Letters at 3AM (#3): The Fifth Amendment no longer exists as a functioning law of the land
An Arbitrary Nation, Pt. 3
by
Michael Ventura
A law arbitrarily enforced (or not enforced) according to the whims of the authorities is no longer a law. That is the premise as we examine the Constitution.
On to the Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
It says, "No person." There isn't a distinction between citizen and noncitizen
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On Sept. 30, 2011, another American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, was executed in Yemen, via drone, by order of the president. The White House says that's legal, but won't say why, nor why the memorandum justifying the president's power to kill Americans was "written more than a year before Mr. Awlaki was killed" (The New York Times, Oct. 8, 2011).
The administration has successfully created such a murky atmosphere that eight Democratic and three Republican senators signed a letter requesting the appropriate documents to judge "whether the president's power to deliberately kill American citizens is subject to appropriate limitations and safeguards" (The New York Times, Feb. 5).
Excuse me? What "president's power to deliberately kill American citizens" are we talking about? There is no such power in the Constitution. Is the president's power to kill now assumed by Congress as long as there are "appropriate limitations and safeguards"? (Let's pause and breathe deeply.)
Three months after President Obama ordered al-Awlaki's execution, he signed the National Defense Authorization Act, specifically designating that Americans, on American soil, may be arrested without warrant and detained indefinitely without trial (as had already occurred with Jose Padilla).
A year later, the House and Senate reauthorized the National Defense Authorization Act, deciding "to drop a provision that would have explicitly barred the military from holding American citizens ... in indefinite detention without trial" (The New York Times, Dec. 18, 2012).
We started with, "No person can be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury." Now we're at: The president can arrest, detain, and execute at will.
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http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2013-05-17/letters-at-3am-an-arbitrary-nation-part-3/
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