Eric Holder sends a follow-up letter to Rand Paul [pdf]
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
Either way, happy to have a solid "no" on this answer and annoyed that it took a 12-hour filibuster to bring that about.
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One follow-up point now that I've thought about it: a lot of that statement depends on the definition of "engaged in combat." If I wasn't mistaken, wasn't part of the problem that the definition of this was so loose?
"...not engaged in combat..."
Define Combat.
Would Christopher Dorner's circumstance been classified as "engaged in combat"?
I would suspect that, yes it would be. Thus Eric Holder's position would be that a weaponized drone strike against him would be authorized.
However, in congruence with his earlier statement, the Dorner case could be considered "extreme" - as such, we need a much more clear definition of both 'extreme' and of 'combat'.
Could anyone opposing any LEO/Fed/gov agent be considered to be "in combat"?
What if they (the civilian) are being shot at, have no weapons but are being attacked by an LEO (Like the ladies and gentleman in the two trucks that were shot at by LAPD)?
So, while the terse nature of this response is slightly amusing - it's also scary.
EDIT: heh - you noticed the same thing I did whilst I was typing this...
Don't we deserve the right to trial?
Who decides who's an al Qaeda member and who isn't?
Is "s/he's a member of al Qaeda" the magic words the admin has to say to not have to provide someone with due process?
There is no due process that protects you at war. This is why we don't want to be at war, and why we especially don't want to be at war with a brand name.
The "theater" in the Global War on Terror is the entire globe. The United States is not at war with Yemen.
Abdulrahman was not even alleged to have engaged in "military" conduct, merely being a propagandist.
He was not a "target", he was collateral damage of a strike on someone else.
This is not a heated battlefield death. The nature of war is shifting and using aggressive global militarism as an excuse to handwave around the denied due process of a 16 year old US citizen is disturbing.
Is there any place the U.S. is conducting drone strikes that's not on the list?
Drone combat is surgical compared with practically every other way in which we've fought wars. Drone operators are in no personal danger and don't need to act while under the cortisol and epinephrine loads of bullets whizzing by their heads. Drone operators are well-rested (in-theater combat troops are never well-rested). They're more mature than combat infantry. Drone resources are comparatively inexpensive and so missions don't have to be crafted that sacrifice risk of civilian casualties to minimize risks of military casualties.
Once again: we are at war with al Qaeda brand terrorists and personal hygiene products. It is no doubt our stupidest war ever, but it is an actual war, unlike the war on drugs, and the authorization the Administration has to drone strike people comes from that war and nowhere else.
Honestly, what I beleive will happen is FLIR enabled drones assisting in all LEO efforts.
Take a look at my friends video he took this weekend.
This is a tri-copter with FPV goggles he uses to fly it. He built one that can hold several pounds and has a gymbal for holding a full size camera.
Here is the setup:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1718160&...
Weaponizing is the easy part - paving the multi-year path until its "authorized" is the tricky part which they are currently attempting.
The road you're talking about is real; the road Paul is talking about is fanciful. The Senate voted to give Bush and his successors this authority 98-0.
Incidentally: as long as we're careful about ensuring that technology doesn't allow LEOs to gin up probable cause or introduce evidence that should be excluded, I'm not sure why I should on general principles oppose adoption of technology by LEOs.
The reason being that 1) a extremely technically enabled LEO system is one that is completely abstracted from the reality of its citizenry. 2) it creates an institutionalized dependence and sense of superiority on and due to said technological capabilities. 3) create a propoensity to rely on the technology more-so than the human instincts and filters, thus, we see much more of a "system" which will victimize people more regularly. Any and all murders by police will continue to be classified as "unfortunate" yet nothing will be done.
Police are already far too poorly trained to deal with anything remotely stressful without shooting first.
I am fully opposed to any and all pushing of technology onto an already overly trigger happy, callous system in lieu of more, actual training.
It is not a very good reason not to give the police better surveillance technology.
Crime victimizes more people than police forces in the US do. I'm not saying that means LEOs don't victimize people; they do. I'm not saying that means we should turn a blind eye to police abuse; we should not. But when we do risk/reward calculations, we need to keep in mind that the greater ambient threat is of crime, not police abuse. Sometimes, the police will ask for things that tip the scale the other direction. But we have to make a case for how; we can't just assume it.
Keep in mind: I'm one of the people laughing and cheering at the guy in the video saying "no thanks, no, I won't be pulling into secondary screening" at the CBP checkpoints; I've given to the ACLU. Surveillance is scary. It's just not intrinsically bad; it's bad in a context-dependent way.
I don't think that's true. Can you document such attempts, by which I mean back your argument up with citations instead of hand-waving and anecdote?
The fact that DHS just bought 2,700 MRAPS for domestic use is another.
We are actively militarizing the police forces in the US by giving them tactics, training, equipment weapons and capabilities of a veteran national military.
The fact that Holder and Paul are even having this discussion, with loosely defined terms such as "engaged in combat", I believe is the first few steps down this quickly steepening path.
Lets hope that I am wrong.
DHS bought 2700 APCs because some company sold them. It's a travesty to be sure, and it will have knock-on effects of generating more "tactical teams" and thus more pointlessly aggressive raids, but it is not evidence of intent to put US law enforcement on a more martial footing. It's really more evidence of fiscal corruption than anything else.
Please do not link to the Wikipedia article on the Overton Window. The war on terror is a legislative fact and has been for ~12 years. If you're going to assert an expansion of the legal authority for weaponized drones beyond military theaters, then I need to see something from a third party, and by something I mean a link to a bill or advocacy of such expansion, not more hand-waving.
I am perfectly open to the possibility that I am overly paranoid on this matter, and I HOPE that you both are correct that this is less insidious than what I believe it to be, however, given the history of the US government since I have been alive, I will never drop my skepticism of the US' propensity for consolidation of power and profit.
In the early 70s a small group of people took over the CIA and advisory roles to the white house. Those folks, were all lead by GHW Bush. Their career paths, choices and actions over the last 40 years have been horrific.
If you look at the history of Dick Cheney alone, you can see that there is a proven track record for their optimizing for their own benefit.
I use 40 years of data-points from history I have followed very very closely to show me that this current early stage debate over domestic drone use is definitely NOT as innocent and unimportant as some would have you believe.
So, while I pray that I am wrong, I'll let the facts show for themselves in 5 years as to how well adopted drones ahve become - and if we will see weaponized drones in the hands of LEO, or any authorized use on US soil.
I really appreciate your perspectives on this.
(If anyone would like me to give the highlights of the last 40 years, I'd be happy to provide a little bit of a timeline)
No. Even being a 'terrorist' does not count; under the terms of the AUMF you would have to be specifically affiliated with Al Qaeda in some fashion to be considered a military target.
Considering police likely intentionally burned Dorner alive [1], a drone strike doesn't seem like that big of a stretch.
[1] http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/13/the-execution-of-chri...
Christopher Dorner shot and killed an unarmed 28 year old woman, along with her unarmed fiancee. The woman was the daughter of an LAPD official.
Dorner was killed in that woodland cottage after he shot and killed a San Bernardino County sheriff's officer.
* Dorner took a revenge killing on the daughter of the retired police-officer-turned-attorney who he felt was a plant in the hearing he had.
* The police were recorded conspiring to burn down the cabin in a pre-meditated attack against Dorner.
Both were outright murders. Both were wrong, however one presentation sways blame away from the "officials".
The cops who were recorded as saying "Burn it like we talked about" "Burner deployed, we have a fire" and "Copy; burner deployed, we have a fire" should all be tried for murder.
The reason I brought this up was the Counterpunch article, which really does go out of its way to try to make Dorner more sympathetic.
I never defended his murder of those two people. I am not saying he is not a monster.
What I am saying is that too many people, and it would seem yourself included, use that as justification for the state to murder people.
Do you care why the LAPD shot up the two newspaper delivery ladies? What about the ramming and injuring of hte white surfer guy?
DO you care why the LAPD was able to justify warrantless entry to ~400 homes in their manhunt?
What we are seeing is that the LEOs and the Fed would like to leave the structure of our system at the door whenever they have a threat to their power.
Context is critically important. Having both truthful facts and full context does not threaten the reality of the situation.
Obfuscating either, however, has far too much potential for abuse.
In this case, the LAPD pulled out all the stops in going after someone who pulled out all his own stops in his effort to fight against what he perceived as an insurmountable injustice against him.
I am not defending his actions - I am pointing out what the facts of the situation were.
I am not sympathetic to Dorner, nor am I sympathetic to the LAPD.
I am sympathetic to the fact that there were multiple people murdered, this is inclusive of Dorner himself. (because allowing the LAPD/Sheriff to murder people because they are 1) embarrassed 2) angry 3) scared 4) incompetent 5) arrogant with their power, is never OK.)
I was not saying he was inert or submissive - but sorry LEOs are supposedly trained to take on all situations. They are extremely well armed and equipped.
Burning down random property to get their guy is not an OK tactic.
* I'm not defending Dorner. The police have a right to kill someone who's actively trying to kill them. But what level of force is acceptable? Obviously guns are ok. Maybe setting fires is ok too? What about drone strikes?
* If it's acceptable, why would police deny it was intentional, and under what other circumstances would it be acceptable? Is it ok because he killed a cop?
* How certain were they no one else was in the building? As we saw earlier that week when they shot up two cars that resembled Dorner's they weren't exactly being careful to avoid collateral damage.
I'm glad the AG saw fit to answer after six weeks, and it looks like Paul is happy with the answer -- for now. This type of thing is a hall of mirrors, though. What defines "combat"? Were the Americans targeted in Africa participating in combat?
Supporters of Paul will say that he's only following the questions, that the administration is stonewalling. Supporters of the administration (and the Republican status quo) will say that such questions do not deserve answers. So here we are.
Bit of a sidebar: I honestly feel that these libertarian themes are going to play a big role in politics over the next few years. I feel so strongly I created a blog yesterday to summarize libertarian-oriented news and commentary to record how it all plays out http://freedom-or-safety.com/blog/
Note: we should also be clear about the larger picture. A senator, who is charged with overseeing the "architecture" of the government, asked an executive department official for some clarity on an issue. After six weeks he received it and is happy with it. There's nothing binding here. He just got an opinion on how things are currently being interpreted. The president is perfectly able to re-interpret the law in a different way tomorrow if he chooses. In fact, one of the reasons for asking the question it to determine whether additional legislation binding the executive is required.
There's a much longer post here about terms and language and how we got here. The Congress authorized the president to take any necessary action against terrorists. Either that authorization has to end, or we need a very fine-grained examination of just what that language means, perhaps with more instructions from Congress. In either case, in my mind this is the normal thing that Congress should be doing.
The question is answered. The issue is not settled, and that's fine.
I sure hope you're right.
The reason I say that is because it was clear to me yesterday when Paul took the floor that millions of people both Democrat and Republican were with him. It was the establishment that was going bonkers. Partisans on both sides of the aisle didn't know what to do.
That means there is a place in the center for some kind of pragmatic libertarian movement to challenge the old guard in both parties. I won't lie to you -- the odds are extremely long that it amounts to anything. But it's the best chance I've seen in 20 years or more, and that's worth spending some energy recording, sharing, and encouraging it.
In what way, by failing to agree with him?
John McCain: "...if Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in their college dorms..."
http://freedom-or-safety.com/blog/rand-paul-receives-respons...
As a US Senator, Rand Paul is among the most powerful individuals in the country. He can introduce legislation to add an oversight or reporting requirement to the AUMF, or to make determinations of enemy combatant status subject to legislative or judicial review, even posterior review...or any number of other variations. Of he can craft new legislation definingthe acceptable scope (if any) of drone deployment within the US by military or civilian authorities. Either would be more productive and more actionable than grandstanding demands for answers to questions that the Attorney General has answered already.
It's a funny sort of libertarian that wants to amend the Constitution to forbid abortions and prevent some people born in the US from becoming citizens, instead moving to a regime where citizenship is inherited.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5340078 has the answer you seek, in this very thread no less.
Does anybody know how the Lincoln administration justified the use of deadly force during the Civil War? Presumably this would be a reasonable precedent to look at when determining the legality of killing American citizens without a trial.
Article 1, section 9: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."
Following from that, imagine telling an army that it is under arrest. :)
We did? Was it on purpose [1]? Can you provide some references?
[1] I'd certainly believe that it's almost impossible to have a nonzero amount of friendly fire casualties in any military operation of this size.
I think the drone issue is distracting people from what I feel is the more important issue: Our government has taken the official position that it can legally assassinate its citizens. So they can't legally kill me with a drone... small comfort if they can just assassinate me in some other fashion.
(yes, I know that government agencies have assassinated American citizens [not to mention non-citizens] in the past, but making it official doctrine is quite an escalation)
Holder said not only would lethal force be inappropriate (he actually started by saying "with the facts you've provided we wouldn't even be able to arrest the person"), but that the Constitution would not permit the Administration to use it.
They are playing really fast and loose with the lexicon they use.
"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"
There are two different possible interpretations of the wording of this letter:
1. The President cannot order the use of a weaponized drone to kill an American, unless that American is engaged in combat on American soil.
2. The President cannot order the use of a weaponized drone to kill an American on American soil, unless that American is engaged in combat.