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View Full Version : Federal Judge Questions Government Power To Put US Citizens On Secret ‘Kill List’



jimnyc
05-02-2018, 12:54 PM
I am VERY glad to see that this administration has carried on with protecting our country at all costs, even if that person is an American citizen in another country, currently planning attacks against us or our troops. I say goodnight and goodbye to anyone with such plans or that had already followed through with any types of attacks, or lead them.

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Federal Judge Questions Government Power To Put US Citizens On Secret ‘Kill List’

A federal judge in Washington sparred with Justice Department lawyers Tuesday over the government’s claimed authority to place U.S. citizens on a “kill list” without public notification.

Speaking at a hearing on a lawsuit brought by two journalists, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer repeatedly questioned government lawyers whether national security concerns outweigh a citizen’s right to know if he is being targeted for assassination or challenge his designation as a terrorist.

“Are you saying a U.S. citizen in a war zone has no constitutional rights?” Collyer asked Justice Department attorney Stephen Elliott during the hearing, according to the Washington Post. “If a U.S. person is intentionally struck by a drone from the U.S., does that person have no constitutional rights to due process . . . no notice, anything?”

The legal boundaries of the government’s authority to kill American citizens suspected of terrorist activity overseas have remained murky since the rise of U.S. *targeted-killing program after the 9/11 attacks.

Like the Obama administration, the Trump administration claims it has the constitutional authority to carry out extrajudicial killings of U.S. citizens who present a “continued and imminent threat” and are members of groups against whom Congress has authorized military force. Many civil liberties groups say targeted killings of U.S. citizens abroad violate constitutional rights to a trial and due process.

The most well-known of such targeted killings is the case of U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda propagandist and recruiter who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011. Collyer is deeply familiar with the case: In 2014, she dismissed a lawsuit brought by Awlaki’s father on procedural grounds.

On Tuesday, however, Collyer told Justice Department lawyers that the Awlaki lawsuit involved a much different set of circumstances than the one brought by the journalists. Notably, U.S. officials publicly disclosed they had made Awlaki the first American citizen subject to lethal force by the CIA before ordering the drone strike that killed him, Collyer said.

Rest - http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/02/federal-judge-citizens-kill-list/