DOJ Lawyers: Drone Targets Receive 'Due Process' But We Won't Say How

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/12/16



The Obama administration's 'kill list' becomes a permanent fixture in US foreign policy.

DOJ Lawyers: Drone Targets Receive 'Due Process' But We Won't Say How
- Jon Queally, staff writer
Published on Sunday, December 16, 2012 by Common Dreams

In a little noticed filing at week's end, the US government made its first legal response to a challenge made by civil liberties groups about the Obama administration's secretive "Kill List" program by urging a federal court to dismiss the case, arguing that the courts should not interfere with Obama's declared authority that he can kill US citizens without congressional, judicial, or public oversight.

The case surrounds the targeted killing of three US citizens in Yemen last year, including Anwar Al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman and Samir Khan.

The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, who helped bring the suit on behalf of family members of those killed, said in a joint statement that the essence of the government’s argument was "that it has the authority to kill Americans not only in secret, but also without ever having to justify its actions under the Constitution in any courtroom."

"To claim, as the administration (has now done), that the courts have no role at all to play in assessing whether the government's targeted killings of Americans are lawful – even after the fact – simply cannot be squared with the due process clause," they said.

[Kolesar]

1. It would be foolish to leave Anwar Al-Awlaki alive when you could plink him for a million bucks

T. S. jihadist