what process is used to pick targets of Barack Obama's Presidential Murder Program (my caps; Holder is lowercase-modest).This on the heels of the fact that President Barack Obama has been doing just that. Holder presumes the power; he just wants to explain the process.(Did I say "Barack Obama" enough? I hope so.)To explain, I give you Jonathan Turley, writing in Foreign PolicyOn Monday, March 5, Northwestern University School of Law was the location of an extraordinary scene for a free nation. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder presented President Barack Obama's claim that he has the authority to kill any U.S. citizen he considers a threat.It served as a retroactive justification for the slaying of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki last September by a drone strike in northeastern Yemen, as well as thetargeted killings of at least two other Americans during Obama's term.What's even more extraordinary is that this claim, which would be viewed by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution as the very definition of authoritarian power, was met not with outcry but muted applause.Where due process once resided, Holder offered only an assurance that the president would kill citizens with care. While that certainly relieved any concern that Obama, or his successor, would hunt citizens for sport, Holder offered no assurances on how this power would be used in the future beyond the now all-too-familiar "trust us" approach to civil liberties of this administration. ...Holder's speech does not materially limit that claimed authority, but stressed that "our legal authority is not limited to the battlefields in Afghanistan." He might as well have stopped at "limited" because the administration has refused to accept any limitations on this claimed inherent power. ... [H]e insisted that "a careful and thorough executive branch review of the facts in a case amounts to 'due process.'"Turley's summary:
What Holder is describing is a model of an imperial presidency that would have made Richard Nixon blush.If the president can kill a citizen, there are a host of other powers that fall short of killing that the president might claim, including indefinite detention of citizens -- another recent controversy.Thus, by asserting the right to kill citizens without charge or judicial review, Holder has effectively made all of theConstitution's individual protections of accused persons [into] matters of presidential discretion.Turley has more, as do others. Please read it through.Let me reiterate: Obama (through Holder) has turned "all of the Constitution's individual protections" of due process before incarceration or execution (state murder) into "matters of presidential discretion."In other words, Obama can kill you ... any time he wants to. How is that not a fair description? And don't forget to note the "muted applause" in Turley's description of the speech's reception.Might this be one of those "lines of conscience" we talked about?GP(To follow on Twitter: @Gaius_Publius)
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