Obama Invoking “State Secrets” to Assassinate an American: Up Date x 2

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Covering Up War Crimes

Late last night under cover of Friday darkness, the Obama DOJ filed a brief requesting that U.S. District Judge Robert Bates dismiss a law suit over its targeting of an American citizen for assassination in another country. The government claims that the case would reveal “states secrets”.

Government lawyers called the state-secrets argument a last resort to toss out the case, and it seems likely to revive a debate over the reach of a president’s powers in the global war against al-Qaeda.

Civil liberties groups sued the U.S. government on behalf of Aulaqi’s father, arguing that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command’s placement of Aulaqi on a capture-or-kill list of suspected terrorists – outside a war zone and absent an imminent threat – amounted to an extrajudicial execution order against a U.S. citizen. They asked a U.S. district court in Washington to block the targeting.

In response, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the groups are asking “a court to take the unprecedented step of intervening in an ongoing military action to direct the President how to manage that action – all on behalf of a leader of a foreign terrorist organization.”

Miller added, “If al-Aulaqi wishes to access our legal system, he should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions.”

Now if that isn’t a “Catch 22”. . .

“The idea that courts should have no role whatsoever in determining the criteria by which the executive branch can kill its own citizens is unacceptable in a democracy,” the American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights said.

“In matters of life and death, no executive should have a blank check,” they said.

Is this is the higher bar for keeping “state secrets” that that President Obama had Attorney General Eric Holder set just last year?

Bush and Cheney must be proud of Obama.

Up Date: Marcy Wheeler now has an article on the briefing itself at emptywheel:

Obama Doesn’t Know Why the Fuck He’s Entitled to Kill Al-Awlaki, He Just Is, Damnit

The most striking aspect of the government’s motion to dismiss  the ACLU/CCR lawsuit challenging the use of targeted killing is that the government does not commit to the basis for its authority to kill an American citizen like Anwar al-Awlaki with no review.

(my emphasis)

Up Date 2: Glenn Greenwald from Salon chimes in:

But what’s most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is “state secrets”:  in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are “state secrets,” and thus no court may adjudicate its legality. . . .

But he’s not been charged with any crimes, let alone indicted for any.  The President has been trying to kill him for the entire year without any of that due process.  And now the President refuses even to account to an American court for those efforts to kill this American citizen on the ground that the President’s unilateral imposition of the death penalty is a “state secret.”  And, indeed, American courts — at Obama’s urging — have been upholding that sort of a “state secrecy” claim even when it comes to war crimes such as torture and rendition.  Does that sound like a political system to which any sane, rational person would “surrender”?

h/t lambert @ Corrente

See also Stopping Obama’s Targeted Assassinations

Now Cross posted @ FDL‘s The Seminal

11 comments

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  1. would be prosecuting war criminals. Bush and Cheney for example.

    And any accessories after the fact……..

  2. Section 3.

    Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

    The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

    Just because President Obama says that Anwar Alwaki is a terrorist and a traitor does not make it so and does not give him the authority to have this man, or anyone else, killed.

    Greenwald in an up date to his article states:

    As a reminder:  Obama supporters who are dutifully insisting that the President not only has the right to order American citizens killed without due process, but to do so in total secrecy, on the ground that Awlaki is a Terrorist and Traitor, are embracing those accusations without having the slightest idea whether they’re actually true.  All they know is that Obama has issued these accusations, which is good enough for them.  That’s the authoritarian mind, by definition: if the Leader accuses a fellow citizen of something, then it’s true — no trial or any due process at all is needed and there is no need even for judicial review before the decreed sentence is meted out, even when the sentence is death.

    President Obama’s record on civil liberties is abysmal. He has used the states secrets in defense of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping, surveillance of an Islamic charity, and the torture and rendition of CIA prisoners and now is using it to cover his own lawlessness from judicial review.  

  3. One of the comments made at FDL with my response:

    For you tinfoil hatters:

    It was apparent at the very outset of the primary campaign that Obama and Clinton (to name just two) wanted Bush/Cheney to remain (unimpeached and unimpeachable) in office, and to seize every bit of unitary power to that office for the winner (between Obama and Clinton) to assume upon taking that office.

    Let me modify that: It should have been apparent that…

    Let me modify it further: From their stated positions on impeachment and the war powers, it could well have been assumed that…

    At what level of modification do we begin to approach where you were?

    For those of you who voted Hope, you can open your eyes now…we’re in Kansas.

    For those of you who voted Anything But Bush, you got Anything.

    If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. (Emma Goldman)

    It was very apparent to me that Obama was lying from the start about his position on FISA and telecommunications spying. I was very certain there was going to be no accountability for the crimes Bush and Cheney committed and now continue under Obama, especially when Nancy Pelosi foolishly took impeaching them off the table. I am certain the Boehner will not do the same.

    I did not vote for Obama or McCain, so like the infamous bumper sticker that once graced my car in 1972, “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for “_____”. I wrote in another name and it wasn’t Hillary’s. At at this juncture, we might have been better off with a President McCain. Congress might actually decide to do its constitutional duty and hold him accountable.

    And that is an incredibly sad statement about the caliber of our politicians and the state of this country. There has been no change and there won’t be.

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