Holder admits drone strikes on US citizens in US possible
Ex-PH2 sends us a link to NBC News in which they report that, in a letter to Rand Paul, Eric Holder admitted that it is possible that this administration could find justification for using drone aircraft against US citizens within our borders;
“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on Dec. 7, 1941 and Sept. 11, 2001.”
Paul calls it a “frightening” admission, and I sort of agree, although I’m not at all surprised. I’m more surprised that they’d admit it.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden
They keep telegraphing their intentions to us.
Why would anyone bring up something like this when there is no need for it, unless there is some other intention behind it?
“extraordinary circumstances” …what does that even mean? What happened to the 4th and 5th amendments? What happened to the Constitution!?
“Homeland Security” just became an oxymoron.
Does Holder understand history even slightly? How would a domestic drone strike have stopped either Pearl Harbor or 9/11?
Yeah, I know, they are examples. But they’re stupid examples. If you can’t envision circumstances in which a domestic sir strike would be legitimate (and can you imagine any previous administration making that argument), then there aren’t similar circumstances in which drone strikes would be legitimate.
Holder is a fool. Hopefully the JCS would tell him to go piss up a rope if he ever tried such nonsense.
…in which domestic air strikes would be legitimate…
That put me in this mood: ????? ????
I may put it on my rooftop.
That should be this: MO??? ????
You have to do it in Word.
I guess it just doesn’t want to read Greek.
OK. MOLON LABE.
Holy Sheeeit Bro’s…
This ain’t good. But it isn’t something that surprises me to read about Holder…
Him and Ovomit have designs on taking over the United States and appointing themselves king and queen.
One problem with that theory, us…
Like I said, not surprised…
You guys just don’t understand. The President would have to suspend the Constitution to keep us all safe from threats. It’s as simple as that.
And, in doing so, would also have to institute martial law and actually use the 2,000+ armored assault vehicles that Homeland Security as recently purchased.
“Telegraphing their intentions”? What is he, the fking Riddler? You people are daffy. So if for some unforseeable reason, a domestic drone strike is the best option to prevent a major terrorist attack — how overjoyed would you all be if the President said, “You know, I could stop this, but I don’t want to annoy all those mental deficients who criticize every single decision I make, most of the time for no reason”?
Would it be cool if Cheney said it? Really, I just want to take a second to thank all of you for protecting my freedom against the planned institution of martial law by DHS and the UN invasion to take away our guns.
Do you wear your tinfoil hats over or under the helmets the men in white coats make you put on whenever you leave the padded room?
Harrison, so you have no problem with throwing due process out the window because a president decided that a U.S. citizen was a threat and launched an air strike in your neighborhood?
I have a huge fucking problem with anyone deciding to just off a U.S. citizen without due process – unless they are actually in the process of committing a crime. Even in that case, what possible circumstance would warrant a fucking air strike?
Oh goodie. Harrison Ford is here to straighten us all out.
@11
you must be some damn ostrich. You picked the wrong forum to tell others to place their head in the sand. I pray your not higher educated- becuase if you are: i’d ask your collage or university for a refund. Apearenty things like this dont happen in your world the ivory tower. I mean life must be peachey in your candy mountain charlie-
We see what is happening and must remind those in power the no one is above the constitution.
Not so fast.
They were seriously thinking about the need to shoot hijacked airliners down after 9/11. No trial necessary for that.
Constitution doesn’t forbid it.
RandyB, that would be executing a criminal (hijacker) in the commission of a crime – with a lot of collateral damage (passengers), because the risk of greater damage is imminent.
It’s a fine line, but considering how they have used drone air strikes with the kill list before, Anwar al-Awlaki, history has shown that shooting down hijacked airliners before they get to their target is not the purpose.
Interesting to read this today as one of the top stories on the top of the hour news on the radio while I was getting ready for work this morning was a story about “a drone was seen circling in New York City…” There wasn’t much expansion on that, just a matter of fact statement and then they moved on to “and in sports yesterday…”
If this were the Bush Administration, this would (rightly) be 24/7 news. But, since Fah King Obama is in the White House, nothing will be reported and no one will care.
I can think of no circumstance where the US Govt would NEED to drop ordinance inside the US, where they could not instead, and with better results send in a SWAT/SRT/HRTeam. Maybe they would need to call up that “ICE” SRT with the MRAP if they were REALLY risk adverse to suicide vests of the enemy, but “collateral damage” could not be excusable if the POTUS decided to warrant an assassination order by ordinance, within the borders.
Hell, it is my contention that al-Awlaki should have had his citizenship revoked, prior to that airstrike, and I think he was otherwise a legitimate target, except that he happened to be a US Citizen, not in the middle of an act of war, at the moment of death.
Rob,
I agree there’s a danger, but that’s always true.
I’m just saying there are circumstances where it would be warranted. Anwar al-Awlaki needed to be taken to trial or killed, and killing was the only option that made sense at the time.
The real problem is that we have Obama and Holder making these decisions. Unfortunately, we go to war with the president we’ve got, not the president we want.
I disagree with Holder for one reason only: he has proven himself strictly an ideologue, and his ‘jurisprudence’ is not grounded in American legal theory or scholarship. For that reason, Holder, like most Prognazi lawyers, is just an educated consigliere.
As the trolls point out, had it been Bush43 and Cheney, there would have been less outrage. That is true – Bush43 and Cheney also accepted the rule of law and as Enron and Plamegate shows – enforced it even to the imprisonment and/or death of personal friends. Obama and Holder – not so much, as the current NLRB fiasco proves.
I just want to know what circumstances would warrant an airstrike in the U.S. over a visit from SWAT or DHS’s shiny new MRAPs – which is just more overkill.
I just want to know if this will fall within the awarding criteria for the new medal. If so……
al-Awlaki was in Yemen when he was killed, not readily available to American law enforcement.
Using his killing as a precedent for authorizing a domestic drone strike is a huge stretch.
I wasn’t using it as precedent, just as history for how the list is used.
Take the Yemen part out: as far as I can tell, he was not actively engaged in combat, and was not an immediate threat, yet he was on the list and there was an opportunity.
Nice to know there are boy-loving goat fuckers in Gitmo who have more “rights” under the Constitution than I do according to this administration.
For the edification of Harrison, who thinks he’s above it all while the rest of us are just rolling around in the mud, try this on for size, and THINK before you run your mouth, Harrison. Reverse psychology is a means of getting exactly the reaction you want out of someone who refuses to knuckle under. So if you want an open rebellion, whether verbal, armed or otherwise, what could possibly stir people up more than to say something that can be perceived as a threat, even though you immediately go into denial about doing the very thing you say would not do? In order to justify the use of drones and air strikes against US citizens, the president would have to declare war and martial law. Martial law does not suspend the Constitution, nor does it give the president the right to declare martial law or to begin open warfare against US citizens. Two theories of martial law are reflected in decisions of the Supreme Court. The first, which stems from the Petition of Right, provides that the common law knows no such thing as martial law; that is to say, martial law is not established by official authority of any sort, but arises from the nature of things, being the law of paramount necessity, leaving the civil courts to be the final judges of necessity. By the second theory, martial law can be validly and constitutionally established by supreme political authority in wartime. By stirring up justifiable anger with a threat of the use of unwarranted force against law-abiding citizens, the president uses the opportunity to declare a rebellion in process and declares martial law, even though he has to go through Congress to get approval. And if he does not get approval, then he invokes the War Powers Act and bypasses Congress, thus bypassing the Constitution and the limits of his office. Also, FYI, declaring martial law requires following specific legal proceedings. You can scoff at this all you want to, but name one good and realistic reason for even coming up with the idea of using… Read more »
As much as it pains me, I will not single out obamaman or his punk, Holder, in this instance. The US government has many times done ungodly things against its citizenry, from our founding right through the 20th century. I have no doubt whatsoever that drones will continue to be used in spying (ahem, observation) capacity and that an armed one will be authorized and used right here in the good old USA. If that qualifies me for a tin hat, my size is 7 3/8.
Undoubtedly, the award citation will include “…in keeping with their oath to defend the country against enemies foreign and domestic…”
@27 AirCav, you buku dinki dao.
I wonder, would Obama and Holder have authorized a drone strike on Kingman, AZ to prevent the OKC bombing? Or perhaps a strike in Newton, CT to prevent the shooting there.
Or would they have used one on NYCity to have prevented the Ramzi Yousef bombing of the WTC? If a TV station were to be broadcasting dangerous things in support of a dangerous head of state, would they use a drone strike to take it out, like they did in Libya?
If you believe the current (or previous) Administration would never use a drone strike in a unsupportable manner, what about the other one? Do you trust Obama, as well as W, with their finger on that trigger? Perhaps Nixon, and Carter? or Johnson?
See, no matter how much you trust (or hate) the current Politician in Chief, chances are that his ideological opposite will one day have that office. The power you give this one, is the power you give his successors, whom you don’t know yet. If you wouldn’t trust Mitch McConnell with the same power, or Dick Cheney, then you shouldn’t give that power to Obama.
WOTN, in 1970, Nixon wanted to put the US under martial law because of the Kent State University shootings.
SecState Al Haig stopped him.
PH, my point is that I wouldn’t want Nixon, Johnson, Clinton or Cheney, with their finger on the trigger, and the justification in their heads, that they were justified in dropping ordinance on a US person, inside the US.
I’m not even comfortable with them doing so on the known terrorist, al-Awlaki, as he rode down the dusty roads of Yemeni deserts. I would have had no problem with that one, had they first revoked his citizenship, and no problem at all, had he met his fate during a battle, but not just because a politician put him on a “kill list.”
WOTN, you are preaching to the choir.
Maybe Holder’s plan is to get everybody to think the US if run by crazy people and then nobody will fuck with us????
The outrage from the left is deafening. Oh wait, that only would of been the case if this came out under Bush. Nevermind, The Messiah is keeping us safe. Move along, nothing to see here.
Isn’t this somewhat like a “bill of attainder” which is specifically outlawed in the Constitution?
But then again, I’m only a graduate of a small regional south Texas university. I should just bow before my political and intellectual superiors.
Nah. I think I’ll go engage in some weapons maintenance.
There’s already been times where we’ve used military force against Americans on American soil. You might want to check your history books and look up something called the Civil War. OF COURSE if there’s an extraordinary circumstance ALL options are on the table.
Really, he can’t win, either from the left or the right. If he said, “Well, we have to explore all law enforcement efforts before we take out a terrorist about to attack us”, you’d castigate him as a limp-wristed terrorist coddler. Now he’s saying that there’s certain highly unusual circumstances in which he’d use military force against Americans, like Oh, say a 737 flying towards a major building or a terrorist with a nuclear bomb about to ignite it or whatever other Tom Clancy type scenario you can think of NOW he’s a tyrant?
Nothing he’s saying there is in contrast with the Constitution nor even unusual. Unusual and deadly force can and is used depending on the degree of threat. If whole states are rebelling it might be necessary to call out the Federal army, if a major terrorist attack needs to be thwarted immediately and there’s no other way of doing it, a drone may need to be used. This is not a remarkable statement.
@35- if you think “the left” is a fan of this President you’re insane. There’s more caterwalling about this fairly innocuous statement coming from the left then the right. Look up Glenn Greenwald or Digby or check out the Huggington Post and you’ll see more than enough pearl clutching.
That the Government and Military has the right and responsibility to use force inside the country to stop an attack is a given. That an administration would say they have carte blanche to use it in whatever way they see fit is nothing more then a veiled threat to those who oppose their bullshit. Its like a co-worker who doesn’t like you walking up to you for no reason and saying “If you push me I’m going to kick you in the nuts”.
They did NOT say they have carte blanche authority to use it when they see fit. Did you even bother reading what he wrote? He made it ABUNDANTLY clear that the use of such force would require an extraordinary situation, like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. He didn’t say this would be used likely. But yes, there are extraordinary situations where the use of such force would be necessary and appropriate. For instance if GWB had ordered one of the 9/11 planes shot down, i don’t think anyone but a few crazies would of held it against him.
Really, if you guys are reading a big threat into that statement, you’re just reading what you want to read, not what’s there.
Why did the administration even need to make such a statement? Like I already told you they are just flexing their muscle and telling people to get in line. An “Extraordinary Situation” is going to be whatever the administration says it is. It could be nothing more than a gathering of 2nd Amendment advocates that scare the local politicians with their evil guns. Federal agencies are just itching to use their toys and justify their budget. At Ruby Ridge 2 civilians and a Federal Agent died because a man sold a modified shotgun to an undercover agent. Is that an “extraordinary situation” that should involve dozens of federal agents, millions of dollars and cost three people their lives? Yeah I trust the judgement of the idiots at the helm now.
Government Drone. That pretty well defines Eric Holder. This is just another case of the same rational that led to the mass importation of guns to the Mexican drug cartels.
@41- Oh for fucks sake they made the statement because Rand Paul asked them the fucking question. Did you even bother reading the article? Here’s what it said:
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Paul had threatened to hold up Brennan’s confirmation on the floor of the Senate if the administration did not clarify whether targeted drone strikes could be used inside the U.S.
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What’s remarkable to me is how unremarkable the statement is. YOU admitted @ 39 that the government has the right to use force, extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures.
Insipid what would it take for you to say wow President Obama is kinda fucked up? Would you have to see him anally raping your mother while pouring sugar in your gas tank?
If it is not okay for one administration to torture foreign nationals, but it is okay for our own government to use drone attacks against its own citizens? The Patriot Act is okay, there was barely a whimper when it was reauthorized. NDAA which he signed, if he wanted to he could have vetoed the whole bill but he didn’t. Obama isn’t as nice a guy as you think…
Holy Straw-man arguments batman. I can play that stupid game. What would it take for YOU to admit that he’s not the devil incarnate? Would he have to save your mother from a burning building and then cure cancer?
He was asked a question by Rand Paul and he answered it. The answer was keeping perfectly with Constitutional law and common sense.
And yes, it is ok to use military force against ANYONE who is engaged in active arms against the United States AND if there’s no other practicable means of getting him. The Constitution and the law makes no special exceptions for being a United States citizen. If you’re fighting with the Nazis or Al-Queda we want you just as dead. Describing Anwar Al Alaki as “An American Citizen” is just as dishonest as describing Osama Bin Laden as “A husband and father of five”. While both of those statements are true, that’s NOT what got them killed. What got them killed was being high-level Al Queda operatives.
If you’re a high level Al Queda operative and if you’re operating against the U.S. it is our policy to kill you and it has been the policy since Sept. 13 2001. We don’t care where the fuck you were born, if you don’t want to die, 1. stop being an Al Queda operative and 2. turn yourself in.
I have no problem at all with the death of that piece of shit.
@43: If you were an honest person, you would admit that if this were under GWB’s administration; right now you would be losing your fricken mind. Moreso than the concerns expressed by others here. Why is it that you can justify actions and statements by democrats, but under republicans, you would be calling for their heads? It reminds me of the reasons that GWB gave for going into Iraq. They were identical to the ones that Bill Clinton gave, when Kerry, Kennedy, etc., were all in favor of it, but then, when the same rationale was given 5 years later, those same people were suddenly against it. I was against it when Clinton was babbling about it and I was against it when Bush was saying it. I was against Bush’ spending spree and I’m against Obama’s. I wasn’t thrilled with the Patriot Act, because we were sacrificing too much of our freedoms for a modicum of security. I’m against the NDAA as well, under Obama. That’s called intellectual honesty and I doubt you can claim the same thing.
Hey, guess what? You don’t need one of those bigger small-plane sized drones to carry missiles. The military has had a smaller drone with mini-me sized missiles sizne 2011. Less vsible, less likely to attract attention, just as damaging. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/mini-missile-drone-war/ Also, probably more precise than the larger drones we usually see on TV news, but just as indiscriminate. So you have to ask yourself what REASONING persn would even vaguely consider using something like a missile or munitions-laden UAV of any size anywhere on US soil? Or on any US citizen, for that matter? Note the word REASONING. Why on earth would anyone even bring it up, unless there is an ulterior motive in doing so? Just in case anyone thinks it isn’t going on, the FAA is trying to track down the source of the drone sighting near New York’s Kennedy Airport yesterday. http://airnation.net/2013/03/05/alitalia-pilot-drone-jfk/ It came within 200 feet of the Alitalia airliner, which violates FAA regulations. Notice that the pilot said DRONE, not UFO. And FYI, splinky, Anwar al-Awlaki was a US-born Yemeni, which makes him a US citizen. If you are born on US soil, you are a native-born US citizen, regardless of your parents’ status. It’s in the US Constitution, and has been supported by succeeding legislation. You should try reading these things once in a while. The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” But even this does not get specific enough. The Constitution provides the framework for the law, but it is the law that fills in the gaps. The Constitution authorizes the Congress to do create clarifying legislation in Section 5 of the 14th Amendment; the Constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4, also allows the Congress to create law regarding naturalization, which includes citizenship. Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in the gaps left by the Constitution. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are “citizens of the United States at… Read more »
Sippy–had Bush taken preemptive action on US soil of the type which Holder describes to prevent 9/11, the left would have called for his impeachment, and likely gotten it. You don’t know how devestating an attack is going to be until it happens.
Here’s the thing–I wouldn’t have wanted Bush or any Republican president to be wielding this power, nor do I want any other president, regardless of party, to do the same.
See? Consistency. Ain’t it fuckin awesome?
Ex-PH2: the Rosenbergs were tried and convicted for espionage, not treason. (The fact that the crime occurred during wartime is why the death penalty was possible, even if the espionage was on behalf of an ally.)
Judge Irving Kaufman indeed called their acts “treason” during his remarks at their sentencing hearing, but that’s not the crime for which they were convicted and executed.
The last person actually convicted of treason in the US appears to have been Tomoya Kawakita, a US-born Japanese-American who returned to Japan prior to World War II, allegedly renounced his citizenship (he was also a Japanese citizen under Japan’s laws), and worked for Japan during World War II. He was convicted of treason in 1948.
Wikipedia erroneously lists many others after Kawakita (including the Rosenbergs) as having been “convicted of treason” in the US in one of their articles ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_convicted_of_treason ). With one exception, all those listed in that Wikipedia article after Kawakita were actually convicted of espionage vice treason. The sole exception is Adam Yahiye Gadahn (born Adam Pearlman). Gadanh (AKA “Azzim al-Amriki”) has been indicted for treason due to his activities as a US citizen turned al-Qaeda official, but has not yet been tried for that crime.
From comment 43: “extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures.”
Looks to me like Sippy just endorsed the Bush administration’s position regarding the use of waterboarding/other “enhanced interrogation techniques”, the legitimacy of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, and the use of “extraordinary rendition”.