ACLU Slams Obama Administration Claim It Can Kill Any American Who It Calls An Enemy of the State
NEWS RELEASE
ACLU Comment on Eric Holder Speech on Targeted Killing Program
March 5, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE[/b
NEW YORK – In a speech today at Northwestern University School of Law, Attorney General Eric Holder spoke on national security issues and addressed the government’s targeted killing program.
“While the speech is a gesture towards additional transparency, it is ultimately a defense of the government’s chillingly broad claimed authority to conduct targeted killings of civilians, including American citizens, far from any battlefield without judicial review or public scrutiny,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “Few things are as dangerous to American liberty as the proposition that the government should be able to kill citizens anywhere in the world on the basis of legal standards and evidence that are never submitted to a court, either before or after the fact. Anyone willing to trust President Obama with the power to secretly declare an American citizen an enemy of the state and order his extrajudicial killing should ask whether they would be willing to trust the next president with that dangerous power.”
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit to enforce its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking information about the targeted killing program, but the Justice Department and the CIA have responded to the request by saying they can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any records.
“The government has told the courts that its targeted killing program is so secret that even its existence can’t be acknowledged, but that proposition can no longer be taken seriously. If the attorney general can discuss the targeted killing program at a law school, then the administration can surely release the legal memos it uses to justify its claimed killing authority, and also defend its legal justifications in court,” Shamsi said. “The targeted killing program raises profound legal and moral questions that should be subjected to public debate, and constitutional questions that should be considered by the judiciary.”
More information about the ACLU’s FOIA lawsuit is available at:
www.aclu.org/national-security/anwar-al-awlaki-foia-request
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-comment-eric-holder-speech-targeted-killing-program
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Anyone willing to trust President Obama with the power to secretly declare an American citizen an enemy of the state and order his extrajudicial killing should ask whether they would be willing to trust the next president with that dangerous power.”
to read:
Anyone willing to trust President Obama with the power to secretly declare an American citizen an enemy of the state and order his extrajudicial killing should ask whether they would be willing to trust LEADERS OF OTHER COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD with that dangerous powers.
How about if Putin might have done it?
Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB and KGB, who escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom. He wrote two books, Blowing up Russia: Terror from within and Lubyanka Criminal Group, where he accused the Russian secret services of staging Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts to bring Vladimir Putin to power.
On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. He died three weeks later, becoming the first confirmed victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome.[1] According to doctors, "Litvinenko's murder represents an ominous landmark: the beginning of an era of nuclear terrorism".[2][3][4]
Litvinenko's allegations about the misdeeds of the FSB and his public deathbed accusations that Russian president Vladimir Putin were behind his unusual malady resulted in worldwide media coverage.[5]
Subsequent investigations by British authorities into the circumstances of Litvinenko's death led to serious diplomatic difficulties between the British and Russian governments. Unofficially, British authorities asserted that "we are 100% sure who administered the poison, where and how", but they did not disclose their evidence in the interest of a future trial. The main suspect in the case, a former officer of the Russian Federal Protective Service (FSO), Andrei Lugovoy, remains in Russia. As a member of the Duma, he now enjoys immunity from prosecution. Before he was elected to the Duma, the British government tried to extradite him without success.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
What if maybe the Bulgarians had done this when they were Communists?
Georgi Ivanov Markov (Bulgarian: Георги Иванов Марков
(March 1, 1929 – September 11, 1978) was a Bulgarian dissident writer.
Markov originally worked as a novelist and playwright, but in 1969 he defected from Bulgaria, then governed by President Todor Zhivkov. After relocating to the West, he worked as a broadcaster and journalist for the BBC World Service, the US-funded Radio Free Europe, and Germany's Deutsche Welle. Markov used such forums to conduct a campaign of criticism against the incumbent Bulgarian regime. As a result of this, it has been speculated that the Bulgarian government may have decided to silence him, and may have asked the KGB for help.[1] He died as a result of an incident on a London street when a micro-engineered pellet containing ricin was fired into his leg via an umbrella wielded by someone with possible links to the Bulgarian secret police.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov
These are just two examples of deaths that we in the United States condemned when they happened.
Were the circumstances different? Was the killing of this alleged terrorist more justified?
Maybe. But that is not the point. The fact is that by having this policy, we condone the basic idea itself. And that can cost the lives of our friends as well as our foes. This decision to kill people without trials and without a clearly defined declaration of war is a two-edged sword that may harm our country worse than some loud-mouthed terrorist somewhere.
