Eric Holder: Drone strikes against Americans on U.S. soil are legal | Hacker News Reader

Eric Holder: Drone strikes against Americans on U.S. soil are legal

washingtonexaminer.com

21 pointsShivetya29 comments

This isn't really any different from the President authorizing the Air Force to shoot down a civilian airliner in a 9/11-like scenario, in order to prevent mass casualties. If one is legal, the other is also legal.

Drone strikes are messy and result in mass casualties themselves.

Another thing, semantics are the last thing you want to rely on for protection from a government sanctioned assassination.

You're always reliant on semantics for protection under the law. Laws are words, and semantics boils down to what words mean. For example, if we take "freedom of speech" to mean "the ability to order whatever you want at McDonald's," your free speech is drastically abridged. The Constitution and the laws are all collections of words whose application is entirely dependent on semantics.

This is why you wouldn't rely on semantics to protect your freedom of speech either, or any protection under law for that matter.

Then you need to stop talking in circles and state what you mean clearly. If you weren't depending on the Constitution, the law or declared policy (which are all literally meaningless without semantics) to protect you from governmental drone strikes, how does this development make you any more or less dependent on semantics?

The way law is structured, you can reach any conclusion. This means if you are relying on law to protect you from government sanctioned assassination, the constitution is only going to protect you if it can physically deflect a hellfire missile.

If the government wants it to be legal to assassinate you, they will make it so.

edit: I can't help but appreciate the fact that you and I are arguing over my usage of the word semantics.

You know, that's actually a pretty valid scenario. I hope that's what he was thinking of, and not something else.

Given that he cited that precise example, one would assume he was thinking of it.

Completely misleading title and ludicrous article.

FYI, what was actually said was “It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,”

Somehow "Yeah, I guess it could be possible, like if we're invaded or attacked or something" turned into "OMG We get to kill all you suckers".

I think everyone should go ahead and read the letter in order to put this into proper context:

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BrennanHolderResponse.p...

What Holder is trying to say that while it is unlikely, if a drone strike were the best way to eliminate an imminent threat on US soil, it would be legal.

You're going to need a very clear and precise definition of "imminent threat" then

Hopefully we'll see the outrage this deserves.

If the president, any president, in the future can execute anyone he deems as long as they're "a threat" democracy is over.

Outrage is precisely what we need less of here. Cool rationality would have been a better approach. This guy did not say anything remotely like what you're saying, but because a bunch of Senators who play for the other political team presented it a certain way, you got outraged and were fooled into interpreting a guy saying "This could pretty much never happen" as "The president can assassinate anyone he deems a 'threat'".

If the president, any president, in the future can execute anyone he deems as long as they're "a threat" democracy is over.

There's a very simple solution to this. The president can only authorize such targeted killings under his war powers, and only congress has power to declare war.

If the US congress wants to prevent such targeted killings, all they have to do is pass a resolution stating that the US is no longer in a state of war -- at which point the war powers immediately evaporate and such killings become illegal.

This is a huge "WTF"! How did this guy ascend so far? The system is so borked.

as Chris Hedges says, the assault on civil liberties is even worse than it was during the bush administration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAqudDeiTD4

For some reaons, this whole thing makes me flash to that scene in Phantom Menace when Palpatine says: "I will make it legal".

Maybe because Hollywood is your only frame of reference to conceptualize a complex legal situation?

You might think so, but no.

I think it's important to note that the Washington Examiner has little credibility. The letter quoted in the article omits the first two-thirds of the letter (which, by the way, contain quite a bit of context for the final one-third).

While the administration absolutely needs to be transparent about its drone program, reading a source like the Washington Examiner will not provide any realistic perspective.

Another reader posted a link to the actual letter: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5328151

This guy is a psychopath.

This kind of comment contributes nothing.

You have nothing to refute it. Eric Holder is repeatedly making very horrific statements which are fundamentally shifting precedent for how the US government treats the citizenry - in a negative direction.

My comment only appears to contribute nothing if you have not really been paying attention to what has been happening in the US for the last 13 years.

You accused an accomplished political appointee of having a severe mental illness, suggesting it explains his legal analysis. I don't think the burden of proof is on me to refute that.

If your comment doesn't enlighten people who haven't been paying attention and it doesn't enlighten people who have been paying attention (because they already knew it), that would logically seem to indicate that it contributes nothing.

Really? I would love see some citations.

(And by the way, I don't think this one counts; feel free to read the entire letter)

Of course, this guy also thinks it's perfectly fine to give guns to Mexican cartels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

fuck hypotheticals

OK, my drones first! Lisa's dog is DONE shitting on my lawn, done I tell you!

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