Comment by trevorboaconstr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by trevorboaconstr | Hacker News Reader

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trevorboaconstr

Targeted killing and assassination are two different things in the eyes of the law. Please stop conflating the two.

Like I said, I’m no legal scholar. This is what I’ve come across for legal opinion:

The criteria set by the following, outlining the circumstances of legal targeted killing of US citizens, here:

https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...

In conjunction with the original memo arguing justification, here:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/second-circuit-foia-r...

…seems convincing to me.

As long as a certain criteria is met, extrajudicial targeted killings of US citizens is probably legal:

“The practice of targeted killing can be used in a manner that is consistent with U.S. and international laws. Permissible targets will be of a military nature, and killing them will serve a military objective. No laws, international or domestic, prohibit the practice if it is carried out by a state against an enemy of that state actively engaged in an armed conflict against that state. When the target is a U.S. citizen, the U.S. Constitution demands certain additional procedures before the U.S. government may kill the target. The Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause dictates these procedures. The procedures ensure a just determination of the target's permissibility as a military matter and the subjective intent of the target not to avail himself of the further protections to which he is entitled as an American citizen. A neutral decisionmaker should balance the targeted citizen's life against the risk he poses. If the decision comes out against him, then the military may launch a strike.”

Do you have an official release of this disposition matrix, AKA kill list? It seems it’s existence has been confirmed via leak. I don’t see any info about who exactly is/has been on it.

“The process determining criteria for killing is not public…”

Knowing about it is not very useful if you don’t know the criteria. It’s not very helpful at all, in fact, in determining legality here.

>Targeted killing and assassination are two different things in the eyes of the law. Please stop conflating the two.

You're citing a memo written by the people who ordered the assassination. But we are a nation of laws, and there is no law that says the government can order your assassination without charging you with a crime, finding you guilty and sentencing you. Which at that point, makes it no longer an assassination but an execution. Without the judicial procedures to justify it, it's just an assassination with a memo written by the killers.

>“The process determining criteria for killing is not public…”

>Knowing about it is not very useful if you don’t know the criteria. It’s not very helpful at all, in fact, in determining legality here.

No, the fact that the government doesn't make the criteria public is exactly how we know it isn't legal. There is no judicial process tied to it that accords rights to the accused. Therefore it's unconstitutional by definition.

It’s concealed under state secretes law.

>Keep conflating legal terminology.

Ok, man. I see. Take some time to read the legal opinion and memo I linked, and you would see justification under the law is possible. It’s very informative.

Except, it is not. Somebody could use the arguments presented to advocate changing the law to permit wasting whoever the hell the President designates, but the law has not, in fact, been so changed.

No. They outline what’s possible under the law as it is.

They pretend to that. But the fact is, nothing in the Constitution authorizes the President to waste anybody he wants, nor is the Congress authorized to extend such a privilege to the President. It would take a constitutional amendment to extend such a privilege, and that has not happened.

So, every argument that it is already legal is necessarily specious, from the outset, and succeeds only because the people responsible for prosecuting abuses are refusing to do their assigned job. This is how lawful government is subverted everywhere it happens. And, it does happen everywhere it is not stopped.

Please start on page 67 and read from there:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/second-circuit-foia-r...

You didn't answer his question, and your source doesn't either. Where is Due Process? The memo written by the killers tries to claim Due Process isn't relevant because of a ruling on a case on a battlefield, in the heat of an actual battle. Except this wasn't a battle, nor on a battlefield. So, the memo is once again just the guilty party trying to exonerate themselves.

You know that none of this is new, you're not shedding light on anything. You're just trying to carry water for the same people who hold prisoners in Guantanamo indefinitely. There is not a Constitutional basis for it, and everybody understands that.

Just call it what it is, you're not fooling anybody and they're clearly not going to face justice for it so it doesn't matter. But everybody knows what was done.

You just sound like the guy explaining how OJ didn't kill anybody because the jury said so. lol k

Your page 67 could have relevance in an attempt at a defense against charges of murder brought against the conspirators in the wasting. It has exactly zero relevance in whether a crime has occurred. Which manifestly has.

The only thing blocking indictment is that the perps control the DoJ.

No they don't. It was written to be used against those directly responsible for 9/11, and then expanded and used against anybody they felt like, any where in the world that they wanted to including in the US.

It's unconstitutional.

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