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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Source for "secret courts" that try U.S. citizens? Even citizens captured fighting against the U.S. in Afghanistan were transferred to regular courts once their citizenship became apparent.

The FISA court is no such thing. It was created by Congress review execution action that doesn't Constitutionally require judicial oversight in the first place. It's not empowered to try people for crimes or anything of the sort.

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José Padilla was held for three and a half years in a military prison without trial. I don't know if it qualifies as a "secret court" to just be declared an enemy combatant by the President and sent straight to prison, but it's the same sort of thing. He did finally get a proper civilian trial, but that doesn't make that first part go away.

"disposition matrix", although I don't think getting on that list even evolves a court, just an advisory panel made up people picked by the executive breach, but it is hard to know for sure since it is all considered secret.

EDIT: how about a counter argument instead of reflexive down votes -- yeah it sucks our government kills US citizens without much due process but that's the truth, try not to avert your eyes.

I think that most people are comfortable with the idea that if you join a foreign militia and take up arms against the United States you forfeit certain protections of citizenship.

Certainly not everyone agrees with this but that's the counter argument you asked for.

How about Abdulrahman al-Awlaki or Samir Khan? I suppose they didn't even get the semblance of due process, just were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

EDIT: parent asked for a source for secret courts, the "disposition matrix" is just that, except it doesn't even involve the judicial branch only the executive and has resulted in the deaths of 3 Americans, one purposely and two 'accidentally' whether killing Americans on purpose or on accident is worse or better I'll leave as an exercise for the readers imagination.

Neither of those people were intentionally killed. Certainly we can argue about larger strategy and when the cost of collateral damage is worth military action but that discussion is orthogonal to one about a loss of due process.

No evidence exists that Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was deliberately targeted, which makes him a bad example of the impact of a "disposition matrix". The target of the strike that killed him was Ibrahim al-Banna, an operational member of al Qaeda, who was among the confirmed dead in the strike.

That's an argument for why it's justified, but just because it's justified doesn't mean it's not a counterexample to the claim that US citizens always get normal civilian trials.

If you join a foreign militia and take up arms against the United States ..."

The whole point of due process is that the pesky "if" part needs to be proven. Otherwise your argument is entirely circular.

The kill list isn't a trial. Until the enemy combatants surrender they are fair targets of war. It is no different than Roosevelt ordering a bombing raid on a German train depot during WWII.

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