Is there ever a good reason to allow the killing of American citizens without due process?

Congressional intelligence committee members are going to find out today how the Justice Department has rationalized the killing of Americans by drone strike without due process. The Obama administration has authorized the release of a classified report that goes into detail about how DoJ arrived at their controversial conclusions on not only drone strikes, but rendition and certain "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Washington Post:

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a committee member who had pressed the administration to provide the opinion, left open the possibility he might still try to block Brennan's nomination. He said turning over the opinion was a good first step.
"I'm committed to making sure that we get all the facts," Wyden said on NBC's "Today" show. "Early this morning, I'm going to be going in to read the opinion. We'll go from there."
Wyden said "there are still substantial questions" about how the administration justifies and plans drone strikes. "The Founding Fathers thought the president should have significant power in the national security arena. But there have to be checks and balances," Wyden said. "You can't just skirt those checks and balances if you think it's inconvenient."
An unclassified memo leaked this week says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior al-Qaida leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans, even if there is no evidence of a specific imminent attack.
That unclassified memo is based on classified advice from the Office of Legal Counsel that is being made available to the intelligence committees' members, the official said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the decision and requested anonymity.

You wouldn't hesitate to kill a fellow American if you were facing him on a battlefield.

I read through the “evidence” against the Hutaree and it was tame compared to some of what I see posted at FR every day.

I believe it. The thing that concerns me most is that people seem to think a battle with the government can be won with bullets. If we don't start thinking logistically and start stocking food in secure locations, no amount of ammo will matter. Never has this nation been so terribly unprepared to survive any kind of real conflict.

Few realize that true security is found in caring for the people on the land. It's Biblical, in fact, once one takes a serious look at the Hebrew, one realizes that it is the essential point made in the old "Cain and Abel" story and thereafter the Sabbath for the Land. I've been trying to teach that here, to little avail.

Killing people on the battlefield is entirely different from what Obama is doing. He is able to target any US citizen he deems to be guilty, now that the whole USA has been declared a battlefield.

Out side of a real battlefield, American Citizens are entitled to due process, a finding of guilty or not guilty, and sentencing. They are not to be targets of assasination, just because they happen to be over seas, and certainly not while in the USA.

I have no problem taking them to Gitmo and facing a military tribunal, if they are part of a terrorist organization. That is still a form of due process, wherein they get to answer the charges and are given an opportunity to refute the evidence.

We fought a war to capture and try Sadam Hussein, instead of just assassinating him, but we will just assassinate a citizen? Obama’s justice department believes that the enemy combatants captured in Iraq should be tried in a court of law, but yet he has the right to just kill American Citizens?

No It is not constitutional, lawful, or ethical. It is just plain wrong.

The most damning “evidence” against the Hutaree was the result of the undercover informant leading them into a conversation about a fantasy scenario about how they would fight police if they had to.

David Stone, the leader says that there’s a big difference between an alcohol fueled bull session in the woods and reality. He knows there is no hope in a direct armed confrontation with government. Its better to work within the system and let your actions prove your case to others.

(Stone was elected constable in his hometown last fall)

RE: Killing people on the battlefield is entirely different from what Obama is doing.

Let’s talk about Anwar Al Awlaki, an American citizen.

He was a senior talent recruiter and motivator who was involved with planning operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.

As imam at a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia (2001-2002), which had 3,000 members, al-Aulaqi spoke with and preached to three of the 9/11 hijackers, who were al-Qaeda members.

In 2001, he presided at the funeral of the mother of Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who later e-mailed him extensively in 2008-2009 before the Fort Hood shootings.

During the period of Al-Alwaki’s later radical period after 2006-2007, when he went into hiding, he was associated with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who attempted the 2009 Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner.

Al-Alwaki was involved in planning the latter’s attack.

The Yemeni government began trying him in absentia in November 2010, for plotting to kill foreigners and being a member of al-Qaeda. A Yemeni judge ordered that he be captured “dead or alive”.

In April 2010, Obama placed him on a list of people whom the United States Central Intelligence Agency was authorized to kill because of terrorist activities.

The CIA operatives found him to be hiding in Yemen and he was taken out by a drone.

Yemen was not a battlefield and Awlaki knew that (that is why he chose that place to hide ).

Given all the evidence against him, Was it wrong to take him out then?

If not, knowing that he was where he was, should the US government just let him be to continue what he was doing?

Bin Laden was a self-declared, well-documented, military commander who openly bragged about, as well as "took responsibility for," many acts of homicidal aggression. Not just "suspected."

Furthermore, he was not a U.S. citizen and thus would not (legally) be covered under the U.S. Constitution's 14 Amendment, which states that no citizen shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

Now a question for you: I presume you'd be opposed to President Obama having the power to tax at will. Why would anyone want him to have the power to kill at will?

Assassination is murder, murder by definition is illegal and immoral. The state in time of war has a legal and moral right to kill, but only the declared enemy and only in the declared war zone. If a nation is harboring terrorist waging war on the USA or it’s allies then get that nation to take action against the terrorists, if said nation will not then declare war. (The modern means of declaring war seems to be to get Congress to authorize the President to take whatever military actions he deems appropriate).

"There were a few instances in World War II where German American citizens, fighting for the Nazis were killed by American troops. Nobody was concerned then about whether the enemy’s constitutional rights had been respected."

An event such as this was vivdly portrayed in a scene in Band of Brothers. A German American in Germany after Dec. 11 41' is conscripted and fights with the 352nd Div. He is captured by the paratroopers, bums a cigarette and tells his story. Then with the other german POWs he is machine gunned as the paras cannot be burdened with POWs. as for the Confederates, they were always considered to be "in rebellion" against the Union and were never acccorded the satatus of foreign belligerent.

sooo.. this is like a Civil War Deux,, the gubamint against anybody who they think may be linked to terrorism indirectly or otherwise? and anyone can play.. without knowing a thing even.. and I wanted to be a lawyer when I was young, but hey, who needs laws much less morals these days.

this is an administration well on its way to having crossed one too many lines, again, so what else is new?

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