This is very, very worrying, if true.
Obama [in response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki’s father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process] is arguing the executive has the power to execute American citizens without a trial, without even so much as an airing of the charges against them, and that it can do so in complete secrecy, with no oversight from any court, and that the families of the executed have no legal recourse.
More specifically:
But what’s most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is “state secrets”: in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are “state secrets,” and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.
I do take stories by The Agitator with a grain of salt, as a matter of course, but I don’t really have time today to look into this further. I urge you to do so yourselves. It’s a concerning enough accusation on it’s own, but the biggest worry is that if the administration’s argument in this is upheld by the courts, it could eventually work its way to being applied within the US as well as overseas.
Also, if Bush had done this, don’t you think it would be front page news in every bird-cage-liner and on every news channel in the country by now? What media bias?
[Source: The Agitator article, retrieved 9/28/10]
(h/t SayUncle)
Curses! Foiled Again! 