Redacted memo justifying drone strikes on US citizens [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Redacted memo justifying drone strikes on US citizens [pdf]

aclu.org

45 pointsbjfish23 comments

Could someone from the US please explain the whole thing behind US citizens/foreigners being considered deserving of different levels of protection with regards to human rights? Are those of us not blessed with US citizenship somehow less "worthy"? Is it really the case that conducting surveillance or drone strikes against foreigners is any different, morally and ethically, than those against US citizens?

To be honest, from an outsider's view this comes across as a very arrogant and entitled attitude. I most certainly sympathise with and share the outrage many Americans feel about their government's abuses of human rights, but there seems to be a view among some quarters that it's only because they're Americans that it's a problem, and forget everyone else. I've also seen this attitude in my own country (Australia) with regards to some of our regional neighbours.

What happened to "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"?

I realise that to some that these questions may come across as trolling, but I'm genuinely curious about how we arrived at this state of affairs.

>> I'm genuinely curious about how we arrived at this state of affairs

Most Americans have no idea this is happening, and those who bother to vote don't make informed votes on issues like this. As a naturalized US citizen, I'm not exactly your typical US citizen, but I'm as disgusted by this as you are.

It seems arrogant and entitled to many Americans as well, the issue is that unelected and unaccountable government officials don't care.

This separation is entirely how US citizens invest powers into their own government. It's not so much that certain people have rights that others do not, rather, US citizens will permit certain parts of their own government to carry out some actions against 'others', that it does not parmit to carry out against itself. It's why the US has the Posse Comitatus Act - to have police deal with disturbances amongst citizens, and military deal with disturbances with other nations. There are separate rules when dealing with one's own bosses (even when different from the status quo), then when dealing with one's enemies. There is a significant difference in how one expects a hostile, unknown, or even an allied group to behave, and your own group. The US government is its citizens, so it would be quite dysfunctional (as a government) for it to become adversarial to itself in a way that does not occur were it to become adversarial to those whom it is not.

The idea that the government (of its people) can in any way justify killing those same people without due cause quickly leads to the government no longer being of the people (in a way that targeted killing of non-citizens does not).

Every country treats their citizens differently than non-citizens, and every country believes surveilling and killing non-citizen combatants in an armed conflict is perfectly acceptable -- and that's what the government of the United States believes it's doing.

You may disagree with the government of the United States' definition of combatant or armed conflict, but once you grant them that belief, they're not acting differently than any other nation.

For a long, long time, the greatest physical threat to an American has been other Americans. As a result, the more ruthless among us have felt free to use people from other countries, who own fewer guns and fewer dollars, as pawns and catspaws.

The main conflict is America vs. America. Right now, the Americans that believe in the Jeffersonian ideals of civil liberties and limited government are losing to the Americans that uphold the Hamiltonian ideals of unbridled government power serving common nationalist interests--namely, both the Democratic and the Republican political parties.

Since other nations also have their own authoritarian factions, it's very hard to shed a tear when two deadly adversaries war against one another, even knowing that they will hurt innocents in the process. The people who actually care can't really do anything to stop it.

It seems arrogant and entitled, but it is actually much worse. The people doing it are so secure in their power that they are doing whatever seems convenient to convert a portion of that power into spending money. That brown guy that died in a fire was just some Beltway Bandit's monthly boat payment. Thanks to dilution of responsibility, there is a complete ethical dissociation between the blood and the lucre.

And the worst part about it is that the government of the country you live in is probably quietly supporting this behavior. The best thing for an "outsider" to do is to kick the authoritarians out of their own country, and start calling the US out onto the carpet internationally instead of just cashing the aid checks and blindly signing the multiparty treaties written by American business lawyers.

I'm honestly lost around the US citizen issue. I mean since Ted Bundy was a US citizen he should be more protected during an act of violence? Or are citizens of other countries valued less? If someone is an active combatant for whatever the "other side" is, and we're ok using drones, then it's on as far as I'm concerned. (I'm a US citizen for context)

I think the issue is whether or not the government can "disappear" people. In other countries, we've already been doing this for decades, but in theory, at least, it doesn't happen to US citizens. If the US is allowed to just send a drone strike on a US citizen, who is otherwise entitled to due process, the thinking is that the government can just ignore due process and start killing people from afar. Bad precedent.

As a democracy and regardless of citizenship, doesn't _everyone_ deserve due process? The first thought that crosses my mind are Canadian terrorist mounties with snow wolves, snow mobiles, alcohol and aboots. Would they be droned by the US or captured and trialed?

> As a democracy and regardless of citizenship, doesn't _everyone_ deserve due process?

Not if they are an imminent threat.

>> Not if they are an imminent threat

to the corrupted establishment.

No public evidence that this has happened yet, though I wouldn't doubt that it's been done. (terrorist mountie here, funded by illegal maple syrup trafficking if you really must know ;)

It's "a-boat." "Aboot" is a south park joke.

I feel the same way. This is a display of the veil of ignorance that shrouds war and citizens. US citizens are OK slaughtering 'others' (the faceless and nameless) with drones. When it comes to 'it could be me', it turns into a great outcry against the force. 'It can only be them.' The thought really needs to be 'if XYZ occurs, anyone deserves to be droned.' Perhaps, we would be more sympathetic for the others.

The military has been operating outside of the law using executive action attacking citizens of sovereign countries with no declaration of war for a long time. We keep electing weak congressional members that let it happen, and we won't impeach presidents based on this, so it will keep happening. It's one of the core libertarian beliefs.

The military is operating very much within the law. You use "declaration of war" as a legal criterion, but that is not the applicable criterion.

Rather, the Congress themselves have authorized the use of military force explicitly, both in Afghanistan (and against Al Qaeda and associated movements generally) and in Iraq.

But the military is only a single (albeit important) branch of the government, whereas a declaration of war would encompass a vast accumulation of government power to the Executive across a wide range of the branches of government.

There is a reason Congress has not declared war (even assuming one could literally declare war on "terrorism"): It would grant the President powers far in excess of that which Congress wishes.

So in fact you have it completely opposite; Congress refuses to declare war because refusing this declaration constrains the power of the President.

Who determines who's an enemy combatant? That's always the core issue. We should not trust the man behind the curtain to always tell us who needs to be killed by a drone with no trial.

Nope, that's not the core issue. The core issue is what constitutes an "imminent threat".

If they are not an imminent threat then there is existing international and domestic laws that should be followed (i.e. arrest, extradition, trial, evidence, lawyers, etc).

If they are an imminent threat then there is existing international and domestic laws that should be followed (i.e. it's ok to shoot and kill someone who is trying to light your house on fire - it should be ok to drone them too).

The whole citizen/noncitizen debate was a rhetorical construct created by Rand Paul to show the moral outrage that is droning someone who is not an imminent threat.

Well, Ted Bundy got a trial.

But you are right, a police officer would have shot him had he caught Ted in the act and no one would think badly of it.

I suppose this is the difference. If the person being struck by a drone actually had a machine gun and was using it when he was struck than yes... a crime was being stopped with lethal force. If he is at home asleep and you send a drone to kill him at a time he is not engaged in the act maybe you are veering into extra-judicial execution. And that is why this is problematic.

US Citizens anywhere in the world, and non-citizens in the US are afforded legal protections unavailable to anyone else. I don't remember exactly what they are, but I think it's whether or not the protections in the Constitution apply, Greenwald has written about it if you want to do some googling.

The actual memo begins on page 67

Thanks, I gave up after a few pages

Since when are redactions shown as white space on a white background?

Is this standard procedure, or is it to deliberately obscure what has been censored?

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