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Is Targeting Citizens Ok With You?

Obama says targeting citizens for wiretapping and assassination is ok. Do you agree?

  • If you are an enemy of the US, citizenship doesn't matter. Kill em all

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I opposed wiretapping when Bush did it, but it is ok now. So are assassinations.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    14
What does wearing a uniform (or not) have to do with "terror tactics"?

If you are not wearing a uniform, you can blend in with the civilian population in order to carry out sabotage, or worse, attacks on civilians and soldiers off of the battle field. It was one of the things written specifically into the Geneva conventions, and one of the determining factors in US precedent on how prisoners were treated. When Nazi sabatours landed in New York, they wore their uniforms until they were safely off the beach in case they were captured. When they eventually were captured, all but one was executed after a military trial.
 
Perchance it wouldn't succeed. But what mechanism, then, is in place which would prevent them from assassinating whomever they dislike?

Elections and impeachments are both significant, as is the potential for the Supreme Court to rule that the law justifying it is unconstitutional or the act that stated the law justifies isn't ACTUALLY justified which sets precedent and continued action of it would likely lead to problems including perhaps even legal issues.

If we get enough popular support for rampant assassination, does it make it OK and proper for the government to do so?

Not at all. It just means that its unlikely that there would be a large outcry to significantly pursue legal action against the government individuals, but that doesn't mean its still not likely that some action could reach the court to deem their use of it as being unconstitutional making them unable to continue to do so without blatantly violating the law rather than simply acting unknowingly unconstitutionally.

Is there oversight? Is there restriction?

Yep, and the Constitution lays it out. The Congress could impeach the President, the Supreme Court could deem the action unconstitutional putting a stop to any further legal use of it by the government.

I believe that it is very important to uphold the Constitution and to have government functioning within its proper boundaries.

I do too. I disagree with you that this particular case is unconstitutional, and I disagree with you that those that did something like this should be tried for treason, but I don't disagree with you about upholding the constitution. I'd FULLY support someone trying to bring a court case against the Obama Administration over this action even if I don't agree with their idea of what the ruling should be...because while my opinion is important to me, the courts opinion is the only one important to the Constitution. That's the system our government has set up to challenge these type of things and to uphold the constitution, and I fully support them taking that action.

it has not been.

Am I wrong in understanding Lincoln did do this?

Politicians swear an oath to uphold the Constitution

Indeed, however an oath is not binding by law. However, violating it is grounds for impeachment.
 
If you are not wearing a uniform, you can blend in with the civilian population in order to carry out sabotage, or worse, attacks on civilians and soldiers off of the battle field. It was one of the things written specifically into the Geneva conventions, and one of the determining factors in US precedent on how prisoners were treated. When Nazi sabatours landed in New York, they wore their uniforms until they were safely off the beach in case they were captured. When they eventually were captured, all but one was executed after a military trial.

Yeah like I said it was designed to appeal to American/European cultural sensibilities in the aftermath of WWII. That's all well and good for 1940s Germany, but it isn't really applicable to Afghanistan in 2011, or anywhere else that the US is likely to get involved in a military conflict. That's just not the way that wars are conducted anymore...especially in the regions of the world where the US tends to wage them. US soldiers are never going to face down a uniformed band of Taliban soldiers with serial numbers, and to use arbitrary Western customs to treat them more harshly than Nazis is ethnocentric and impractical.
 
The issue isn't "wiretapping," it is WARRANTLESS wiretapping. And yes, I have a big problem with the president unilaterally deciding to wiretap someone because he deems them a terrorist. Who the hell is he to make that judgment? That's why we have a judicial branch.

You really think that's what happened? You don't know about the judicial review required (after a person on the watchlist receives unexpected contact from outside the country, and that a standard (different from the emergency warrant obtained by special judicial review BEFORE the tap) warrant must be obtained after the fact (in normal procedure and without any info from the tap) in order to use the evidence in a court of law?

Really? You don't know anything at all about how those "warrantless" (they actually require an emergency warrant to be done prior to tap and a normal warrant to be used in court) wiretaps occured? You think the president just decides, unilaterally, that someone gets tapped. Do you know anything about the program that you so gleefully demonize. Only talking points? Wow.
 
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