T1B

mvscal wrote:Goat raping asswipe gets greased, Martard melts.

Nothing could be more predictable.

88 wrote:I am trying to be objective on this one. On one hand, Anwar al-Awlaki was unquestionably a shit-head and the Earth is a better place now that he is dead. On the other hand, he was a U.S. citizen who was deprived of his life by the U.S. government without due process of law.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "No person shall ... be deprived of life ... without due process of law." There does not appear to be much wiggle room in the Constitution that would allow the government to whack asshole U.S. citizens without Due Process. I cannot find anything in the Constittution that would give the President the authority to order the killing of a U.S. citizen, no matter how much of an asshole the President thinks the citizen is. The same is true for Congress.

My gut tells me that this is a bad precedent and something that will eventually find its way into the U.S. civil court system (42 U.S.C. §1983 anyone?). I kind of hope the courts determine that the United States does not have the authority to whack U.S. citizens it finds to be assholes without due process of law. Perhaps Congress could pass a statute that would allow the government to indict a U.S. citizen who is alleged to be an asshole and tried in abstentia, if necessary, and have his conviction appealed before an order from a court permitting the whackage could be carried out. Just a thought.

88 wrote:It is a dangerous precedent, Jsc810. What if the President decides YOU are a terrorist who has aided AQ in crimes against the US? You and your best buddies take that long awaited fishing vacation off the coast of Venezuala and your cabin cruiser gets smoked by a Predator missile

Martyred wrote:First they came for shutyomouth, but I wasn't an obese mental-case...
...so I said nothing.


Then they came for Van, but I wasn't a verbose, shut-in douche...
...so I said nothing.

88 wrote:It is a dangerous precedent,

[T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Jsc810 wrote:And I'm glad that the ACLU will challenge it so that it will be properly vetted out, the issue deserves that.

U.S. District Judge John Bates refused to intervene in al-Awlaki's case.

"This court recognizes the somewhat unsettling nature of its conclusion — that there are circumstances in which the executive's unilateral decision to kill a U.S. citizen overseas is 'constitutionally committed to the political branches' and judicially unreviewable," Bates wrote. "But this case squarely presents such a circumstance."