License to Kill? Intel Chief Says U.S. Can Take Out American Terrorists(Can Assassinate US Citizens)

[tekisui]

Source: ABC News

The director of national intelligence affirmed rather bluntly today that the U.S. intelligence community has authority to target American citizens for assassination if they present a direct terrorist threat to the United States.

"We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community, if … we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra D-Mich., addressed the issue at today's hearing.

"The targeting of Americans -- it's a very sensitive issue, but again there's been more information in the public domain that what has been shared with this committee," he said.

"There is no clarity." Hoekstra said. "What is the legal framework?"

"Whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American has -- is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved." Blair explained. "We don't target people for free speech. We target them for taking action that threatens Americans."

According to U.S. officials only a handful of Americans would be eligible for targeting by U.S. intelligence or military operations. The legal guidance is determined by the National Security Council and the Justice Department.

more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/license-kill-intelligence-chief-us-american-terrorist/story?id=9740491

[EFerrari]

1. Welcome to East Timor!

[leftstreet]

2. 'taking action that threatens Americans' - hmm, like Wall Street bankers?

[Turbineguy]

5. Only if they are not on

American soil.

[mirrera]

3. In Columbia I am sure all the dead Union leaders and activists were a "threat"...

Slippery slimy slope.

[malaise]

15. +1,000 n/t

[niyad]

4. and just what are the critieria? does anybody know?

[boppers]

14. Some fodder:

Read up:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/Use%20of%20Force/October%202002/Parks_final.pdf

[Betty Karlson]

24. Slippery slope, anyone?

Sounds to me like the introduction of extraordinary rendition (as implemented by W.J. Clinton in 1997). And then Bush brought us version 2.0 of the same.

[Echo In Light]

25. We already know the WoT, domestically, has primarily focused on ANTI-WAR groups

That should tell you all you need to know....

[indepat]

6. F the rule of law. F equal justice under the law. F constitutional protections: this is Amurikkka

land of the free in a Bush-styled totalitarian society. :P

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

13. It can now be called an Obama-styled totalitarian society.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7635003#7635428

[indepat]

21. Come to think of it, all of junior's foul initiatives continued/not rescinded, such as wars,

corrupted Justice Department, mangled Constitutional protections, unfair tax policies, bloated defense spending, et al ad infinitum are now BHO's. :P

[wtmusic]

7. Morons are running US intelligence. Wonderful. nt

[rgbecker]

8. So the whole trial thing in the constitution is just a formality we can work around?

[Pavulon]

9. IE that american taliban bitch

has a missile with his name on it.

[kudzu22]

10. Must be a Bushy leftover

[tekisui]

11. Nope. Nominated by Obama.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_C._Blair

[thotzRthingz]

12. HEY! Let's also "take out" bank-robbers, burglars, etc. SAVING the cost of trial & incarceration!

:eyes: (rollseyes!)

[classysassy]

16. Hello,who is in charge

of our country,has there been a hostile take over by the intelligence community?

[appal_jack]

26. yup. in 1963.

RIP, President Kennedy. :cry:

It's been a slippery slope since at least that fateful tragic November day in Dallas.

Taking our country back was a lot of work for all the 60's activists, and their work was left unfinished (RIP Abbey Hoffman, etc.)

-app

[ConsAreLiars]

17. Long ago I read horrifying stories about a government that went outside its borders

and murdered those it wanted to kill. In 'Reader's Digest' as run by the pro-fascist Wallace, and about some rumor and a fact or two rather than hundreds and thousands of piled up corpses.

[howard112211]

18. Many Americans were supportive of these policies when they applied only to non-Americans.

Karma is a bitch. Either you respect human rights or you don't.

[Hannah Bell]

19. "has authority" from who? since when?

[Solly Mack]

20. Groups that would shoot doctors, bomb clinics, attack select people?

Engaging in practices that bring the country to the brink of destruction is an attack on all Americans, yes?


If you deny me equality, aren't you a threat to me and other Americans? Aren't you harming me? Aren't you a threat to America because you go against the ideals of America? Isn't an attack on the foundation of a democratic society, which America claims to be, an attack on all Americans? One might even say such an attack is an act of terrorism, since the attack is designed to serve as a warning to others - to scare them into compliance and obedience.

If you preach that I should be killed, for whatever reasons, aren't you a threat to me and other Americans like me? If you promote violence against me, aren't you a threat to me and other Americans? If you support or embrace groups that promote violence against me, aren't you a threat to me and other Americans like me?


Guess not all terrorists are created equal

[upi402]

22. Anybody trust these folks to do this after the Iraq war bullshit?

Hell no! They got medals for fucking up from the evil-ass Republicans pols.

[Blue_Tires]

23. I thought that was a policy dating back to J. Edgar Hoover's glory days

of course, it was worded differently then, but they had plenty of ways to make people they didn't like disappear

[Luminous Animal]

27. It is really quite despicable. We are sick and pathetic country.

Glenn Greenwald wrote about it this morning and last week:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/04/assassinations/index.html
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/27/yemen/index.html

The severe dangers of vesting assassination powers in the President are so glaring that even GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra is able to see them (at least he is now that there's a Democratic President). At yesterday's hearing, Hoekstra asked Adm. Blair about the threat that the President might order Americans killed due to their Constitutionally protected political speech rather than because they were actually engaged in Terrorism. This concern is not an abstract one. The current controversy has been triggered by the Obama administration's attempt to kill U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. But al-Awlaki has not been accused (let alone convicted) of trying to attack Americans. Instead, he's accused of being a so-called "radical cleric" who supports Al Qaeda and now provides "encouragement" to others to engage in attacks -- a charge al-Awlaki's family vehemently denies (al-Awlaki himself is in hiding due to fear that his own Government will assassinate him).

Further on Greenald quotes Dahlia Lithwick from Slate...
http://www.slate.com/id/2243429

America has slid back again into its own special brand of terrorism-derangement syndrome. Each time this condition recurs, it presents with more acute and puzzling symptoms. . . .

Moreover, each time Republicans go to their terrorism crazy-place, they go just a little bit farther than they did the last time, so that things that made us feel safe last year make us feel vulnerable today. . . . In short, what was once tough on terror is now soft on terror. And each time the Republicans move their own crazy-place goal posts, the Obama administration moves right along with them. . . .

We're terrified when a terror attack happens, and we're also terrified when it's thwarted. We're terrified when we give terrorists trials, and we're terrified when we warehouse them at Guantanamo without trials. If a terrorist cooperates without being tortured we complain about how much more he would have cooperated if he hadn't been read his rights. No matter how tough we've been on terror, we will never feel safe enough to ask for fewer safeguards. . . .

But here's the paradox: It's not a terrorist's time bomb that's ticking. It's us. Since 9/11, we have become ever more willing to suspend basic protections and more contemptuous of American traditions and institutions. The failed Christmas bombing and its political aftermath have revealed that the terrorists have changed very little in the eight-plus years since the World Trade Center fell. What's changing -- what's slowly ticking its way down to zero -- is our own certainty that we can never be safe enough and our own confidence in the rule of law.

[ConsAreLiars]

28. The evil that gets justified/glorified here-now makes the Cold War USSR

look like Gandhians by comparison. The monsters here have slaughtered millions all across the globe and who knows how many hundreds in "targeted assassinations" and multiple thousands in "collateral damage."

(edit typos)

[MadHound]

29. Well gee, at least they're being up front, sorta, about this

Considering that this has been the status quo for sixty years or so, it's rather refreshing that they're finally acknowledging it.

[blindpig]

30. Define 'attack'

There's a really slippery slope.....

[Mari333]

31. ACLU is all over this on their website today