Saturday, March 22, 2014

NO NEED FOR ACTUAL PROOF BEFORE USING DRONES AGAINST U.S. CITIZENS

A recent  “white paper” memo drafted by the Injustice Justice Department gives the government itself legal protection to carry out drone strikes on American citizens.
“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the memo states.
Instead, it says, an “informed high-level” official of the U.S. government may determine that the targeted American has been “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of a violent attack and “there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities.” The memo, of course, does not define “recently” or “activities.”
Perhaps it refers to these activities that have been deemed suspicious by the FBI.
In a response to a lawsuit from the New York Times and ACLU suing for the release of Justice Department memos on drone strikes targeting American citizens, U.S. Judge Colleen McMahon said she was unable to order the release of documents because of “the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for the conclusion a secret.”
In other words, the government will do whatever it wants, to whomever it wants, whenever it wants.

No comments:

Post a Comment