Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens "Has No Geographic Limit"

[rachel1]

DemocracyNow.org - The Obama administration's internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. In a secret Justice Department memo, the administration claims it has legal authority to assassinate U.S. citizens overseas even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the United States. We're joined by Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you look at the memo, there is no geographic line," says Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Now the Obama administration is making a greater claim of authority in some ways [than President Bush]. They are arguing the authority to kill American citizens has no geographic limit."

[kestrel91316]

1. "Overseas" most certainly IS a "geographic limit". And it's one that many DUers are conveniently

ignoring. I notice you are one of them.

[99th_Monkey]

2. Wow. This gets uglier by the day.

Just when they need to pull out all the stops, in the scramble to
get Dorner before he kills anyone else.

[limpyhobbler]

3. I trust the government to only use this authority against real terrorists

j/k

[ReRe]

4. Well, there you go....

...they will have the all supreme right to kill American citizens irregardless of geographic limit. The way I interpret this is either over there or over here. If THIS isn't going backwards about 600 years, I don't know what is. It's like going over there to the archives, ripping that constitution out of the case and tearing it into a thousand tiny pieces. Why are we having to learn about this this way? This is not a fucking dictatorship, is it? This looks like an unconstitutional edict to me. All I want them to tell me is that this does NOT apply if within the borders of this country.

[geek tragedy]

6. Your interpretation of "no geographic limit" is incorrect--the DOJ memo explicitly

limits its analysis to situations where the target is outside the United States.

[ReRe]

13. Whew!

That was worrying me to death!!! Thanks for stopping to answer my question.

[geek tragedy]

5. Well, except for they have to be outside the United States. That's the most important

geographic limit possible. A little misleading to state there is "no geographic limit" given that many will falsely conclude this means such strikes are authorized inside the US, when the opposite is true.

[limpyhobbler]

8. Wrong. Wyden asked that question at the hearing, and Brennan did not answer

Anyways,
1) That's just a memo. Not a law. It's a policy planning document from the President's staff.
2) That wasn't even the real memo, just a whitepaper summarizing the memo.
3) The whitepaper(sometimes called the memo) only talks about killing in foreign nations, but doesn't say anything to exclude killing in the US.
4) If you have some other information, feel free to link it.

4. Could the justification apply in the United States?

The Justice Department paper explicitly refers to killing an American citizen in a foreign country. But legal experts and some lawmakers, concerned that the rationale violates the right to due process afforded Americans by the Constitution, see no reason why it couldn’t apply inside the United States.

“That should be the question on everyone’s mind. Probably the first question,” 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.

“If the president can make up law,” she said, “I don’t see why he would think he is stopped from making up law to apply inside the United States.”

The question was among those submitted by Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, to Brennan in January when Brennan was nominated for the CIA post. Among the other details Wyden sought was clarification on when the capture of such a citizen is “infeasible,” another standard laid out by the Justice Department white paper.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/06/16870230-4-key-questions-about-controversial-justice-department-drone-memo?lite

[geek tragedy]

9. We're talking about the memo itself, which concerned exclusively

terrorists found outside the US. Any talk about drone strikes inside the US is pure speculation.

[limpyhobbler]

10. Wrong. If the Presidency's assertion (interpretation) of its current authority is correct,

then that logically implies that there is nothing stopping the Presidency from using the same authority in the USA.

There is nothing stopping it.

If it's true, as the President claims, that he has the authority to assassinate Americans abroad, then there is no reason why he wouldn't have the same authority to do so in the US, since there is nothing additional forbidding it.

If you know otherwise, then you know more than Ron Wyden.

[geek tragedy]

11. The DOJ has maintained in court filings that such action would be illegal here.

See the pleadings in the suit brought by al awlaki's father.

Moreover, what the constitution says about the use of force overseas is vastly different for what it holds here.

[triplepoint]

12. Can & Will This Go To USSC or World Court?

What court can stop this madness?

[jjewell]

14. I cannot believe how many here...

are willing to overlook the obvious unconstitutionality of the US government executing US citizens anywhere on earth without due process, merely because there's a Democrat in the White House. I suppose you'd have been full supporters of the war in Vietnam while Johnson was President, then turned against it when Nixon was elected...

Wrong is wrong no matter which party holds the White House. I predict this "drone war" bullshit is gonna bite us in the ass big time.

[blackspade]

15. These are assassinations.

Setting aside the possibility of drone strikes in the US, I find it outrageous that we are launching 'drone' strikes at all.
What has happened to Democrats, that most of us are supportive of these types of strikes?
What many consider a 'benign' tool in Obama's hands is a total nightmare in the wrong hands.

I'll ask this question of folks that support drone strikes:
Would you want this power to be in the hands of any current republican 'leader'? or even a future one?
If the answer is 'no', then it should be obvious that this should never have been a rabbit hole traveled.
The fact that there is no judicial oversight and no public disclosure of the specific legal justifications for these strikes makes it impossible to rest easy about or support this policy.