Can't Find Out

Double G takes on the notion that details about President Obama's "terrorist assassination program" is a state secret as the administration says, rendering attempts to stop it or even talk about it as moot.

At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record.  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, the administration last late night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims.  That's not surprising:  both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality.  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 its legality.

Even I have to agree with Greenwald's attack on Obama here. This is the kind of power that no President of America should possess under any circumstances.

The same Post article quotes a DOJ spokesman as saying that Awlaki "should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions."  But he's not been charged with any crimes, let alone indicted for any.  The President has been trying to kill him for the entire year without any of that due process.  And now the President refuses even to account to an American court for those efforts to kill this American citizen on the ground that the President's unilateral imposition of the death penalty is a "state secret."  And, indeed, American courts -- at Obama's urging -- have been upholding that sort of a "state secrecy" claim even when it comes to war crimes such as torture and rendition.  Does that sound like a political system to which any sane, rational person would "surrender"?

Does the President have the authority to declare an American citizen as a terrorist and then bring the might of our military against that person for the express purposes of assassinating that American citizen?  President Obama indeed claims that right now, and claims that it is inalienable because of state secrets.  This is further than even Bush/Cheney went.

If I do have a problem with Obama, it is on terrorism and civil liberties.  In this narrow but vital respect he really is worse than Bush is.  This President is saying that an American citizen can be killed on sight without due process, and that even discussing why is forbidden.

That is not something America should ever do, and yet we're doing it right now.

More on this from BooMan, Marcy Wheeler, and Digby.