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Comment by blueprint | Hacker News Reader

So they can kill American citizens engaged in combat? Great. What's combat?

Holder testified about this under oath in response to adversarial questioning from Senator Cruz and was clear that without an imminent threat that would endanger America (this was stated several different ways, all under oath) the US couldn't use lethal force of any sort on a terrorist on American soil. The example used was of an al Qaeda terrorist sitting at a cafe; a "cafe strike".

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.

Yeah the problem is that the Justice Departments definition of "imminent threat" is so loose that you could pretty much classify anything as "imminent".

They are playing really fast and loose with the lexicon they use.

This is why I pointed out that the question was phrased in multiple different ways, because I realized I was writing on a message board for nerds and that someone was going to try to litigate the meaning of the words "imminent" and "threat". If you watch the testimony, it was more specific than that.

This is from the Memo to congress from the Justice Department:

"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"

That refers to al Qaeda militants overseas. It is exactly the same logic as the logic that allowed Allied airstrikes against Nazi armor and troop placements in Europe.

But you're writing on an internet message board, for nerds or otherwise, so appeals to the primary sources are generally going to be ignored in favor of a rush to judgement and mischaracterization of the actual issues.

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