The teaser for a Huffpo story reads: "WH Press Secretary Hounded by Reporters on Drones" as if he is having a bad day, forced to answer questions about the Obama Administration's policy on using drone strikes against terrorists, including American citizens.
Excuse me, Huffpo editors, but the Administration should have to answer questions -- before Congress -- about this outrageous power grab and violation of human rights.
According to an ACLU blog post on the topic, the leaked white paper that summarizes a legal memo that grants the government the right to
carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen if "an informed, high-level official" deems him to present a "continuing" threat to the country.
There are so many potential problems with this notion that you don't need to be a lawyer to tease them out. For one, the policy gives the government the right to be judge, jury, and executioner of American citizens, anywhere in the world, who they think are members of al Queda or a similar terrorist group.
Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but you don't have to be one to see how this policy could go awry. It gets worse:
According to the white paper, the government has the authority to carry out targeted killings of U.S. citizens without presenting evidence to a judge before the fact or after, and indeed without even acknowledging to the courts or to the public that the authority has been exercised.
WTW? So due process is shot to hell, accountability is gone, and a "suspect" becomes guilty with no possibility of challenging the terrorist label. The government was wrong about one detainee who turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. If they can now target and kill with nothing more than a strong suspicion, the possibility of mistakes being made is great.
My final point is that while we are debating the laws on guns and the problem of violence in our society, our government is extending its authority to kill abroad. The other irony is that while many gun owners are up in arms about possible assault weapons bans, they don't seem to have any problem with the existence of a f**king "kill list"!!!! The government some fear will one day take a rifle away can simply target you from the air and take you out with impunity. That's a far greater threat if it goes unchallenged.
I'm hoping the ACLU sues. This is a horrible developent in a democracy.
