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CIA Authorized to Kill US Citizen Who Was Suspected Terrorist

Pretty shameful that the government turned its back on its duty to protect American citizens; but it's also pretty shameful that the guy was probably turning his back on the U.S. by aiding terrorist plots.

If he was working in a terrorist compound that got bombed then I say oh well.
 
He probably was a scumbag terrorist, but he was still an American citizen. Since when can the government choose to kill a citizen without due process?
 
I could certainly understand it if he had been in Afghanistan or Pakistan and was actively waging war on us...but why was this necessary? Yemen is one of our allies. If we had evidence that he had been involved in a crime, couldn't we just get Yemen to extradite him? If they were incapable of arresting him, we have some special ops that could do it.
 
Maybe there was some urgent reason that they had to take him out right away. I'm sure he's not the only U.S. citizen abroad who is involved in terrorist activities, but we don't see all of them being targetted.
 
Orion said:
Maybe there was some urgent reason that they had to take him out right away. I'm sure he's not the only U.S. citizen abroad who is involved in terrorist activities, but we don't see all of them being targetted.
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So the US government can take any US citizen out without due process if there's an "urgent reason"? Doesn't sound Constitutional to me.....
 
Mellie said:
So the US government can take any US citizen out without due process if there's an "urgent reason"? Doesn't sound Constitutional to me.....
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It should be plainly obvious by now that the government is increasingly ambivalent to the rights of American citizens.
 
Orion said:
It should be plainly obvious by now that the government is increasingly ambivalent to the rights of American citizens.
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When it comes to assasinations people will always try to defend thier friends, that is where it starts. With mob mentality people will always try to kill a threat to their society. If someone has a gun and they threaten someone with it then they may be shot. If someone is susupected of planting bombs then they will need to be questioned as to where. If America can gas Sadam Hussein for this awkward behaviour, then what is the case here? This man was a suspect of killing all sorts of innocnet people, or posed a threat. If we can throw someone into jail for murder, or even question them, then it is good. If they do not have time to do such things, and people may die - many people, then there is a risk. One person dies for real, or many people might die. Upon arrest the bomb may be detonated!

Yes the CIA will provide a case in court if necessary, but honestly, who cares? One guy died. The family is looked after and trying a case based on emotions for the death of a family member of friend is not objective really as there are emotions involved, and that means that they can be overcome, well in this case anyway, as if they died from old age but a lot quicker. They have to deal with it sometime...
 
This idea that people have that it is 'unconstitutional' for the U.S. government to green light assassinations on declared and proven enemies of the state is based on a fictitious sense of just what the constitution does. The U.S. government has been doing this sort of thing since the creation of the constitution.
 
To eavesdrop on the terrorism suspect who was added to the target list, the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is hiding in Yemen, intelligence agencies would have to get a court warrant. But designating him for death, as C.I.A. officials did early this year with the National Security Council’s approval, required no judicial review.

“Congress has protected Awlaki’s cellphone calls,” said Vicki Divoll, a former C.I.A. lawyer who now teaches at the United States Naval Academy. “But it has not provided any protections for his life. That makes no sense.”

Administration officials take the view that no legal or constitutional rights can protect Mr. Awlaki, a charismatic preacher who has said it is a religious duty to attack the United States and who the C.I.A. believes is actively plotting violence. The attempted bombing of Times Square on May 1 is the latest of more than a dozen terrorist plots in the West that investigators believe were inspired in part by Mr. Awlaki’s rhetoric.

“American citizenship doesn’t give you carte blanche to wage war against your own country,” said a counterterrorism official who discussed the classified program on condition of anonymity. “If you cast your lot with its enemies, you may well share their fate.”
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Charge him with treason and prosecute him. But, in my opinion, this should be an illegal act.
 
Catz Part Deux said:
Oh, so he was prosecuted?
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I don't know and couldn't say. The article only says the CIA was authorized to kill a U.S. citizen and has people complaining about how 'illegal' that is. My thoughts are this:

The constitution states that a person can't be convicted of treason without the testimony of two people.

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.​

My thoughts is that a lot of these guys have been convicted in absentia by the previous administration but due to people who perceive such practices to be 'illegal' - that hasn't been made 'public' yet.
 
Our (USA's) Messiah can do ANYTHING he so desires.
As an Ex Lawyer he knows the Law. He thinks.
 
Hatuey said:
This idea that people have that it is 'unconstitutional' for the U.S. government to green light assassinations on declared and proven enemies of the state is based on a fictitious sense of just what the constitution does. The U.S. government has been doing this sort of thing since the creation of the constitution.
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Yeah but this isn't just some random guy waging war on the US. This is an American citizen, residing in an allied country, in which we are not at war. Let's ignore for a second his religion and the nation in which he lived. This is legally the equivalent of the US government assassinating an American citizen as they vacation in Canada.
 
Hatuey said:
I don't know and couldn't say. The article only says the CIA was authorized to kill a U.S. citizen and has people complaining about how 'illegal' that is. My thoughts are this:

The constitution states that a person can't be convicted of treason without the testimony of two people.

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.​

My thoughts is that a lot of these guys have been convicted in absentia by the previous administration but due to people who perceive such practices to be 'illegal' - that hasn't been made 'public' yet.
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The article said that the CIA couldn't get a warrant to wiretap his phones, which makes me think he has not been convicted of any crime.
 
Southern Man said:
Imagine if Bush had done this.
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He probably did. My guess is that, sadly, this is a lot more common than it appears. Every time the New York Times finds out about something like this, there are probably ten other times when it goes unreported.

With that said, the government shouldn't be doing it REGARDLESS of who is president. Extrajudicial killings of one's own citizens should not be something that the United States of America does. It sounds more like something Iran or North Korea does.
 
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Kandahar said:
He probably did. My guess is that, sadly, this is a lot more common than it appears. Every time the New York Times finds out about something like this, there are probably ten other times when it goes unreported.

With that said, the government shouldn't be doing it REGARDLESS of who is president. Extrajudicial killings of one's own citizens should not be something that the United States of America does. It sounds more like something Iran or North Korea does.
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Or Israel.......
 
Concerning Yemen, the Yemeni government does not have control over all of the provinces. Tribes control some provinces, and they are historically not very cordial to any central government authority. Elements of al-Queda control the Saudi border region, and skirmishes have been going on there for well over a year.

I don't believe the Yemeni government can capture this individual, nor do I believe a law enforcement agency such as the FBI could do so either. As far as Special Ops forces it could possibly be done (if intelligence was airtight with feeds in real-time), but quite iffy. Such a Yemeni operation would be equivalent to doing likewise in the lawless Afghanistan/Pakistan border region.

Under Bush and now Obama, the US has opted for deadly Predator strikes against terrorists. It negates combat deaths and injuries, and also the possible capture of US military personal which would be a political hot potato/nightmare.

Concerning treason, IIRC the US State Department has the legal power to determine that certain odious activities of US citizens abroad are treasonous and strip such an individual of US citizenship. The individual would have to return to the US to dispute such a finding, which in this case is extremely unlikely to occur.
 
Hatuey said:
This idea that people have that it is 'unconstitutional' for the U.S. government to green light assassinations on declared and proven enemies of the state is based on a fictitious sense of just what the constitution does. The U.S. government has been doing this sort of thing since the creation of the constitution.
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Is anything beyond the legitimate powers of the government? If a citizen can be marked for execution without any publicly presented evidence, I see no limit what so ever.

And no, I don't believe Bush would have done anything different. I assume he did the exact same thing, probably many times. It was murder then, and it's murder now. The only difference to me is that I know about this one. I'm all in favor of the death penalty, and I'd probably be rooting for this guy to fry. But the authority to take a life in secret, is an authority that can't be allowed to exist.
 
Hatuey said:
This idea that people have that it is 'unconstitutional' for the U.S. government to green light assassinations on declared and proven enemies of the state is based on a fictitious sense of just what the constitution does. The U.S. government has been doing this sort of thing since the creation of the constitution.
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Bull****, the Constitution guarantees that no U.S. citizen will be denied their right to life without due process. Was this man convicted in absentia? Was he the unfortunate victim of collateral damage in an attack on a terrorist base overseas? No he was neither. The U.S. government instead decided to go out and target a specific U.S. citizen for execution without any due process whatsoever, the government is not above the law and whoever green lighted this operation is guilty of conspiracy to commit 1st degree murder of a U.S. citizen!
 
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