Here is what the Attorney General says is necessary (or maybe not so necessary), for a targeted killing:

The first condition presupposes the target is "a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces," or some such thing--which is precisely what the government should have to prove in a trial.

The feasibility of capture, of course, is determined entirely by the president and his advisers. Presumably, this would rule out targeted killings inside this country, since capture would be "feasible," but I don't see much guarantee of that.

And the imminence of the threat posed by the alleged terrorist? Well, that is determined by a "thorough and careful review" by the Executive Branch, with no role by either the legislative or the judicial branches.

What it boils down to is that Eric Holder claims that Congress, by authorizing the use of military force against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, has given the President the power to order the execution of anyone he says is a terrorist, wherever that person may be found with the possible exception of those found within the U.S.

So much for the concept of due process.

Onward and upward,
airforce

That is the exact same authority Hitler granted himself as Der Fuehrer.

ANY government that deliberately ignores and violates the constitutionally protected, God given rights of any American deserves nothing but utter contempt. We owe it NO allegiance what so ever.

In fact, it is our right and duty as Americans to overthrow it by any means necessary.

If they are ever stupid enough to try this, then it's time to kill all they send.

No, I think we are dealing with a new animal here. Right now it is not such a new thing that US citizens in Al Queda get targeted, since every one of the high profile cases I have seen was pretty plain and clear. The question is the secrecy, how secret criteria would be used to determine if and when someone gets executed.

In the 1800s, the US government frequently issued "death warrants" on individuals for various reasons, and they were all made public, usually for very public reasons.

In the 1930s, Hitler made no compunctions about who he decided were the "enemies of the people", so it was not exactly a secret or surprise when someone was arrested and sent to concentration camps in Germany, the secret/surprise was over so many being immediately murdered, but even according to German law at the time, it was murder, just state sponsored murder. In the 1940s, Nazi collaborative sham governments in several of the East European countries did sham trials with rapid execution, but again, they were taking names and had "judges" just to make it seem almost legal, not particularly secret AND legal.

The governments who have practiced "administrative homicide" in the past tended to make it secret OR legal, not secret AND legal, which is the new animal here. That is also apart from some of the vigilantism that has been known to have been practiced in the past by the FBI and other elements of the Justice Department (in particular, the killings of several famous 1930s era bank robbers, but even then, they had been declared "public enemies" first.

There were also several killings associated with the late 1960s and early 1970s COINTELPRO operations and their offshoots in several Eastern cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and to a lesser degree, Toledo, Indianapolis, Columbus and Kansas City where numerous far left activists met their ends at the hands of "special action squads" within various police departments.

It is believed that a lot of those methods were in actuality learned from but not necessarily taught by the KKK during the 1920s, when the FBI first began taking action against the KKK by studying their various relationships with authorities in the Deep South during the heyday of the Klan in the 1920s. Law enforcement in general learned from that, also learning from the various experts who gained worldwide experience in covert operations during WW2 and returned to the states for service in various agencies.

At that time however, they were also faced with highly capable opponents in Organized crime and the various Italian mafias who would happily play tit for tat if they found their people just being outright murdered, and thus various levels of truce were declared between the government and the Mafias during the 1950s and 1960s, that being facilitated by the Mafia also being staunchly patriotic and anti-Communist. It should be noted that the only known actual terroristic destruction of wartime production facilities in the US during WW2 were not done by Axis powers, but two cargo ships blown up and scuttled in NY harbor just prior to completion as a warning against authorities in NY not to have mass roundups of Italians or Germans the way it was being done with Japanese in the West Coast. The Mafia at the time had the backing of both the Unions, and the Italian community since some non-Italian politicians had openly been calling for mass roundup of Italian immigrants over the issue of the US being at war with Italy.

That's where we get to these issues of the Muslim training camps in the US and what I see as a delicate issue there. If they are defensive in nature, then there is a somewhat legal precedent on that, if they are for hostile intent, then yeah, I have to say that the government might be legitimate in going after them, but that gets us into the whole Waco and Ruby Ridge thing, or something like this issue with Norman Jeffs and his old school faction among the Mormons.

I think what we have to also openly recognize is that while assassination appears to be on the table with what is now a Black run Justice Department, we have to really question who gets hit and why when there is a pretty ambiguous thing on who gets declared a public enemy.

This thing, as it is written and stated is that some secret sniper can just take potshots at people based on whatever criteria he decides and it's legal. Now unfortunately, I am hearing there are legal precedents on that too, within certain "high security" US Prisons.

I think at this stage, rather than just going off and shooting meter maids as symbols of abusive government power, all of the known and suspected hits on anyone we even remotely care about need to be exhaustively investigated and then determinations made on who is responsible and why, and retaliation carried out if and when appropriate.

That requires very sober decisions on the part of those who do it, and even on the part of those who say they support it. I wish there could be another way, but I just don't see much else being taken seriously by the opposition in recent history.

The only other thing is appealing to whatever honor the various government operatives might have, considering that honor is more of a disqualifying factor in the psych evals these days, over directives to kill people who are not even made fully aware that their lives are in danger or their actions have been determined to be so objectionable by the government that a death warrant has been put on them.

The other thing is, what happens when some individual is confirmed to have a death warrant on them, has escaped or defended themselves against a bonafide attempt, then is out loose in society? I see no moral, legal or ethical obligation on their part to play by much of any rules at that point if it is literally "one man against the world".

That's the big ethical issue you get into when there is no transparency in government.

Aren't Judges and attorney's to be removed or recuses themselves if they are emotionally/personally involved in the case, physical incapacitated or under duress(they or a loved one threatened).Well now "ALL" trials are in fact a mistrial.

The issue of attorneys under duress is something which can be brought up on appeals, but during a trial, is just something to play the shell game of swapping attorneys on.

I had been told of one terrorism case out of Eugene Oregon where the details were foggy on exactly who the lawyer was representing, but he shared a small office building with other lawyers, including one who was representing a friend of mine in an "assault" case.

So my friend was going to the office to sign some papers (the opposition was dropping charges in return for not getting sued and losing their football scholarship) and noticed parts of the building looked pretty tore up. Then there were contractors replacing the doors on one of the office, painters, and people who do repairs on burned property.

Apparently one of the lawyers was representing someone the feds did not like, so on a Friday, they got a warrant to search the law office for documents pertaining to any possible improper conduct in the case. On a Saturday, knowing the guy was off for the weekend and the place was empty, they did an explosive breach and dynamic entry on the building and office, confiscated files and computers (including files on several other cases that law firm was handling), and then waited until Monday to inform the lawyer in court that it was them who had trashed his office.

Then and there, he quit the case. The intimidation worked fully, since the damage to the building was also a warning to other tenant lawyers that they could face extreme difficulties in renting any offices if they were known to attract feds using explosive entry techniques in the buildings the lawyers rented. I tried to find more info on the case.

One of the many reasons a lot of jurisdictions allow lawyers to carry guns is the issue of government intimidation, where prosecutors quite often flaunt the fact that they are armed and will imply that as a negotiating factor in various issues from lawsuits to criminal plea bargains to even factoring what they feel like paying contractors for services to the local municipality.

Okay, I get the moral need to not simply open up on just anyone in government employ, but what if you don't have the resources/communication to make absolutely certain you get the 'right' people? Especially if you don't have the resources/communication with other units to contact those with the information?

What if it in the end it doesn't matter because they're about all with the beast heart and mind?

What if the path to victory dictates a need for a lack of discrimination to some extant?

It isn't just us. Even The Atlantic[/b] says Eric Holder "struck out" on his speech. And if a Democratic president loses the Support of [b]The Atlantic, well...

Meanwhile, six more congressmen have called for Eric Holder\'s resignation over the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal. Seriously, I'm surprised he's still around. One thing about Obama, he sure doesn't like to fire his friends.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Hey, I will not heavily judge someone who got pushed past their breaking point, just on an overall thing, you get better morality points for punishing the guilty than you do for punishing the distant third party persons somewhat associated with the guilty.

I think a lot of that though also has to do with identification of willful collaborators and those who self-identify with the enemy.

Imagine going to a gun show and seeing some dickweed wearing a T-Shirt with a fanpic of Lon Horiuchi holding a sniper rifle with some catch phrase like "Here's one for Sara", and you hear dickweed talking all hard about trying out to be an FBI agent, wants to go shoot "domestic terrorists", is shopping for a good deal for an HS Precision sniper rifle because that's what his favorite hard core killer has used.

You find out he is a "fed" but just a guard at a local low security federal prison. Not really guilty of anything, but well, by association, definitely putting it all out to be a "part of the team".

Come one now, wanna skip the niceties and just stomp the fool?

That's why it is hard to judge these things from a distance.

Holder is their firewall. That's what people have to understand. He covers shit up and protects the Obama Whiet House from investigation and prosecution.

I'd go so far as to say that the Obama WH has more riding on Holder than Holder has riding on
the WH.

That is exactly why Holder is such a big target. Take him down and it opens the gates.

Quoted for truth!

Holder is the first domino which needs to fall in order to shine the light of scrutiny on the filth and excrement occupying the district of criminals.

Remember, Holder is a left over tool from the Clinton admin.

Legal Experts Destroy Rationale for Obama’s Assassination Policy … And Slam Democrats for Supporting It


Washington’s Blog
March 8, 2012

Obama Expanding Program Started by Cheney

Attorney General Eric Holder announced at Northwestern University law school that the U.S. can assassinate U.S. citizens without any without disclosure of why they are even alleged to be baddies and without any review of any nature whatsoever by any judge, Congress or the American people.

Northwestern University’s law school professor Joseph Margulies said:

I defy anyone to read [Holder's] speech and show any differences between Obama and Bush on these issues, They both say we are in a war not confined to particular battlefield. … Both say we can target citizens without judicial oversight and that can happen anywhere in the world.

Columbia law school professor Scott Horton notes that this assassination strategy was created by Dick Cheney, and is being carried out by the Obama administration:

A lot of this seems to have been put in place under the tutelage of Dick Cheney. So here we see one of Dick Cheney’s ideas being ratified by Barack Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder.


(Obama is also implementing Cheney and the boys’ plans for war in the Middle East and North Africa.)

Top constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley slams the Democratic Party for its complicity:

The choice of a law school was a curious place for discussion of authoritarian powers. Obama has replaced the constitutional protections afforded to citizens with a “trust me” pledge that Holder repeated.

***

Senior administration officials have asserted that the president may kill an American anywhere and anytime, including in the United States. Holder’s speech does not materially limit that claimed authority. He merely assures citizens that Obama will only kill those of us he finds abroad and a significant threat. Notably, Holder added, “Our legal authority is not limited to the battlefields in Afghanistan.”

The Obama administration continues to stonewall efforts to get it to acknowledge the existence of a memo authorizing the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki. Democrats previously demanded the “torture memos” of the Bush administration that revealed both poor legal analysis by Judge Jay Bybee and Professor John Yoo to justify torture. Now, however, Democrats are largely silent in the face of a president claiming the right to unilaterally kill citizens.

Holder became particularly cryptic in his assurance of caution in the use of this power, insisting that they will kill citizens only with “the consent of the nation involved or after a determination that the nation is unable or unwilling to deal effectively with a threat to the United States.” What on earth does that mean?

Former constitutional trial lawyer and progressive writer Glenn Greenwald agrees:

The willingness of Democrats to embrace and defend this power is especially reprehensible because of how completely, glaringly and obviously at odds it is with everything they loudly claimed to believe during the Bush years. Recall two of the most significant “scandals” of the Bush War on Terror: his asserted power merely toeavesdrop on and detain accused Terrorists without judicial review of any kind. Remember all that? Progressives endlessly accused Bush of Assaulting Our Values and “shredding the Constitution” simply because Bush officials wanted to listen in on and detain suspected Terrorists — not kill them, just eavesdrop on and detain them — without first going to a court and proving they did anything wrong. Yet here is a Democratic administration asserting not merely the right to surveil or detain citizens without charges or judicial review, but to kill them without any of that: a far more extreme, permanent and irreversible act. Yet, with some righteous exceptions, the silence is deafening, or worse.

How can anyone who vocally decried Bush’s mere eavesdropping and detention powers without judicial review possibly justify Obama’s executions without judicial review? How can the former (far more mild powers) have been such an assault on Everything We Stand For while the latter is a tolerable and acceptable assertion of war powers? If Barack Obama has the right to order accused Terrorists executed by the CIA because We’re At War, then surely George Bush had the right to order accused Terrorists eavesdropped on and detained on the same ground.

That the same Party and political faction that endlessly shrieked about Bush’s eavesdropping and detention programs now tolerate Obama’s execution program is one of the most extreme and craven acts of dishonesty we’ve seen in quite some time.

***

To recap Barack Obama’s view: it is a form of “terror” for someone to be detained “without even getting one chance to prove their innocence,” but it is good and noble for them to be executed under the same circumstances. To recap Eric Holder’s view: we must not accept when the Bush administration says “just trust us” when it comes to spying on the communications of accused Terrorists, but we must accept when the Obama administration says “just trust us” when it comes to targeting our fellow citizens for execution.

***

What’s so striking is how identical Obama officials and their defenders sound when compared to the right-wing legal theorists who justified Bush’s most controversial programs. Even the core justifying slogans are the same: we are at War; the Battlefield is everywhere; Presidents have the right to spy on, detain and kill combatants without court permission; the Executive Branch is the sole organ for war and no courts can interfere in the President’s decisions, etc. I spent years writing about and refuting those legal theories and they are identical to what we hear now. Just consider how similar the two factions sound to one another. When it came to their War on Terror controversies, Bush officials constantly said back then exactly what Obama officials and defenders say now: we’re only using these powers against Terrorists — The Bad People — not against regular, normal, Good Americans; so if you’re not a Terrorist, you have nothing to worry about.

***

This is nothing more than an exercise of supremely circular reasoning and question-begging: whether someone is actually a Terrorist can be determined only when the evidence of their guilt is presented and they have an opportunity to respond, just as Holder and Obama said during the Bush years. Government assurances that they’re only targeting Terrorists — whether those assurances issue from Bush or Obama — should reassure nobody: this is always what those who abuse power claim, and it’s precisely why we don’t trust government officials to punish people based on unproven accusations. [Indeed, we’ve gone from a nation of laws to a nation of powerful men making laws in secret.]

***

We supposedly learned important lessons from the abuses of power of the Nixon administration, and then of the Bush administration: namely, that we don’t trust government officials to exercise power in the dark, with no judicial oversight, with no obligation to prove their accusations. Yet now we hear exactly this same mentality issuing from Obama, his officials and defenders to justify a far more extreme power than either Nixon or Bush dreamed of asserting: he’s only killing The Bad Citizens, so there’s no reason to object!

***

That this policy is being implemented and defended by the very same political party that spent the last decade so vocally and opportunistically objecting to far less extreme powers makes it all the more repellent. That fact also makes it all the more dangerous, because — as one can see — the fact that it is a Democratic President doing it, and Democratic Party officials justifying it, means that it’s much easier to normalize: very few of the Party’s followers, especially in an election year, are willing to make much of a fuss about it at all.

And thus will presidential assassination powers be entrenched as bipartisan consensus for at least a generation. That will undoubtedly be one of the most significant aspects of the Obama legacy. Let no Democrat who is now supportive or even silent be heard to object when the next Republican President exercises this power in ways that they dislike.

As does Charles Pierce:

The criteria for when a president can unilaterally decide to kill somebody is completely full of holes, regardless of what the government’s pet lawyers say. And this…

“This is an indicator of our times,” Holder said, “not a departure from our laws and our values.”

…is a monumental pile of crap that should embarrass every Democrat who ever said an unkind word about John Yoo. This policy is a vast departure from our laws and an interplanetary probe away from our values. The president should not have this power because the Constitution, which was written by smarter people than, say, Benjamin Wittes, knew full and goddamn well why the president shouldn’t have this power. If you give the president the power to kill without due process, or without demonstrable probable cause, he inevitably will do so. And, as a lot of us asked during the Bush years, if you give this power to President George Bush, will you also give it to President Hillary Clinton and, if you give this power to President Barack Obama, will you also give it to President Rick Santorum?

Greenwald also points out that it is unclear whether the poster child for assassination of American citizens – Anwar Al Awlaki – was even a threat:



Applying traditional war doctrine to accused Terrorists (who are not found on a battlefield but in their cars, their homes, at work, etc.) is so inappropriate, and why judicial review is so urgent: because the risk of false accusations is so much higher than it is when capturing uniformed soldiers on an actual battlefield. Just recall how dubious so many government accusations of Terrorism turned out to be once federal courts began scrutinizing those accusations for evidentiary support. Indeed, Yemen experts such as Gregory Johnsen have repeatedly pointed out in response to claims that Awlaki plotted Terrorist attacks: “we know very little, precious little when it comes to his operational role” and “we just don’t know this, we suspect it but don’t know it.” Given this shameful record in the War on Terror, what rational person would “trust” the Government to make determinations about who is and is not a Terrorist in the dark, with no limits or checks on what they can do?

***

Holder’s attempt to justify these assassinations on the ground that “capture is not feasible” achieves nothing. For one, the U.S. never even bothered to indict Awlaki so that he could voluntarily turn himself in or answer the charges (though at one point, long after they first ordered him killed, they “considered” indicting him); instead, they simply killed him without demonstrating there was any evidence to support these accusations. What justifies that? Additionally, the fact that the Government is unable to apprehend and try a criminal does not justify his murder; absent some violent resistance upon capture, the government is not free to simply go around murdering fugitives who have been convicted of nothing. Moreover, that Awlaki could not have been captured in a country where the government is little more than an American client is dubious at best …

(Interestingly, Lt.Col. Anthony Shaffer – who claims to have tracked several of the 9/11 hijackers prior to September 11th – alleges that al-Awlaki was a triple agent and an FBI asset before 9/11.)

FBI director: Have to check whether targeted killing rule is outside US only

By Catherine Herridge

Published March 07, 2012

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday said he would have to go back and check with the Department of Justice whether Attorney General Eric Holder's "three criteria" for the targeted killing of Americans also applied to Americans inside the U.S.

Pressed by House lawmakers about a recent speech in which Holder described the legal justification for assassination, Mueller, who was attending a hearing on his agency's budget, did not say without qualification that the three criteria could not be applied inside the U.S.

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"I have to go back. Uh, I'm not certain whether that was addressed or not," Mueller said when asked by Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., about a distinction between domestic and foreign targeting

Yoder followed up asking whether "from a historical perspective," the federal government has "the ability to kill a U.S. citizen on United States soil or just overseas."

"I'm going to defer that to others in the Department of Justice," Mueller replied.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...#ixzz1oWnrDabR

Yeah, probably the best assessment of the guy. He was mentored by that bitch Reno. A lot of people from that era are now in leadership positions in several federal law enforcement agencies just as a factor of normal career progression.

Realize we are talking about a Justice Department that would prosecute an FBI agent for selling a couple personal pistols without a background check but will not prosecute ANYBODY for incidents where FBI agents murdered innocent women and children.

It's all about the powuh...

FBI Director: I Have to Check to See If Obama Has the Right to Assassinate Americans On U.S. Soil


Washington’s Blog
March 9, 2012

Yes, Obama Claims Power to Kill Americans on U.S. Soil

Fox News reports:

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday said he would have to go back and check with the Department of Justice whether Attorney General Eric Holder’s “[criteria] for the targeted killing of Americans also applied to Americans inside the U.S.

***

“I have to go back. Uh, I’m not certain whether that was addressed or not,” Mueller said when asked by Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., about a distinction between domestic and foreign targeting

Graves followed up asking whether “from a historical perspective,” the federal government has “the ability to kill a U.S. citizen on United States soil or just overseas.”

“I’m going to defer that to others in the Department of Justice,” Mueller replied.

Indeed, Holder’s Monday speech at Northwestern University seemed to leave the door open.

Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley writes:

One would hope that the FBI Director would have a handle on a few details guiding his responsibilities, including whether he can kill citizens without a charge or court order.

***

He appeared unclear whether he had the power under the Obama Kill Doctrine or, in the very least, was unwilling to discuss that power. For civil libertarians, the answer should be easy: “Of course, I do not have that power under the Constitution.”

***

The claim that they are following self-imposed “limits” which are meaningless — particularly in a system that is premised on the availability of judicial review. The Administration has never said that the [Law Of Armed Conflicts] does not allow the same powers to be used in the United States. It would be an easy thing to state. Holder can affirmatively state that the President’s inherent power to kill citizens exists only outside of the country. He can then explain where those limits are found in the Constitution and why they do not apply equally to a citizen in London or Berlin. Holder was not describing a constitutional process of review. They have dressed up a self-imposed review of a unilateral power as due process. Any authoritarian measure can be dressed up as carefully executed according to balancing tests, but that does not constitute any real constitutional analysis. It is at best a loose analogy to constitutional analysis.

When reporters asked the Justice Department about Mueller’s apparent uncertainty, they responded that the answer is “pretty straightforward.” They then offered an evasive response. They simply said (as we all know) that “[t]he legal framework (Holder) laid out applies to U.S. citizens outside of U.S.” We got that from the use of the word “abroad.” However, the question is how this inherent authority is limited as it has been articulated by Holder and others. What is the limiting principle? If the President cannot order the killing of a citizen in the United States, Holder can simply say so (and inform the FBI Director who would likely be involved in such a killing). In doing so, he can then explain the source of that limitation and why it does not apply with citizens in places like London. What we have is a purely internal review that balances the practicality of arrest and the urgency of the matter in the view of the President. Since the panel is the extension of his authority, he can presumably disregard their recommendations or order a killing without their approval. Since the Administration has emphasized that the “battlefield” in this “war on terror” is not limited to a particular country, the assumption is that the President’s authority is commensurate with that threat or limitless theater of operation. Indeed, the Justice Department has repeatedly stated that the war is being fought in the United States as well as other nations.

Thus, Mueller’s uncertainty is understandable . . . and dangerous. The Framers created a system of objective due process in a system of checks and balances. Obama has introduced an undefined and self-imposed system of review ….

Before you assume that Mueller’s comments are being blown out of proportion, remember that it has been clear for some time that Obama has claimed the power to assassinate U.S. citizens within the U.S. As we pointed out in December:



I’ve previously noted that Obama says that he can assassinate American citizens living on U.S. soil.

This admittedly sounds over-the-top. But one of the nation’s top constitutional and military law experts – Jonathan Turley – agrees.

***

Turley said [on C-Span]:

President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own. If he’s satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world including in the United States.

Two of his aides just … reaffirmed they believe that American citizens can be killed on the order of the President anywhere including the United States.

You’ve now got a president who says that he can kill you on his own discretion. He can jail you indefinitely on his own discretion

***

I don’t think the the Framers ever anticipated that [the American people would be so apathetic]. They assumed that people would hold their liberties close, and that they wouldn’t relax …

Indeed, given that virtually any American could be considered a suspected terrorist these days, no one is safe from an all-powerful president’s whims.

As I noted in another context, circular reasoning provides all the justification needed:



The government’s indefinite detention policy – stripped of it’s spin – is literally insane, and based on circular reasoning. Stripped of p.r., this is the actual policy:

If you are an enemy combatant or a threat to national security, we will detain you indefinitely until the war is over

It is a perpetual war, which will never be over

Neither you or your lawyers have a right to see the evidence against you, nor to face your accusers

But trust us, we know you are an enemy combatant and a threat to national security

We may torture you (and try to cover up the fact that you were tortured), because you are an enemy combatant, and so basic rights of a prisoner guaranteed by the Geneva Convention don’t apply to you

Since you admitted that you’re a bad guy (while trying to tell us whatever you think we want to hear to make the torture stop), it proves that we should hold you in indefinite detention

See how that works?

And – given that U.S. soldiers admit that if they accidentally kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants – it is unlikely that the government would ever admit that an American citizen it assassinated was an innocent civilian who has nothing at all to do with terrorism.

FBI Director Fails to Refute State-Sponsored Murder of American Citizens on US Soil


Another shocking benchmark of how far America has sunk into a military dictatorship

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Friday, March 9, 2012

FBI Director Robert Mueller’s failure to acknowledge that the Constitution and the rule of law prevents the government from being allowed to kill American citizens on U.S. soil without due process is yet another shocking benchmark of how far American has sunk into a military dictatorship.

Asked by House lawmakers Wednesday on whether the Obama administration’s policy of extra-judicial killings of American citizens abroad could also apply inside the United States, Mueller was evasive.

“I have to go back. Uh, I’m not certain whether that was addressed or not,” Mueller said when asked by Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., about a distinction between domestic and foreign targeting.

Graves followed up asking whether “from a historical perspective,” the federal government has “the ability to kill a U.S. citizen on United States soil or just overseas.”

“I’m going to defer that to others in the Department of Justice,” Mueller replied.

As Judge Andrew Napolitano explains in the clip above, Mueller shouldn’t have to “check” whether the government is allowed to kill American citizens on U.S. soil or indeed anywhere in the world – the thing that stops this from happening is called due process and the rule of law.

As top constitutional and military law expert Jonathan Turley explains, “[Mueller] appeared unclear whether he had the power under the Obama Kill Doctrine or, in the very least, was unwilling to discuss that power. For civil libertarians, the answer should be easy: “Of course, I do not have that power under the Constitution.”

Despite Mueller’s evasive response, the Obama administration itself has made it clear that American citizens will be targeted for assassination on U.S. soil if they are deemed enemy combatants.

Since the National Defense Authorization Act defines the whole of the planet, including the United States, as a “battlefield” in the perpetual war on terror, it doesn’t matter whether Americans are inside the United States or abroad, they are all legitimate targets of the policy of state-sponsored assassination, according to the government’s argument.

As Turley stated when the issue arose during the recent NDAA debate, “President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own. If he’s satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world including in the United States.”

In 2010, national intelligence director Dennis Blair openly stated that, “Being a U.S. citizen will not spare an American from getting assassinated by military or intelligence operatives.”

Recall that José Padilla, an American citizen, was held without charge for 3 and a half years as an “enemy combatant” and denied a trial in civilian court, after being accused of planning to detonate a “dirty bomb,” an accusation that was enough to keep Padilla in a military brig for over three years yet was never proven.

In addition, as Ron Paul has pointed out, Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who has never been charged with any crime, was the victim of extrajudicial killing because of the same unconstitutional legalese that defines the entire globe as a “battlefield,” where the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens are declared null and void if they are designated as terrorists by the federal government. His 16-year-old son who was also never charged with any crime was also a victim of state-sponsored assassination.

As far back as December 2002, the Washington Post reported that a “parallel legal system” had been put in place under the auspices of the war on terror, in which terrorism suspects — U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike — may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system.”

Started under the Bush administration, Obama has implemented this “parallel legal system” with gusto.

A “parallel legal system” is nothing more than a euphemism for a “dictatorship” in which the government claims it can create its own laws and murder anyone it likes without having to present any evidence in a court of law.

The cases involving Padilla and Awlaki were just trial balloons in the government’s bid to build legal pretext behind the officially sanctioned policy of state-sponsored murder and military dictatorship.

Only when non-Muslim US citizens are targeted for assassination under the same tyrannical framework will the American people really begin to grasp the fact that they have allowed the state to seize totalitarian control over the most fundamental basic liberty – the right to life.

*********************

So now they have said what some have thought all along. So how does one find out if they have got a cross hair on them?
Are they going to send an email or a letter to the targeted individual?
Or are they going to make certain groups of people out to be terrorist then hit them?
If they choose to go with my second question. This has already been done.

Best defense is to NOT live at the address you write down. And if you are, move.

This is all smoke and Mirrors..the Dems are in lock-step With Little Lenin, we are all TARGETS Period..War has been declared by Congress and the WH..Its Plain and simple..The first Battle will be soon..they know it, we know it..Where or How is anybodys guess, since we are all on the Battlefield..You and I are in a War Zone..only we have to determine the Front Lines...

Seen a video about how the system fells about the soveriegn movment individuals. Looks like they might have top priority.
Funny thing though is if you believe in the consitution you fall under this catogory.

Two more congressmen hit Holder for Fast and Furious, 120 now want resignation

By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller 03/12/2012


Republican Reps. Reid Ribble of Wisconsin and Bob Goodlatte of Virginia have signed on to a House resolution of “no confidence” in Attorney General Eric Holder over his role in Operation Fast and Furious.

With their signatures, a total of 120 U.S. House members have now either publicly demanded Holder’s resignation, expressed no confidence in his job performance via a formal House resolution, or both.

That amounts to more than a quarter of the U.S. House of Representatives and nearly half of the Republican caucus. Three U.S. senators — Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and James Inhofe of Oklahoma — have also called for Holder to resign. So have two sitting governors, Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and all major Republican presidential candidates.

The Obama administration’s Fast and Furious “gunwalking” program — organized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and overseen by the Department of Justice — sent thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels via straw purchasers, or people who purchased guns in the United States with the intention of illegally trafficking them somewhere else.

At least 300 people in Mexico were killed with weapons provided by Fast and Furious, as was U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. The identities of the Mexican victims are unknown. Allegations are now surfacing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata was also murdered with weapons the Obama administration allowed to “walk” into the hands of drug cartel members.

It has been more than a year since Terry was murdered with weapons his own government gave to his murderers, but not one government official has yet been held accountable.

Despite the ire directed at Holder by House members for his role in Operation Fast and Furious, there has been little media coverage of the calls by Republican legislators for his resignation. Most news outlets have either ignored the scandal completely or made cursory mention of it.

Despite a lack of coverage of the issue from the establishment media, The Hill reported over the weekend that local tea party groups are pressing members of the House leadership to take a more active role in demanding accountability from the Obama administration over the issue.

Holder and some Democrats on Capitol Hill have accused those pushing for accountability on Fast and Furious of playing partisan politics. But while no Democrat has yet called for Holder’s resignation over the program, many have condemned it and asked the DOJ to cooperate with the investigation into it.

Michigan Democratic Rep. John Dingell — the Terry family’s lifelong congressman — has been a vocal critic of the program and a supporter of the investigation.

“As I mentioned in my previous statement, Operation Fast and Furious was grossly irresponsible,” Dingell said in a statement to TheDC in December. ‘

“Over the years, I have been a harsh critic of ATF. It is clear in my mind that ‘gun-walking’ tactics are illogical and should never have been used. I was outraged the day I learned about this behavior, and I am still outraged to this day.”

“Furthermore,” he added, “the fact that a constituent of mine, Agent Brian Terry, was killed in the line of duty because of this gross negligence on behalf of ATF makes this situation even more serious.”

Additionally, 31 other House Democrats penned a letter to President Obama in June 2011 asking the president to direct Holder and the DOJ to comply with the congressional subpoenas and document requests pertaining to the scandal. To date, Obama and Holder have essentially ignored the request.

Out of 80,000 pages worth of documents House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa has lawfully subpoenaed, the DOJ has only provided between 6,000 to 7,000 pages to Congress. The DOJ has, however, given all of those documents to its internal investigator, the Office of Inspector General.

Holder has not provided any legal reason for withholding these documents from Congress, but the attorney general has claimed he is not covering anything up.

Obama has stood by Holder, issuing statements through spokespeople at key moments indicating that he has full confidence in his attorney general.

Follow Matthew on Twitter

Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com

I think there is a lot of historical precedent for this, bad historical precedent, in the late 1800s deep south during the reconstruction period prior to the formation of the KKK.

I understand that military tribunals and summary executions for "disloyalty to the republic" were fairly common, with federal edicts enforced brutally by what was often a combination force of US troops and federally appointed local marshals.

Right now in Mexico, they functionally have Army administered summary roadside executions for such crimes as suspected assault weapon ownership.

The response currently in Mexico and then in the 1870s deep south was terrorism, in the south by the Klan while they quickly built up a political base and were the dominant political force in much of that area for close to 70 years, asserting states rights and functional independence while never really having official independence. Some would say that the feds never really beat the Klan in the deep south, but their influence was diluted by the eventual mass migrations back and forth throughout the country which left pockets of Klan influence in all northern states, and large regions of non-Klan control in all southern states, especially Florida which had been attractive to immigrants from the Caribbean and the north for a long time.

The issue on this with the Arabs is over who started it and why. Padilla is an interesting case and personally, I think he was the "John Doe" at the OKC bombing but of course would never be able to prove it, except that Padilla has been so fucked with in isolation cells and dope therapy that he would probably throw in a confession to killing MLK and Kennedy just to even things out from a political standpoint, and maybe get a candy bar from the guards.

I think there is another issue on the killing of Brian Terry that nobody in the federal government wants to face, and that is an issue that would be relevant whether or not the shooters used a gun in that operation that came from the fast and furious program or not.

The particular Sinaola cartel that had been the beneficiaries of the F&F operation were working hand in hand with the State Department and elements of the DEA (although I had been told that certain DEA offices were kept out of this). Cartel lawyers have documented the cooperation and used it in court when their people got arrested elsewhere, however the idea was this thing of "using one cartel to fight the others", apparently as a result of secret meeting in Mexico between US officials and the Mexican cartel. The Cartel leadership took this as a high level authorization to engage in drug cartel activities.

Read all of the related documents carefully folks. "Fighting the other cartels" does not mean cage fights, legal battles in court, or some euphemistic symbolic thing, it means sending crews of hitmen to go out and kill agents, sympathizers, and even government officers who are aligned with an enemy cartel. It is quite plainly, a death squad war. Quite often those death squads are hired directly from off duty law enforcement, and on BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER, on duty official law enforcement officers who are sympathetic and helpful to a particular cartel.

The deals made between prosecutors, law enforcement and the cartel lawyers are usually laid out with very clear understandings. You are talking about smart, realistic amoral people who know how to make deals with each other, you are not talking about unrealistic inexperienced naive idealists like we have looked at in the past, or even with what is prevalent in the Arab world. Nobody in the cartel world expects their 99 virgins for a suicide bombing, but they might expect 99 relatives to be slaughtered if they screw up the delivery of a multimillion dollar drug shipment where "all legal arrangements have been made, so it is entirely on you (and your 99 relatives) to make sure not to screw this up."

So while the cartel "smugglers" and security people are going through the motions of running the dope as a clandestine operation, they get bold and lackadaisical about secrecy when they figure "all of the arrangements are made higher up anyway". When a group of BP agents come to harass the shipment, and then suddenly get rude, it is seen as either enemy cartel action or extreme insubordination, both of which are punishable by instant death in the cartel world, and its not like someone there is unaware of the rules.

Thing is, the prosecutors and US government officials "higher up" were given everything that the cartel promised in the deal. The cartel promised hellfire and brimstone on enemy cartels, they promised information on US suppliers of weapons (just basically confirming who the straw-boy purchasers were) and effectively were running a quasi government level registration process on the guns since the cartel has acted as a defacto government in several parts of Southern Mexico.

The cartel got "protection" for their activities, including smoothly handled shipments of weapons heading south, and at this point, undisclosed lack of interference with shipments heading north, but it is pretty clear to me that the cartel shooters realistically interpreted their agreement with the US government as implicit permission to deal with interference using measures of extreme prejudice. For all anyone knows, Brian Terry was associated with just another enemy cartel and had been using his badge to try and horn in on a cartel shipment that he was not associated with. Now out of respect for his family, I would point out that would be an assumption made by ANY cartel shipment supervisor who was interfered with in the desert, and not a reflection on my belief in Brian Terry's personal character or outlook on life. In all reality, he could have been just another federal employee following orders and doing his job to his utmost ability.

The issue then is not where a particular gun came from, but who pulled the trigger and why, the WHY being the big issue here. The reason WHY is clear, and made clear by tracing the origin of the weapons: the killing was performed by a cartel security team that felt they were authorized to carry out the combat action.

While that authority did not get bestowed on them directly by the US government, the information we have so far about F&F clearly demonstrates that a portion of the US government did clearly align themselves with an organization that carried out such activities on a regular basis and was "authorized by the agreement to carry out cartel related business", which is clearly documented in submissions made by the cartel lawyers in various openly reported cases.

I can't cite the various sources on this, but within the next few hours when this posting gets plagiarized through several alphabet agencies, the people doing the plagiarization can probably more easily cross reference the documentation than I can.

Can the President kill you? Andrew Napolitano, the former host of Freedom Watch--and maybe Ron Paul's running mate--has an article up about Eric Holder's attempt to justify presidential murder.

Onward and upward,
airforce