Assassinating US Citizens Raises "Troubling Issues"
February 8, 2010
David Edwards and Muriel Kane / Raw Story
The admission by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that the United States intelligence community is authorized to assassinate Americans working with terrorists overseas has raised serious questions of constitutionality.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/with-its-2800-rooms-fountains-indoor-palm-trees-and-expensive-restaurants-the-gaylord-opryland-resort-seems-a-strange-venue-for-the-first-national-convention-of-the-tea-party-which-spends-its-tim.html
US Citizens Among Targets Likely on Final 'High Value' Terror Suspect List
OpEdNews
WASHINGTON (February 6, 2010) — Interagency interrogation teams have started to question key terrorism suspects under a classified charter approved last week. The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group was not formally authorized until Jan. 28, under a previously unreported 14-page memo signed by the president's national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones.
Authorities, with help from the National Counterterrorism Center, are developing a list of terrorism suspects who represent critical intelligence targets. Each suspect will be assigned to an FBI-led interagency mobile interrogation team that will be ready in the event of a capture, several officials said.
US citizens are among the targets likely to appear on the final list, a senior counterterrorism expert said.
The memo signed by Jones makes clear that more than 100 preexisting Joint Terrorism Task Forces set up by the FBI will take the lead in national security incidents within the United States. But intelligence analysts and interrogators who participate in the mobile teams can help with potentially deadly but previously unidentified suspects.
FBI agents are allowed to interrogate people in the United States without informing them of their constitutional rights to remain silent and to secure an attorney if the agents want to gather intelligence and 'protect public safety.'
US intelligence chief claims right to assassinate Americans overseas By Joe Kishore 05 Feb 2010 US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said on Wednesday that government agencies have a policy of assassinating Americans overseas as required by the "war on terror."
In testimony before the House intelligence committee, Blair said the assassinations would be justified if US citizens were "taking action that threatens Americans." This is an extremely broad category, giving the US intelligence apparatus general authority to engage in what amount to extra-judicial executions.
Assassinating US Citizens Raises "Troubling Issues"
David Edwards and Muriel Kane / Raw Story
(February 6, 2010) — The admission by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that the United States intelligence community is authorized to assassinate Americans working with terrorists overseas has raised serious questions of constitutionality.
“It’s troubling, Keith, because it’s not on the books,” constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Thursday.
“This is something that President Bush developed,” Turley explained. “We actually saw the Bush administration kill an American citizen named Kamal Derwish in 2002 with a Predator strike.… The Obama administration, once again, seems to be morphing into the Bush administration.”
According to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, the American officials who directed the strike that killed Derwish in 2002 were not aware that he was in the targeted car. In contrast, the attempt to take out al Qaeda operative Anwar al Awlaki last December with a cruise missile directly targeted the America-born cleric.
“The problem is that there’s a term for this,” Turley went on. “It’s called assassination. You’re taking out someone, a US citizen, who’s had no chance to prove that they’re innocent. … US citizens are entitled to trials.”
“It doesn’t say you can’t kill a US citizen who’s engaged in a terrorist act,” Turley cautioned. “But to use this term of ‘involved’ in an organization raises some very troubling legal and constitutional issues.”
In accordance with Title 17 USC. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
back
|
