Obama Authorizes Assassination of Civilians He now calls Terrorists

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License to Kill? Intelligence Chief Says U.S. Can Take Out American Terrorists

Director of National Intelligence Says Intelligence Community Can Target Citizens Presenting a Terrorist Threat

By JASON RYAN

Feb. 3, 2010—


The director of national intelligence affirmed rather bluntly today that the U.S. intelligence community has authority to target American citizens for assassination if they present a direct terrorist threat to the United States.

"We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community; if & we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra D-Mich., addressed the issue at today's hearing.

"The targeting of Americans -- it's a very sensitive issue, but again there's been more information in the public domain than what has been shared with this committee," he said.

"There is no clarity." Hoekstra said. "What is the legal framework?"

"Whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American has -- is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved." Blair explained. "We don't target people for free speech. We target them for taking action that threatens Americans."

According to U.S. officials, only a handful of Americans would be eligible for targeting by U.S. intelligence or military operations. The legal guidance is determined by the National Security Council and the Justice Department.

In the past, the U.S. has killed Americans overseas but they were viewed as "collateral damage." In 2002, the CIA killed American-born Kamal Derwish, a member of the "Lackawanna 6" terror group during a CIA Predator drone strike. Derwish was driving in a car with other members of al Qaeda, the government said.

In 2008, a missile strike in Somalia killed American Ruben Shumpert, a Seattle man suspected of being an Islamist radical. Shumpert was wanted by federal authorities on gun and counterfeit currency charges.

He had agreed to plead guilty but fled the country days before sentencing in 2004.

The Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al Awlaki, who has become a prominent influence with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was at a meeting with leaders of the terror group when U.S. officials knowingly launched a cruise missile strike to eliminate the terror leaders. Several people were killed but Awlaki survived.

Terrorism an Emergent Threat, Recruitment Efforts Grow

The disclosure about detailed guidance to target Americans as part of terror plots comes amid fresh warnings about increased threats and concerns about new al Qaeda attacks.

"We have been warning in the past several years that al Qaeda itself and its associated affiliates and al Qaeda-inspired terrorists remain committed to striking the United States," Blair said today, "and in the past year we have some names that goes behind these warnings."

Blair cited the cases of Colorado terrorism suspect Najibullah Zazi, the accused Christmas Day bomber Farouk Abdulmutallab and Major Nidal Hasan, who was charged in the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting that killed 13 people.

"We have made complex, multi-team attacks very difficult for al Qaeda to pull off, but as we saw with the recent rash of attacks last year&identifying individual terrorists, small groups with short histories using simple attack methods, is a much more difficult task," Blair said.

Blair added that radicalization and recruitment foments suicide bombers.

"Al Qaeda's radical ideology seems to appeal strongly to a group of disaffected young Muslims, and this is a pool of potential suicide bombers and this pool unfortunately includes Americans," Blair said.

The DNI said that Internet and social media sites have become critical to terrorism recruitment efforts. Speaking about the Hasan case and his alleged Internet communications with al Awlaki, Blair said, "The homegrown radicalization of people in the United States&is a relatively new thing."

Blair said U.S. intelligence was rapidly working to counter the emerging problem. "There are some technical things, which are making it more difficult, with the use of social networking as opposed to simply looking at a Web site and responding by e-mail."

Increasing Threat?

Blair said this is "a threat, which may be increasing. We're taking it more and more seriously and this is a -- this is something that is very -- is potentially very dangerous to us because of all of the -- for all of the reasons of the rights that American citizens have.

"We may be shooting behind the rabbit here and it's moving faster than we thought and we're spending a lot of additional effort on that, to try and understand it." Blair said.

Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures

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Admiral Blair's Hit Teams
Top 10 Problems with America Assassinating Americans

By DAVID SWANSON



Dennis Blair, the director of U.S. national intelligence, told the House Intelligence Committee this week that the government has the right to kill Americans abroad.

Here are 10 problems with this:
1. Acts that are crimes under national and international law don't cease to be crimes because you cross a border.

2. Acts that are crimes under national and international law don't cease to be crimes because you engage in them frequently. Assassinating non-Americans is just as illegal as assassinating Americans. The leap here is not to victims of a different citizenship but to the legalization of murder.

3. Killing people has nothing whatsoever to do with gathering so-called intelligence.

4. Even in this age in which senators and house members petition and write public letters to the president imploring him to obey laws, rather than introducing legislation, issuing subpoenas, holding impeachment hearings, or defunding agencies, the fact remains that Congress, above all, IS the government, and it is just not the place of the director of national thuggery to come in and dictate what the law will or will not be.

5. Having made the globe a battlefield and sanctioned crimes including lawless imprisonment, torture, warrantless spying, indiscriminant bombings, and the use of white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and other sickening weapons, on the grounds that all is fair and legal in war, preventing Americans from becoming the innocent victims of the war is becoming harder and harder. If active military can be on duty here, if we can be spied on, kidnapped, and imprisoned here. If our most prominent foreign death camp can be relocated here, by what logic -- and for how long -- can government assassinations of Americans (without trial) be confined to elsewhere?

6. Typically when we assassinate people abroad, a lot of other innocent people are killed in the process. Those are all murders. That too will come home if there is not resistance soon, major resistance to this madness.

7. We are being asked to trust extrajudicial decisions on whether or not to murder, not just to allegedly wise judges who are in too big a hurry or find it logistically unfeasible to hold a trial, but to the very people who lied us into the wars that are motivating most of the international hostility toward our country and draining most of the resources Americans need at home.

8. No republic has ever survived putting this kind of power in the hands of a single ruler, with no independent legislature, no independent press, and no independent popular resistance. And we're almost there.

9. These people usually only admit to believing they have the barbaric "right" to do things that they have already done.

10. What are the chances the Director of Intelligence will never consider a president a threat to national security?

David Swanson is the author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union by Seven Stories Press. He can be reached at: david@davidswanson.org

[American Patriot]

Good, the first asswipe that comes near my boat is going down.

[Beetle]

Good, the first asswipe that comes near my boat is going down.

I got your six

[vector7]

U.S. Government Can Kill ANYONE,Including YOU Without Trial, COVERTLY!

Ladies and Gentleman, the U.S. Government has just declared war on the general public. The U.S. Government can kill ANYONE, including YOU without trial, COVERTLY...Methods used will be poisoning, road traffic accidents, lethal vaccinations, being shot in the head, being abducted and tortured, disappearance and anyway that makes out it was accidental death thus saving on paperwork and inquiries. U.S. intelligence will covertly assess your behavior and movements then base the assassination around your everyday activities. This law will be abused and no one will know ...

[vector7]

Obama's Civilian Assassination Program

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Glenn Beck-07/19/10-H

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July 19, 2010
Beck: Does Presidential Assassination Program Exist?

Report: American citizens suspected of terrorism are targeted for assassination

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Obama's U.S. assassination program? Part 1

---

Posted: July 26, 2010
1:00 am Eastern

Sound too conspiratorial to be true?

Like the coverup ops of spy novels?

Well, it's reality. And it is possibly the most bizarre, inhumane and abusive way that the White House is expanding its power over the American people.

It's not an extremist belief or theory of the far Right. It's a fact that has been confirmed by publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC and even documented by the far-left blog, Salon.com.

And it's the gravest nightmare of U.S. citizens and abandonment of our Constitution to date: A presidential assassination program in which U.S. citizens are in the literal scopes of the executive branch, based upon nothing more than allegations of terrorism involvement as they define it.

Of course, the CIA has executed covert assassinations of foreigners for decades. But, tragically, Obama is now expanding this program to include American, non-Islamic, stateside, homegrown terrorists.

It all started in January of this year when The Washington Post reported, "As part of the operations, Obama approved a December 24 strike against a [Yemeni] compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaida leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture. …"

"A shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing"?

That's right. No arrest. No Miranda rights. No due process. No trial. Just a bullet.

While the Obama administration continues its Bush-blaming for the economy, it is mega-morphing Bush policy in covert ops overseas, according to The Washington Post, "to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests."

Well, in recent months and weeks, the Obama administration has taken this overseas killing op to a new low: stateside assassinations.
Former Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair confessed before Congress: "We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."

If you are wondering who the "we" are, to whom Blair refers, they are Smith, Wesson and the White House.

Now we know what Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan meant when he admitted in May of this year: "And under President Obama, we have built upon the work of the previous administration and have accelerated efforts in many areas." (Remember when Bush's eavesdropping on U.S. citizens seemed harsh?)

Brennan further explained then that the problem of homegrown terrorists ranks as a top priority, because of the increasing number of U.S. individuals who have become "captivated by extremist ideology or causes." He went on to say, "There are … dozens of U.S. persons who are in different parts of the world that are very concerning to us."

Do you think "different parts of the world" doesn't include their country of origin?

Conveniently, the Obama administration is also integrating a pervasive plan to assure the expiration of radicals as they deem them abroad and domestic too, with the resurrection of the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," introduced by U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif. (Venice, Los Angeles County). Also known as H.R. 1955, it was passed in the House by the Democratic majority, but was then rejected by the Senate.

Everyone thought that legislation was dead until the Obama administration resurrected its tenets in its new 52-page National Security Strategy, released in May. So alarming is the feds' potential abuse of power that officials from London to the Kremlin are recognizing the threat to U.S. citizens.

As the European Union reported, "Foreign Ministry reports circulating in the Kremlin today are warning that an already explosive situation in the United States is about to get a whole lot worse as a new law put forth by President Obama is said capable of seeing up to 500,000 American citizens jailed for the crime of opposing their government."

Woodrow Wilson, during his reign as president, incarcerated more than 2,000 U.S. citizens for speaking out against the government. And now for the first time since, a U.S. president is highlighting the threats of homegrown terror and literally hunting U.S. citizens as terrorists. As one senior administration said, "For the first time since Sept. 11, the [National Security Strategy] integrates homeland security and national security."

And what type of "integration" does that entail?

President Obama explained in an often overlooked statement within the document of the National Security Strategy: "We are now moving beyond traditional distinctions between homeland and national security.

… This includes a determination to prevent terrorist attacks against the American people by fully coordinating the actions that we take abroad with the actions and precautions that we take at home."

Could it be any clearer? Right out of the horse's mouth. Or do I need to spell out what "fully coordinating the actions we take abroad with the actions we take at home" means?

Remember the words, "A shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing"?

That's right.

No arrest.

No Miranda rights.

No due process.

No trial.

Just a bullet.

[Backstop]

Are they taking requests?

[vector7]

Obama Administration Claims Unchecked Authority To Kill Americans Outside Combat Zones

Obama Administration Claims Unchecked Authority To Kill Americans Outside Combat Zones

November 8, 2010



Federal Court Hears Arguments Today In ACLU And CCR Case Challenging Administration's Claimed Authority To Assassinate Americans It Designates Threats

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: (212) 549-2666 (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat.

Government lawyers made that claim in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charging that the administration's asserted targeted killing authority violates the Constitution and international law. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard arguments from both sides today.

"Not only does the administration claim to have sweeping power to target and kill U.S. citizens anywhere in the world, but it makes the extraordinary claim that the court has no role in reviewing that power or the legal standards that apply," said CCR Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, who presented arguments in the case. "The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the government's claim to an unchecked system of global detention, and the district court should similarly reject the administration's claim here to an unchecked system of global targeted killing."

..."If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU, who presented arguments in the case. "It's the government's responsibility to protect the nation from terrorist attacks, but the courts have a crucial role to play in ensuring that counterterrorism policies are consistent with the Constitution."

The government filed a brief in the case in September, claiming that the executive's targeted killing authority is a "political question" that should not be subject to judicial review. The government also asserted the "state secrets" privilege, contending that the case should be dismissed to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information.

[vector7]

Companion Posts:

• Democrat: We Need 'Analysis of How Christian Militants … Might Bring Down The Country’
• Christians are more militant than Muslims, says Government's equalities boss
• A brief overview of disturbing patterns in the Obama Administration
  

New counterterror strategy reset on ‘adherents’

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** FILE ** John Brennan, deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, briefs reporters at the White House in Washington on Friday, Oct. 29, 2010, after President Obama made a statement about suspicious packages found on U.S.-bound planes. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)By Eli Lake
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The Washington Times
Updated: 9:33 p.m. on Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Obama administration's new counterterrorism strategy - the first since the killing of Osama bin Laden last month - will focus on would-be terrorists in the United States who are inspired by al Qaeda's “hateful ideology,” the president's top adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism said Wednesday.

“This is the first counterterrorism strategy that focuses on the ability of al Qaeda and its network to inspire people in the United States to attack us from within,” John Brennan said in an address at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

Mr. Brennan noted that the strategy is the first to “designate the homeland as a primary area of emphasis in our counterterrorism efforts.”

In his speech, Mr. Brennan also said the administration will concentrate on eradicating havens for al Qaeda affiliates in North Africa, Yemen, Iraq and Somalia. He stressed that the United States would continue to work with elements of Yemen's government even as that regime appears to be crumbling.

The counterterrorism strategy focuses on a category of threat it calls “adherents.”

A strategy document released Wednesday to coincide with Mr. Brennan's speech defines adherents as “individuals who have formed collaborative relationships with, act on behalf of, or are otherwise inspired to take action in furtherance of the goals of [al Qaeda] -- the organization and the ideology -- including by engaging in violence, regardless of whether such violence is targeted at the United States, its citizens, or its interests.”

Through websites, videos and audiotapes, al Qaeda leaders have reached out to sympathetic Muslims in the United States, encouraging them to conduct “lone-wolf” terrorist attacks to avenge the death of bin Laden in a U.S. raid in Pakistan last month.

The adherents category would apply to Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in a 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas.

Investigators have determined that Maj. Hasan was inspired by the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-Yemeni citizen whose Internet sermons urge listeners to take up arms against the United States. But Maj. Hasan was not a formal member of al Qaeda or one of its affiliates.

Identifying al Qaeda adherents as a core threat against the United States is a new approach for the Obama administration, which scrambled to explain gaps in homeland security that allowed the Fort Hood massacre and a 2009 attack at a military recruiting station in Arkansas.

Mr. Brennan on Wednesday defined adherents as “individuals, sometimes with little or no direct physical contact with al Qaeda, who have succumbed to its hateful ideology and who have engaged in, or facilitated, terrorist activities here in the United States.”

This strategy could pose legal issues for the United States, which traditionally has focused counterterrorism efforts on designated people and organizations.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, described the adherents category as “a recognition that it's not just a small group of people who have the al Qaeda secret handshake” who pose a threat.

“One of the things [Mr. Brennan] said explicitly is that the Pakistan Taliban is an affiliate of al Qaeda,” Mr. Riedel said. “Well, Pakistan Taliban is not under the pressure al Qaeda is under. It's under very little pressure.”

Hina Shamsi, director of the national security project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “The strategy pays lip service, as it should, to adherence to our values and the rule of law. But there is a significant difference between that rhetoric and the policies the administration is actually following.”

Ms. Shamsi said her organization is still worried about the Obama administration's “use of force outside the confines of armed conflict and overly expansive detention authority and continued defense of warrantless surveillance.”

In his speech, Mr. Brennan said a core part of the administration's strategy against al Qaeda is “living our values.” He pointed out that President Obama, in his first days in office, banned torture and promised to close the detention facility for terrorism suspects at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mr. Brennan stressed that the fight against al Qaeda is not over. The killing of bin Laden and other key jihadist leaders “allows us for the first time to envision the demise of al Qaeda's core leadership in the coming years,” he said.

”It will take time, but make no mistake: al Qaeda is in decline,” he added.

Mr. Brennan said al Qaeda's new leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, is “an aging doctor who lacks bin Laden's charisma and perhaps the loyalty and respect of many within al Qaeda.”

Some U.S. analysts have said the loyalty oaths al Qaeda operatives have taken over the years to bin Laden would not transfer to al-Zawahri.

Though Mr. Brennan said al Qaeda is in decline, he noted that a key part of the new strategy is to make the United States resilient to catastrophic terrorist attacks.

“A responsible, effective counterterrorism strategy recognizes that no nation, no matter how powerful, including a free and open society of 300 million Americans, can prevent every single threat from every single individual who wishes to do us harm,” he said.

“It's not enough to simply be prepared for attacks. We have to be resilient and recover quickly should an attack occur.”

The White House strategy document discusses the idea of making key parts of the U.S. infrastructure and landmarks “hardened targets.” It also says the U.S. must demonstrate to al Qaeda that it can rebuild quickly after a catastrophic attack.

[vector7]

U.S. Says Americans Are MILITARY Targets in the War on Terror … And Says that Only the White House – and Not the Courts – Gets to Decide Who Is a Legitimate Target

Posted on December 2, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog

American Citizens on U.S. Soil May be Indefinitely Detained, Sent to Guantanamo or Assassinated

As everyone realizes by now, Congress’ push for indefinite detention includes American citizens on American soil. As Huffington post notes:

The debate also has left many Americans scratching their heads as to whether Congress is actually attempting to authorize the indefinite detention of Americans by the military without charges. But proponents — led by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee — say that is exactly what the war on terror requires. They argued that the bill simply codifies precedents set by the Supreme Court and removes uncertainty, which they said would better protect the country.

Here is John McCain justifying sending Americans to Guantanamo:



And see this.

(As Emptywheel and Glenn Greenwald note, the White House has believed for many years that it possessed the power to indefinitely detain Americans. See this, this, this, and this.)

But that’s not all.

The government can also kill American citizens. For more than a year and a half, the Obama administration has said it could target American citizens for assassination without any trial or due process.

But now, as shown by the debates surrounding indefinite detention, the government is saying that America itself is a battlefield.

AP notes today:

U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida, top national security lawyers in the Obama administration said Thursday.

***

The government lawyers, CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson … said U.S. citizens do not have immunity when they are at war with the United States.

Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.

The courts in habeas cases, such as those involving whether a detainee should be released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, make the determination of who can be considered an enemy combatant.

You might assume – in a vacuum – that this might be okay (even though it trashes the Constitution, the separation of military and police actions, and the division between internal and external affairs).

But it is dangerous in a climate where you can be labeled as or suspected of being a terrorist simply for questioning war, protesting anything, asking questions about pollution or about Wall Street shenanigans, supporting Ron Paul, being a libertarian, holding gold, or stocking up on more than 7 days of food. And see this.

And it is problematic in a period in which FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”, and even former Secretary of Homeland Security – Tom Ridge – admitst hat he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection.

And it is counter-productive in an age when the government – instead of doing the things which could actually make us safer – are doing things which increase the risk of terrorism.

And it is insane in a time of perpetual war. See this, this, this and this.

And when the “War on Terror” in the Middle East and North Africa which is being used to justify the attack on Americans was planned long before 9/11.

And when Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser told the Senate in 2007 that the war on terror is “a mythical historical narrative”. And 9/11 was entirely foreseeable, but wasn’t stopped. Indeed, no one in Washington even wants to hear how 9/11 happened, even though that is necessary to stop future terrorist attacks. And the military has bombed a bunch of oil-rich countries when it could have instead taken out Bin Laden years ago.
As I noted in March:

The government’s indefinite detention policy – stripped of it’s spin – is literally insane, and based on circular reasoning. Stripped of p.r., this is the actual policy:

• If you are an enemy combatant or a threat to national security, we will detain you indefinitely until the war is over

• It is a perpetual war, which will never be over

• Neither you or your lawyers have a right to see the evidence against you, nor to face your accusers

• But trust us, we know you are an enemy combatant and a threat to national security

• We may torture you (and try to cover up the fact that you were tortured), because you are an enemy combatant, and so basic rights of a prisoner guaranteed by the Geneva Convention don’t apply to you

• Since you admitted that you’re a bad guy (while trying to tell us whatever you think we want to hear to make the torture stop), it proves that we should hold you in indefinite detention

See how that works?

And – given that U.S. soldiers admit that if they accidentally kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants – it is unlikely that the government would ever admit that an American citizen it assassinated was an innocent civilian who has nothing at all to do with terrorism.

[vector7]

Companion Thread:

• Obama assassinates 2 Americans and nobody cares

FBI director: Have to check whether targeted killing rule is outside US only

By Catherine Herridge
Published March 07, 2012
| FoxNews.com



FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday said he would have to go back and check with the Department of Justice whether Attorney General Eric Holder's "three criteria" for the targeted killing of Americans also applied to Americans inside the U.S.

Pressed by House lawmakers about a recent speech in which Holder described the legal justification for assassination, Mueller, who was attending a hearing on his agency's budget, did not say without qualification that the three criteria could not be applied inside the U.S.

"I have to go back. Uh, I'm not certain whether that was addressed or not," Mueller said when asked by Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., about a distinction between domestic and foreign targeting.

Yoder followed up asking whether "from a historical perspective," the federal government has "the ability to kill a U.S. citizen on United States soil or just overseas."

"I'm going to defer that to others in the Department of Justice," Mueller replied.

Indeed, Holder's Monday speech at Northwestern University seemed to leave the door open. While Holder speaks of Americans who lead al Qaeda overseas, the implications of the speech seem broad.

"First, the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; second, capture is not feasible; and third, the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles," Holder said.

Holder said the feasibility of capturing a U.S. citizen terrorist is "fact-specific and potentially time-sensitive."

"Given the nature of how terrorists act and where they tend to hide, it may not always be feasible to capture a United States citizen terrorist who presents an imminent threat of violent attack. In that case, our government has the clear authority to defend the United States with lethal force," he said.

Three Americans were killed last year when lethal force was used against American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki is credited with helping plot the foiled Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and inspiring the Fort Hood shooting. The two others killed -- his son and a cohort who published his online terror magazine "Inspire" -- were considered by the U.S. to be collateral damage.

Asked about Mueller's response, the Justice Department said the answer is "pretty straightforward."

"The legal framework (Holder) laid out applies to U.S. citizens outside of U.S.," said a spokeswoman pulling excerpts from the attorney general's speech.

Holder said the circumstance were legal when it is a case of "an operation using lethal force in a foreign country, targeted against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or associated forces, and who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans.

The circumstances "are sufficient under the Constitution for the United States to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen abroad," Holder added.

However, the attorney general, referencing legal authority in the War on Terror that dates back to the George W. Bush administration, said the Obama administration is not bound to a particular battlefield.

"Neither Congress nor our federal courts has limited the geographic scope of our ability to use force to the current conflict in Afghanistan," he said.

Holder argued in his remarks that it is "simply not accurate" that the president must get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen terrorist.

"Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process," he said.

But Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine on Wednesday that Holder's remarks not only would be seen by the framers of the Constitution as "the very definition of authoritarian power," but were met "not with outcry but muted applause."

"Holder's new definition of 'due process' was perfectly Orwellian," Turley wrote. "What Holder is describing is a model of an imperial presidency that would have made Richard Nixon blush. ...

"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 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," he wrote.

[American Patriot]

You guys understand that Obama ordered this hit himself right? You see, this was done for a very logical, and even to some reasonable, predictable outcome.

The guy "hit" was a terrorist. The other guy was his "son" and the last guy was publishing a "terrorist magazine".

Most people LOGICALLY assume the guy is a "terrorist" now (not just an American, or rather - perhaps ONLY an American) and by God, what ought we do with terrorists? KILL THEM OF COURSE.

So, Obama was looking for a loose connection between the Right and Left.

The Left obviously would say "Good Job, Mr. President" and the Right would say, obviously "Mr. President, this was a job well done, even if the guy was an America, HE WAS A TERRORIST!"

Therefore he (Obama) has slipped on that "Slippery Slope" of removing God Granted Human Rights.

He sliding down his ass on this. Eric Holder is a criminal already. Obama is now.

We just don't CARE that he killed a certain terrorist that also happens to be an American in a foreign country.

But - we as Americans, do we PROTECT A TERRORIST even one of our OWN (Americans) who has gone to the dark side? What about his day in court? What about his RIGHTS?

Now, I don't believe ANY fucker from another country has a RIGHT to American Rights.

But Americans DO, regardless of their hateful background.

We can NOT let these people in office get away with this shit, or every one of us will one day be called "Terrorists".

[vector7]

Media Blackout As Obama Appoints First Ever Assassination Czar

Posted by Alexander Higgins - May 23, 2012 at 12:53 am - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins BlogCorporate news blackout as Obama appoints John Brennan as the sole person in charge of designating people to be assassinated.

John Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor was a name that you did not see on the Mainstream media today as they continue to run stories that serve to distract the masses from stories that matter.

Most recently he publicly spoke about the drone program calling it moral and ethical and just.

According to reports from the Associated Press, John Brennan has now seized the lead in choosing who will be targeted for drone attacks and raids after Obama delegated him as the sole authority to designate people for assassination under the United States top-secret assassination program.

Yes, if it such a secret program then why is the Associated Press running a story on it? Because it is only a “top-secret” matter of National Insecurity when the public and organizations such as the ACLU request more details on it than is revealed int the propagandized reports the public is fed through the corporate media.

While this story deserves to have been put before the eyeballs of every U.S. citizens it was merely a side note ran by the Associate Press that didn’t make corporate news headlines anywhere.

According to the AP, under the new plan, Brennan’s staff compiles the potential target list and runs the names past agencies such as the State Department at a weekly White House meeting.

At the same time ACLU lawsuits and requests for information about the decision-making process behind the government’s assassination program repeatedly get denied with the government claiming the programs are so top-secret that they can neither confirm nor deny the programs even exist.

[American Patriot]

Is that a cabinet position? "Assassination Czar"? Is that what the White House CALLED it?

LOL

[Malsua]

Nice job. Deciding who gets to die. It's all good and wonderful until your name is on the list.

[American Patriot]

Vector... can this be verified on a real newspaper? I don't see any links from this guy to actual news articles.

How do we know this wasn't some made-up BS?

[American Patriot]

This is his "Source":

Media Blackout As Obama Appoints First Ever Assassination Czar

Posted by Alexander Higgins - May 23, 2012 at 12:53 am - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins Blog

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Corporate news blackout as Obama designates John Brennan as the sole person in charge of designating people to be assassinated.

John Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor was a name that you did not see on the Mainstream media today as the continue to run stories that serve to distract the masses from stories that matter.
Most recently he publicly spoke about the drone program calling it moral and ethical and just.
According to reports from the Associated Press, John Brennan has now seized the lead in choosing who will be targeted for drone attacks and raids and Obama has delegated him the sole authority to designate people for assassination under the United States top-secret assassination program.
Yes, if it such a secret program then why is the associated press running a story on it? Because it is only a “top-secret” matter of National Insecurity when the public and organizations such as the ACLU request more details on it than the propagandized reports the public is fed through the corporate media.
While this story deserves to have been put before the eyeballs of every U.S. citizens, it was merely a side note ran by the Associate Press that didn’t make corporate news headlines anywhere.
According to the AP, under the new plan, Brennan’s staff compiles the potential target list and runs the names past agencies such as the State Department at a weekly White House meeting.
At the same time ACLU lawsuits and requests for information about the decision-making process behind the government’s assassination program repeatedly get denied with the government claiming the programs are so top secret that they can neither confirm nor deny the programs even exist.

[vector7]

Companion Thread:

• The Obama Administration announces the 'War on Islamic Terror Is now Over'

White House revises terror target process

From: AP

• May 23, 2012 12:00AM

WHITE House counter-terror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in choosing which terrorists will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure for both military and CIA targets.

The effort concentrates power over the use of lethal US force outside war zones within one small team at the White House.

The new system is about a month old, officials speaking on condition of anonymity said, providing the first detailed description of the military's previous review process that set a schedule for killing or capturing terrorist leaders around the Arab world and beyond.

Officials outside the White House expressed concern that drawing more of the decision-making process to Mr Brennan's office could turn it into a pseudo-military headquarters, entrusting the fate of al-Qa'ida targets to a small number of senior officials.

Some of the officials carrying out the policy are equally wary of "how easy it has become to kill someone," one said.

The US was targeting al-Qa'ida operatives for reasons such as being heard in an intercepted conversation plotting to attack a US ambassador overseas, one official said. The CIA and the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.

An example of a recent Pentagon-led drone strike was the fatal attack in January on al-Qa'ida commander Bilal al-Berjawi in Somalia.

US intelligence and military forces had been watching him for days. When his car reached the outskirts of Mogadishu the drones fired a volley of missiles, obliterating his vehicle and killing him instantly. The drones belonged to the elite US Joint Special Operations Command.

The Defence Department's list of potential drone or raid targets contains about two dozen names.

Under the old Pentagon-run review, the first step was to gather evidence on a potential target. That person's case would be discussed over an inter-agency secure video teleconference, involving the National Counter-terrorism Centre and the State Department. Among the data taken into consideration was whether the target was a member of al-Qa'ida or its affiliates and whether he was engaged in activities aimed at the US.

If a target was not captured or killed within 30 days, his case had to be reviewed to see if he was still a threat.

Under the new plan, Mr Brennan's staff compiles the potential target list and runs the names past agencies such as the State Department at a weekly White House meeting. Then a final recommendation is made to President Barack Obama.

Shrinking the pool of people involved in deciding who goes on the capture/kill list means there are fewer people to hold accountable, said an analyst at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, Mieke Eoyang.

"If people think someone is checking their work, they are more careful," Ms Eoyang said. "Small groups can fall victim to group-think."