NBC News reports:
Senator Wyden said:Legal experts expressed grave reservations Tuesday about an Obama administration memo concluding that the United States can order the killing of American citizens believed to be affiliated with al-Qaida — with one saying the White House was acting as “judge, jury and executioner.”
“Anyone should be concerned when the president and his lawyers make up their own interpretation of the law or their own rules,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and an authority on international law and the use of force.
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“This is a very, very dangerous thing that the president has done,” she added.
Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer who writes about security and liberty for the British newspaper The Guardian, described the memo as “fundamentally misleading,” with a clinical tone that disguises “the radical and dangerous power it purports to authorize.”
“If you believe the president has the power to order U.S. citizens executed far from any battlefield with no charges or trial, then it’s truly hard to conceive of any asserted power you would find objectionable,” he wrote.
Top constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley notes:Every American has the right to know when their government believes that it is allowed to kill them.
I think I've seen that movie before ...In plain language, [the Obama administration memo] means that [any Americans can be assassinated if] the President considers the citizens to be a threat in the future. Moreover, the memo allows killings when an attempt to capture the person would pose an “undue risk” to U.S. personnel. That undue risk is left undefined.
Given that drones are being deployed in the American homeland, some fear that the war is coming home.
Indeed, the military now considers the U.S. homeland to be a battlefield. The U.S. is already allowing military operations within the United States. The Army is already being deployed on U.S. soil, and the military is conducting numerous training exercises on American streets. (For more background, see this, this, this, this, and this.)
Similarly, the White House has claimed the unilateral power to launch pre-emptive cyber-strikes against foreign nations. As FireDogLake notes:Like with the drone program, President Barack Obama is presiding over the creation and development of a power that previous presidents never imagined having. The national security state is effectively appointing him and all future presidents the proverbial judge, jury and executioner when it comes to cyber warfare.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-02-05/white-house-judge-jury-and-executioner-both-drone-and-cyber-attacks
For more read this link also:
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/archives/7666
Let me spell it out for you, and this is the crux of everything. We have Obama (or whatever his real name is) in the Oval Office. You’ve said it before, that America is a “captured operation.” Well, it is, and every top level operative at DHS and Justice knows it. They have his dossier.
Think about Obama’s mother working in microfinance with Timothy Geithner’s father. What are the odds? And that’s just one “coincidence.”
A lot of people won’t get this until it’s too late, or maybe never get it. But take a good look at Obama and the people who surround him. Look at the 2008 economic crisis under Bush. Look at the run up to where we’re at today. The orchestrated boom of the 1990′s. The GLB Act signed into law under Clinton that changed the complexion of our domestic economy. Look at the people who are still around, the architects of this. It’s a big lie! It’s all been rigged, and the insiders know this! Look at the continuity of agenda since “Bush senior.”
Now listen to what I am telling you. This is a continuing operation that involves many of the same people on both sides of the aisle in Washington. This is one of the reasons why no one wants to talk about Obama’s past. He is the product of a continuing intelligence operation, put in power to oversee the dismantling of the U.S., with the economy being the lynchpin of our destruction. Obama, Jarrett, and the Clintons are in constant contact with all high level operatives inside the DHS. Perhaps not directly in all cases but through their contacts. They are working together to see to it that the U.S. economy is brought down, robbing the people of their wealth and then blaming partisan politics for the crash.
For the first time in recent history, you’re going to see people hungry and out in the streets. Those unprepared or those thinking this is all [expletive deleted]. Desperate and begging for food. Think Katrina, but on a national scale. That’s what is being planned for Americans, and few people are willing to see what’s happening, or willing to believe it. Now here’s where DHS, my sources and information comes in.
Everybody is looking at the gun “problem” in America. Fights over the Second Amendment. State laws that go against the Constitution. Blame it on Sandy Hook or Colorado. Tell people we need to be disarmed because it’s for the children. It’s all [expletive deleted]. Most people know it’s all [expletive deleted], but that’s where their rational assessment stops. Why do you think the people in power want to - no – need to disarm the public? It’s because they are planning an economic collapse, and an armed and informed populace is a danger to their plan.....
Conspiracy theories are just that. They are formulated by paranoids and serial liars to try and justifiy their own impotence. I just read that the parents of some of the little murdered children are being harassed by right wing conspiracy theorists who claim that no children were killed but the whole incident was staged by Obama. This isn't just lying, this is a creeping sickness being spread by the internet wackos and their sick ilk.
ReplyDeleteProf, please provide a link. I'd like to read up on who those people were.
Deletehttp://www.policymic.com/articles/23443/sandy-hook-conspiracy-theories-go-from-idiocy-to-active-harassment
DeleteMick.....There is no conspiracy about the Fact that an American citizen has been targeted and killed by a Drone attack,at the direction of Obama !
DeleteNow cut the crap and diversion from the subject by returning to sandy hook.That is another subject.
Obama is not above the law and the following is True,
In plain language, [the Obama administration memo] means that [any Americans can be assassinated if] the President considers the citizens to be a threat in the future.
Rojay, an American citizen who joins the Muslim terrorists fighting the U.S. is an enemy, that's all that need be said. I hope our drones kill all the terrorists who are sworn to destroy us by any means. As to conspiracy, I was responding to the last paragraph which says "Why do you think the people in power want to - no – need to disarm the public? It’s because they are planning an economic collapse, and an armed and informed populace is a danger to their plan..... ". Now my friend, that is a conspiracy theory which is total nonsense. , in other words, crap.
DeleteMick.....Don't disagree with wacking those who do us harm,but to make that judgment without any other approval or oversight is murder. This is a very dangerous,without oversight could lead to being used to remove anyone whom he does not agree with,it is wrong.
DeleteBy the way I think that Congress is starting to think so also.
Rojay, those citizens who were killed were active terrorists who were in a foreign country, there was no doubt about their involvement. I would agree it would be a dangerous precident to kill suspected terrorists on U.S. soil without due process.
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