Holder-u.s. can kill its own

[Danzig]

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...1547#c63101547

Holder: US can legally kill Americans in terror groupsBy Pete Williams, NBC News Justice Correspondent
The U.S. government is legally justified in killing its own citizens overseas if they are involved in plotting terror attacks against America, Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday, offering the Obama administration's most detailed explanation so far of its controversial targeted killing program.

"In this hour of danger, we simply cannot afford to wait until deadly plans are carried out, and we will not," he said in remarks prepared for a speech at Northwestern University's law school in Chicago.

An American-born Islamic cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, was killed in a U.S. drone attack in Yemen in late September. Some civil liberties groups condemned the attack. Others, including members of Congress, called for a more complete explanation of how such a targeted killing of an American civilian was consistent with the U.S. Constitution.

The Fifth Amendment provides that no one can be "deprived of life" without due process of law. But that due process, Holder said, doesn't necessarily come from a court.

"Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process," the attorney general said.




thoughts?

i completely disagree with his stance on this. i am appalled that the AG of the USA would take such a stance as this.



the aclu:

The ACLU called Holder's explanation "a defense of the government’s chillingly broad claimed authority to conduct targeted killings of civilians, including American citizens, far from any battlefield without judicial review or public scrutiny."

"Few things are as dangerous to American liberty as the proposition that the government should be able to kill citizens anywhere in the world on the basis of legal standards and evidence that are never submitted to a court, either before or after the fact," said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project.