Although I support Obama in so many ways, I've said before I believe
Obama's decision to kill of Anwar al-Awlaki and others was the worst mistake of his Presidency
... maybe even an impeachable offense.
Well, here's one judge challenging the idea that the Executive branch has such authority...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/us...ings.html?_r=0
NY Times
SCOTT SHANE
July 19, 2013
Judge Challenges White House Claims on Authority in Drone Killings
Quote:
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday sharply and repeatedly challenged
the Obama administration’s claim that courts have no power over
targeted drone killings of American citizens overseas.
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the United States District Court here was hearing
the government’s request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by relatives
of three Americans killed in two drone strikes in Yemen in 2011:
Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical cleric who had joined Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula;
Mr. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who had no involvement in terrorism;
and Samir Khan, a 30-year-old North Carolina man who had become a propagandist for the same Qaeda branch.
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And if you don't think an Attorney General can give a really stupid reply to a judge, this guy gave two in one breath...
Quote:
“Are you saying that a U.S. citizen targeted by the United States
in a foreign country has no constitutional rights?” she asked Brian Hauck, a deputy assistant attorney general.
“How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen? Where is the limit to this?”
Quote:
Mr. Hauck acknowledged that Americans targeted overseas do have rights,
but he said they could not be enforced in court either before or after the Americans were killed.
Judges, he suggested, have neither the expertise nor the tools necessary to assess
the danger posed by terrorists, the feasibility of capturing them or when and how they should be killed.
“Courts don’t have the apparatus to analyze” such issues,
so they must be left to the executive branch, with oversight by Congress, Mr. Hauck said.
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Judge Collyer did not buy it. “No, no, no,” she said.
“The executive is not an effective check on the executive.”
She bridled at the notion that judges were incapable of properly
assessing complex national security issues, declaring,
“You’d be surprised at the amount of understanding other parts of the government think judges have.”
She provided her own answer: “The limit is the courthouse door.”
<snip>
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