Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/03/the-government-can-unilaterally-decide-to-kill-us-citizens-according-to-justice-department-lawyers.html
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Welcome to the world everyone else of us has been living in all this time, Americans!
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Again, as I say every time: your secret services, your military intelligence, your military, are not on your side. Wherever you are from. Far from being the best of us, they are the worst of us.
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It’s not so much the “deciding” I’m concerned about. Or at least I wouldn’t be, if there were anyone able and willing to hold said deciders to account.
“Glendower: I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come, when you do call for them?”
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45 is always trying to outdo or undo everything Obama did. In this case, looks like he’s trying to outdo.
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I’m sure this isn’t actually a violation of due process. Don’t we all authorize summary execution somewhere in the iTunes User Agreement? Right after binding arbitration?
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That’s only for the Apple iDrone, and the government can’t keep it updated with the latest version of iOS.
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Right. It’s just so hard to get out once you’re in the iDrone ecosystem, and used to having all the aerial photographs from your Macbook Air automatically synched and fleshed out with biometrics on your iDrone and Apple Watcher.
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They are the most patriotic though…
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Surely we’re not going to forget that this argument was first carved out by Obama, are we? Remember when his DOJ argued that a confidential Executive Branch review met the standard for “due process” when he targeted US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki for death on the basis of secret evidence?
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Yes, a disturbing precedent. For context, here’s the final ACLU blog post on it from 2014.
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Any government that asserts a right to kill its own citizens without due process has-by its own hand-compromised its own national security. Using “national security” to justify it, might sway one judge or another, but citizens aren’t fooled by that shit.
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It has always been the case that the US government can unilaterally decide to kill US citizens if they present a clear and present danger. I don’t see very many people objecting to the idea that soldiers are allowed to return fire at an American sniper working for ISIS in Iraq for instance. I don’t think many people object to police killing a gunman in a tower who is shooting people at random. The questions have always been “What counts as clear and present?” and “Who gets to decide?” and “When is it ambiguous enough that the justice system must participate before making the decision?”
What is the alternative being proposed that doesn’t involve a unilateral decision? Should there be a grand jury empaneled to review rules of engagement decisions that knowingly involve Americans acting as enemy combatants in a theater of war? It sounds like a good idea to me but I don’t know if it is practical. Ultimately I think I would argue that we should strive to avoid such situations more than we have by not being involved in wars.
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Not even surprised at this. Seems to me like it’s just saying the quiet part out loud.
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Fortunately any slain US citizen has the right to seek judicial reversal ex post facto.
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Yeah, I thought this was already settled when then AG Holder said Obama leafing through a catalog of potential drone-kill victims was all the due process the Constitution required.
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If I were president, I would pass a constitutional amendment making it illegal for the government to ever kill any of its citizens. I’d get the amendment passed by putting everyone who objected to it on the drone strike list.
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Nice work-around there. “You want the killing to stop? Good, vote for the amendment!”
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That would entail also getting rid of the death penalty. Which is one of those things that are impossible to even envision in the USA. Like sensible gun control or universal health care.
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