NSA phone-records spying is totally, utterly illegal

[bwv812]

@chenille

That is certainly what the strikes are supposed to do. And police are supposed to target specific actors believed to be criminals, but because of how much potential error there is in that, we all agree human rights are only safeguarded if there are reviews and limits on what they can do to them. I have never seen any explanation why this case is different.
[. . .]
And no, simply trusting the US executive and military on properly considering such rights has not been a solution in the past. Why are these people less deserving of defense lawyers than domestic criminals?

Statesmanship and the political process offer two avenues of oversight, with efficacy being a third. Drone strikes in a sovereign country are likely to be unpopular, and I don’t think the US is winning any friends in Pakistan with them. Yemen, on the other hand, might actually welcome them to a certain extent. But I think the reality is also that these sorts of drone strikes occur because the host governments are either ineffectual or hostile to the US. If the US could get the Pakistani or Yemeni government to apprehend these terrorists in accordance with their laws, this would probably be the preferred option. Pakistanis or Yemenis should also take their own governments to task for their failures. But strikes also encourage anti-American sentiment, and it may also be that fear of fanning this hatred also helps curb the use of drone strikes.

And these people are less deserving of defence lawyers than domestic criminals because they are not criminals and they are not being accused of a crime. These are not executions following trials in absentia. They are preventative in nature. You won’t like the analogy, but it’s like saying a soldier should be represented by a defence lawyer before you’re allowed to kill him in the battlefield. This is not a workable situation, because you kill a soldier and you kill a terrorist not because of what they’ve already done but because of their intent and objective in killing you and/or harming your country.

@chenille

Absolutely. English can be used with different levels of precision, so I give people in the “we have to use words just so” camp a lot less latitude than people who are more concerned about what is happening, because the latter may simply be trying to evoke a description without making claims about the precise legal meanings.

I would agree with you in a lot of contexts, but not when you’re saying Obama executes people without due process. This is a pretty highly charged statement. I mean, would I get a free pass if I said that someone’s WWII-vet grandfather was a mass murderer who acted as judge, jury and executioner while violating the Constituion? Would that be appropriate, and advance discourse? It would certainly be evocative.

@chenille

And by the way, I don’t agree with the killing of bin Laden in the sense you are using it. I agree that it is something that could have been done in a justified way, that is, they probably could have actually made a case for it and justified it with some appropriate public procedures.

I’m not sure what those would be. Like, have a show trial and try him in absentia? Tell people we know where he is and have them vote on what we should do? Let the people or Congress decide whether we should violate Pakistani sovereignty? I mean, some of this would be counterproductive, while others would attempt to apply criminal justice standards on this preventative/military action and absolutely make a mockery of the criminal justice system. As I’ve said before, capture with host-country cooperation would probably be the preferred approach, but this typically isn’t a viable option in countries where drone strikes are employed.