Judge: Feds can hide rationale for killing U.S. citizen

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

A Bay Area federal judge says the Obama administration can keep secret a memo spelling out the legal rationale for a 2011 drone attack in Yemen that killed a U.S. citizen and alleged terrorist mastermind.

The Justice Department was entitled to withhold the memo on the grounds of national security and lawyer-client confidentiality, Chief U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland said Friday.

Although U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and other Obama administration officials have made public statements justifying drone strikes, Wilken said none of them was specific enough for her to rule against the government's claim of secrecy and require officials to disclose the legal rationale for the Yemen attack.

The ruling dismissed a suit by the First Amendment Coalition, an open-government advocacy group in San Rafael. The organization sued after a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric whom authorities suspected of organizing an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009. Another U.S. citizen was also killed in the drone attack, and Awlaki's U.S.-born, 16-year-old son was killed by a drone in Yemen the following month.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-Feds-can-hide-rationale-for-killing-U-S-5401933.php

[Sammy Glick]

1. A secret legal rationale?

Well, isn't that special ?

[villager]

2. That's what "transparency" means now, doncha know?

All part of glorious newspeak!

[24601]

11. Very routine actually. When the DOJ applies for a wiretap on a mob hit man, the order is not

public. Grand jury testimony is unreleased.

The court in this case is saying that the process is not a judicial one. Congress has sufficient power to check the executive by cutting off appropriations or via impeachment.

It's two appellate levels short of settled law.

[riderinthestorm]

13. This isn't wiretapping for a future trial. This is murder without trial. Big difference imho nt

[GeorgeGist]

3. Sick.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Bottom line: The President has been declared world-king with life-and-death power over ALL HUMANS.

Anyone else see anything wrong with this?

[frylock]

8. nope. well as long as it's a democrat in office anyway.

[Sammy Glick]

16. Look at it this way: he's better than the last world-king.

At least he's not an embarrassment.

[FiveGoodMen]

21. Then again, he WON'T be the LAST world-king

Another one's coming in less than three years.

[Sammy Glick]

25. Could be a world-queen.

Got equal opportunity these days.

[FiveGoodMen]

26. Could be another Bush

[Sammy Glick]

27. All the other countries are just dukedoms, or "duchies."

Though there are some snotty adversarial dukes, like Putin. The more I explore the metaphor, the more it seems to work.

[DeSwiss]

5. Only in your bizarro world, creep. n/t

[Maedhros]

6. Here is what I just don't get:

Democratic partisans will wail and gnash their teeth over the abominable things the Republicans do.

But if one accepts and supports that the President can declare a citizen an enemy of state based upon secret allegations of secret crimes, then proceed to execute that citizen without due process, then on what basis does one criticize the Republicans?

This is, in effect, the legalization of proscription lists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription), which were first popularized by such notables as Lucius Corneluis Sulla and Lucius Julius Caesar.

To accept this behavior by the President of the United States is to accept that the Republic has transitioned to Empire. "Hail, Caesar!" is not a proper response.

[diabeticman]

7. Our founding fathers are rolling in their graves.

[Javaman]

19. This just in...

founding fathers pulled from graves and sent to secret off site detention. The reasoning is: they are considered the first whistle-blowers.

[WillyT]

9. I Wonder When The Frogs Will Jump Out Of The Soon-To-Be-Boiling Pot

I guess they do not know, that with each of these rulings, they prove Bin-Laden correct.

[sulphurdunn]

10. Souless men in suits

now have the legal authority and the power to murder us at their pleasure, justifying their actions with the catchall pretext of national security. It doesn't get much worse than that.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

12. I posted this in GD, and our brightest legal scholars are 'splaining to me how it's all ok.

It's not ok, though, not at all. It's Orwellian.

[wildbilln864]

22. Orwellian is the New World Order. n/t

[Solly Mack]

14. K&R

[neverforget]

15. I think I'm going to be sick

[blkmusclmachine]

17. Bad.

[Nihil]

18. "Freedumb" is certainly spreading this month ...

But it's all ok as the guy in charge has a "D" by his name rather than a "R".

[OnyxCollie]

23. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[W T F]

24. Even if that person happens to be a Federal judge?????