Dennis Kucinich Says Targeting US Citizens Should Be Illegal
Of course, why anyone would need to introduce legislation to prohibit the killing of US citizens with no due process, I don’t know. Isn’t there already a piece of paper that prohibits such things?
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) announced today that he will introduce legislation that would end the practice of targeting U.S. citizens for extrajudicial killing. Earlier this year, The Washington Post and The New York Times revealed that the Obama Administration was continuing the Bush-era policy of including U.S. citizens on lists of people to be assassinated without a trial. Kucinich has spoken out forcefully against revoking the basic constitutional rights of American citizens for simply being suspected of involvement with terrorism, and he is currently recruiting cosponsors for his bill.
Kucinich ends his letter this way:
Intelligence operations that have virtually no transparency, accountability or oversight raise serious legal questions, particularly when the outcomes of such programs constitute possible violations of international law and violations of the Constitution of the United States. Congress has the responsibility to protect the rights of all U.S. citizens. We must reject the notion that protecting the constitutional rights of some citizens requires revoking the rights of other citizens. My legislation would reaffirm our commitment to upholding our nation’s basic constitutional principles, and prohibit the extrajudicial killing of United States citizens abroad.
How awful to have someone who thinks that government should actually pay attention to its own principles and not go after its citizens! /s
Good for Dennis. But he’ll never get a vote. They’ve got a pidgeonhole whit that bill’s number on it WAAAAAAAY in the back.
If he made an exception for Scary Brown Moslems who happen to be US citizens, it would pass.
Boxturtle (Some of the GOPers gotta be worrying Beck could be targeted)
Oh, they’ll get rid of it all right. Just pigeonhole it “waaaay in the back” where they shoved the Constitution itself some time ago.
Thanks for highlighting this, EW. Dennis will be treated as though he’s Don Quixote, when he’s actually struggling to wake people up from their delusion that everything is hunky-dorey in the US of A.
If the bill doesn’t get passed by Congress, as will undoubtedly happen, then people will use that failure as an argument for the killings being legal.
That’s always a danger. But somebody just has to keep making the points of principle, over and over and over. It would be worse if we stopped repeating ourselves.
Well, bricklefritz. If you’d made your comment a few seconds earlier, I could have applauded it briefly and spared everyone another of my outbursts.
But then we wouldn’t have had Don Quixote, and we always need more Don Quixote!
Another ride on Air Force One will change Dennis’ mind.
@4 – it is too bad that the only guys who remember to make Obama give some to get some are Republicans and Blue Dogs.
It would have made a nice and legitmate tack on to the healthcare bill, doncha think?
Oh, this is rich: Yoo on Kagan
Viewpoints: Kagan’s lazy liberalism all too evident
LINK.
If Yoo doesn’t like her, perhaps I should give her another look.
Boxturtle (Didn’t help. I still see a tool, without any other substance)
It takes a John Yoo to make Ms. Kagan look exceptionally liberal. Harrumph.
What’s that old piece of paper at the top of the post? It seems to be fading from sight…
Found a picture of Obama’s copy
So – why would BP have the right, and the Obama Coast Guard support, in telling journalists who were trying to film some of the oil spill they had to go away or be arrested?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/19/bp-coast-guard-officers-b_n_581779.html
That one doesn’t sound right.
@3 – It all depends on how you play it, doesn’t it? If someone wanted to tell the Tea Partyers that this kind of thing might be the only thing standing between their leaders and Obama’s power, there might be an odd assortment of bedfellows.
I have to wonder why they didn’t press the matter — continue filming and force an arrest. “Journalism” is a big part of what’s wrong.
Keep thinking all of the satellite and plane photos of the spill make it look so artsy. Not many photos or up close coverage of the muck, oil and sludge yet.
Keep those pictures all at a distance and people may not get so outraged. You know the difference between saying torture and looking at these pictures
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444
No, you can’t have the ends-justify-the-means with this that ultimately undermines the Constitution whether it passes or fails. The very nature of it is harmful – putting forth a bill rather than just holding to the Constitution itself. This is the same sort of thing that Obama is doing with the 5th amendment and if Obama is able to make it popular undermining the 5th amendment with a bill, then what parts of the Constitution we honor become a popularity contest and mere bills (or just Presidents acting on their own) will be able to ignore and modify the Constitution whenever they want without having to do a Constitutional amendment. Kucinich should be defending the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, rather than introducing a bill as that is no different than what Obama is doing. Constitutional rights are not subject to popularity contests nor can the Constitution be modified by a mere bill.
The unspoken detail: These ‘assassinations’ are now usually being carried out by Predator drones, which kill not only the target (already illegal and unconstitutional) but often dozens of civilians around them (mass murder and an international war crime).
Thank you, Dennis. A Congressman finally remembered what the law says, who remembers he works for: the people who live in his district, including all those who voted for him and all those who did not, including all those who did not or could not vote, and all those who depend on their government to work for them.
Our Preznint is channeling Dubya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD3xfT0c99g (the default audio is pretty loud so turn the sound down before clicking)
The Man Who Should Have Been President.
He has more guts than most U.S. politicians. He did cave, IMO, on the final health care bill.
OT – More clicks on the role of the HIG and the CIA in US interrogations:
Via Jeff Stein at the WaPo: CIA domestic ops go far beyond Shahzad probe
Via Josh Gerstein at Politico: CIA sees no legal bar to joining U.S. interrogations
CIA “interrogations” are somehow excluded under Rush Holt’s bill that is supposed to guarantee all military interrogations except those on the battlefield are videotaped and, hopefully, preserved. Do you have any idea why CIA was omitted? Simply too difficult to get the votes? Thanks so much.
I don’t know how Rush Holt came up with his bill, so your guess is as good as mine.
He may not have been able to sway enough of his HPSCI colleagues to overcome the basic “covertness” requirement inherent to the CIA.
But that DOD videotaping interrogation policy document released this week (12 page PDF) explicitly mandates that “other government agencies” like the CIA involved in interrogations of folks in DOD custody will be required to be videotaped.
Many thanks. He deserves a huge round of applause for getting the bill passed. Can’t imagine what all that must have taken. And I’m heartened to learn that even the CIA is covered in cases of people in DOD custody.
Why is the guy who was right more often than anyone else considered “fringe”?
Bob in AZ
If it’s truly an extrajudicial killing, then why does it make any difference if the person is an American citizen? This strikes me as being analogous to the waterboarding controversy: By focussing on the most egregious sounding version of a practice that is abhorrent no matter what (here, extrajudicial killing, there, torture) the debate ends up artificially constrained, and the full extent of the problem never gets taken up by a media which dismisses that which is less titillating than the going story. So deprivation torture never gets considered, and neither does the extrajudicial killing of foreign nationals.
So I think the first question is whether a particular target list constitutes extrajudicial killing. If so, forget about the citizenry being at all relevant.
Because, even in a foreign jurisdiction, an American citizen has an inherent Constitutional right to due process, whereas a foreign subject does not.
But extrajudicial killing is banned under international law.
Would Brandon Mayfield still be alive if this policy had been in force in 2004?
Targetting anyone, extra-judicial, without trial, should be illegal. In fact, I do believe that it is under international law, to which the United States is, in fact a signatory and as ratified by the United States Senate, signed by various US Presidents, etc. But, hey, that can be disregarded apparently, simply based on the whim of whomever is in power now. It’s not right, but it does seem to be what is happening.
The trouble is that International Law has no independent Attorney General with any power to investigate and indict. And even if the International Criminal Court had an independent Attorney General, and they indicted someone, who would enforce it?
Bob in AZ
Actually, they do have an independent Office of the Prosecutor. The Court only came into being in 2002. The average time it takes to bring a war criminal or someone guilty of genocide or crimes against humanity to trial is about 22 years.
The primary responsibility for enforcing international law is on the nations party to it. If the legal establishments in the U.S. do not do so, don’t blame the ICC, blame the lawyers who don’t know crap about it and don’t ever file on it, and the justices who think it’s a quick study they can produce in between ignoring it.
The ICC has no path for obtaining in personam jurisdiction of US officers, agents and employees. Any action in that regard through the UN would be vetoed by the US. There is no effective international law against the US government and its direct actors.
The ICC may investigate and recommend for prosecution cases that any State Party either will not or cannot prosecute on its own for three crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. It can take cases in three instances: Recommended by the country in which the crime was committed if a State Party, recommended by the country of the perpetrator if a State Party, and referred by the UN Security Council. If recommended by a State Party in which the crime was committed, it could indeed bring charges against a U.S. individual, and the other States Party would be obligated to help enforce the warrant. In such cases, the Security Council is not involved.
So you say. I guess that is proved by all the ICC prosecutions of American officials. Oh, wait, there haven’t been any. And there won’t be any. They cannot and will not obtain in personam jurisdiction over any US governmental officials or agents. You are living a pipe dream with this.
The Prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant against Omar al Bashir. Let’s see how that goes. The United States is a non-voting observer to the Assembly of States Parties this year, let’s see how that goes, too. And the Office of the Prosecutor’s department that deals with jurisdiction is reviewing a bid by the Palestinians to allow retroactive application of the Rome Statute – contingent on the application being to all parties involved. Let’s see how that goes. There is still a lot of time to come in short of that 22 year average for the ad hoc tribunals.
No offense, but it is the cynical attitude of lawyers throughout the U.S. political spectrum to international law that is at the base of many of the abuses that began under the Bush administration. That, in turn, was generated in no small part by the cynical attitude of the highest ranked law schools over a period of 40 years. And the attitude that came of age in the Reagan administration’s rejection of the Additional Protocols. So continuing the cynicism just feeds the Gonzalesian doctrine that international law is “quaint”.
Oh yeah, perfect. Blame the lawyers. Blame the law schools. What a bunch of bunk. I am merely stating what is fact. It is the US government and Congress that has no stomach for international law in terms of criminal accountability; they have not up until now, and they will not in the future. But go ahead and get your pious holier than thou rocks off by blaming lawyers who simply point out the truth while you go around like Don Quixote tilting at the international criminal court windmill.
Are you familiar with a law school professor named Mary Ellen O’Connell? She detailed the whole history of it to Scott Horton for his No Comment column. I got some confirmation of it talking to other IHL lawyers. I didn’t make it up, and you don’t apparently know what you’re talking about on this.
Oh, so you are going to cite the biggest and most consistent (and most consistently wrong as to ability to bring accountability for actions of US officials) pie in the sky dreamer international law advocates in the US (especially Horton)? And conveniently ignore the butt naked obvious fact that every ounce of history, precedent and evidence supports what I am saying? What a crock of dung. But hey, dream on; just come armed with something better if you want to discuss pragmatic and viable possibilities. And, until you can point to any cases and instances to support what you are saying (you cannot; the US just doesn’t do that) then it is you who doesn’t know, or are simply being disingenuous, about what you are describing.
Yeah, except that some of the lawyers I talked to aren’t necessarily affiliated with the U.S. And there are international lawyers to look at, too. Hans-Peter Gasser, for example, former lead counsel for the ICRC. All the documentation points to the breakdown in transmission of IHL and IHRL in U.S. law schools as a major factor in the lack of understanding of international law in the U.S. The decline in citation of the U.S. Supreme Court in international law as a source, everything.
The butt naked obvious truth is that IHL is complied with more than it is broken, that the Geneva Conventions are the only set of documents signed by all nations. The but naked obvious truth is that there are tribunals. The butt naked truth is that people are prosecuted for IHL violations in U.S. courts martial. The butt naked obvious truth is that people like Radovan Karadzic also thought there would be no prosecutions.
The butt naked obvious truth, though, is that given that U.S. lawyers and judges can allow complete travesties of domestic and international law to go on in their courtrooms with respect to rendition, rights to consular access, right to silence, and protection against interrogation under duress, with only a rudimentary knowledge, if that, of international covenants, then of course the conditions that you describe will be mistaken for the rule of law. That just buttresses my case.
That is just a complete crock of unmitigated shit. The reason it does not occur is solely because the United States Government will not sanction it, and it will not work unless and until they do. And the government is not about to start either. Bandying about talk of what occurs in other countries and throwing out Karadzic’s name is irrelevant.
Okay. I understand you. Partial disclosure I do work for an organized group that is working on changing, among other things, cynical legal community attitudes like that. By disseminating international law.
But I’d really like to know, then, why the objection many moons ago when I asked you about the Rasul v. Myers case? You’re pulling an identical “due process only exists for citizens and inside the U.S.” now. Article 16 of the CAT is reserved by the U.S. to be only applicable in as much as it mirrors the 5th, 8th, and 14th amendments, which the cynical, torture memo version says means there is no protection for foreign nationals outside the U.S.
If you happen to come back and see this, please understand I fully support the accountability effort on the criminal end and the curb it would put on the excesses and abuses of the US government. Obviously there needs to be some reservations, but I would think an acceptable package could be framed that accomplishes the necessary and brings us within the progressive international framework. So, in this regard, I am pretty much on your side. But I think the framing of the blame on law schools and courts is entirely wrong. The law schools I have been around and others I have seen evidenced in journal articles are not absent on international law. Could there be more taught there – probably yes – but I don’t think that is the problem; when there is the ability for the knowledge to be used more, they will teach more. But there is curriculum from my experience. And as to the courts, on the civil front, they actually do seem to involve international law as necessary in the small percentage of cases that involve foreign issues and conflict of laws issues. As to the criminal and quasi-criminal, which is pretty much what is at issue here, I think courts are much more hamstrung by the refusal of the government – who is really the gatekeeper – to go there. There is a built in blockage to what you want in the federal government and the relevant portions of the diplomatic corps and apparatus, which is an integral part of the application of international criminal law because of the jurisdiction and enforcement protocols are effectively all routed through those channels. You may be right, maybe I am cynical. I dunno but, quite unfortunately, I am right. I would kill for the day where Horton and all his little international law theories to take us home to real accountability and exposure of what has occurred in our name by the US government came to pass. Were it only so. But it is not, and it is unfortunately not going to be anytime soon and certainly not during an Obama Administration.
Interesting. Is this an argument for a reinstatement of a separate legal entity under a new special prosecutor act, to insure Article II compliance with treaties and other international obligations? The Congress can create such offices and they do have the backing of the Constitution and precedent to do so…it’s just that they no longer want to do so it seems.
“I think courts are much more hamstrung by the refusal of the government – who is really the gatekeeper – to go there.”
refusal of the government to go there/ And they want the rest of us to believe it when they say that “no one is above the law” when they keep repeating it. The peasants know this is not true no matter how often they repeat it.
How many international laws have the Bush administration and the Obama administration taken a crap on?
“No stomach” is generous. Congress and executive both are guilty of abject dereliction of duty, violating their sworn oath to defend the constitution – not the frickin’ people – from all enemies, foreign *and* domestic.
The courts and the lawyers are not the ones to look to when legislature and executive have become corrupt beyond redemption. Sure, they could take a stand (for example, resign), but if the sovereign – the people – cannot muster the determination to end incumbency of corrupt politicians, no matter the consequence, I don’t think that the plumbers of the law can be expected to save the day. It is not their job to define and revise the rules, just to explain them to the rest of us and to make them work. You will not find many challengers to the system among those whose lifelihood and dedication is, for good or ill, to make the system work.
And depending on who you are, the system does work just fine.
Simply, ondelette, there IS no law, either internationally … or domestically.
The realization of this fact is difficult for many who have invested their lives “believing” in the sanctity of the law, in the rule of law, and in justice, to accept, given the truth of having spent their endeavors in furthering, or believing that they were furthering those things …
We are witness to the most awesome power the world has yet seen. Believe it or not, in its dotage, in its decline, America has become the essential threat, to reason and humanity. The world is not safe from us, the world, the people of the world are terrified, every one is afraid.
I suppose, now that Elena Kagan has come right out and said that Bush v. Gore was decided through political considerations by SCOTUS, that we have nothing to worry about, because, she clearly understands … she even said, in essence, “You’ll have that …” and continued along on her merry way of being considered, by some, the “nation’s foremost legal mind”. Bah!
Until I read about it, I’d no idea that Bush v. Gore was a “hot topic of discussion” in legal “circles”.
I have postulated, for quite some time, that a civil war of sorts MUST be raging, however quietly, respectfully, and deferentially, within the legal profession regarding the Executive power grabs, relative to Congress and the Courts and the deliberate assault on due process very clearly evident this past decade. It appears, deathly, quiet on all fronts.
Either the legal profession is in a profound state of benumbed shock or it considers the rest of us to be simpletons who have invested too much hope in institutions that the legal profession regards, and has regarded, as jokes.
That we have the utterly amazing situation before us that we do, OUGHT, one images, give the legal profession some pause, but were you to see what is being passed off as “reasonable and proper” at prestigious Law Schools throughout the land, where it is daily taught (it must be, seeing what is going on), that using the law to destroy the rule of law is just, admirable and probably financially rewarding (it is also without “consequence”, which is a most-handy thing), you just might come away with the impression that nothing of import is troubling the conscience or vexing the spirits of the majority of those who “practice” the law. It all gets a wee bit stickier, because the legal “profession” is not simply judges and lawyers, but the police, as well.
Now, ondelette, lest you imagine that I take the world’s second oldest profession to task while forsaking all others, let me add one little thought further:
The law is the most important “social” tool a civilization may possess. It tempers power with reason and justice, or else it risks becoming a mere bludgeon for the powerful (who are prepared to unleash hell on others, on the notice of a moment) to totally have their way. Once upon a time, some felt that the “social sciences” might also come to be a “help” to humankind, that psychology, principal among them might encourage understanding, and from that understanding allow and encourage better, more mature decisions from all of us; sadly, such understanding as has been “discovered” has been chosen, by too many, to be used to control and manipulate, instead of freeing it imprisons all, to the dictates of small-minded, obsequious and fearful, yet arrogant, anti-social beings.
One hopes that lawyers, and social scientists (and “hard” scientists, as well) will dare to speak up and at least warn the rest of society that there is rough water ahead, and that we may get smashed on the rocks of destruction … which the tide, the “drift”, seemingly, is driving us towards (and, currently, some oil, someplace).
DW
Thank you. Despite the cynicism of bmaz in this regard, and the lack of action that we might like to see, it is important that the work of the Court be more widely known, and that its exact procedures become familiar to a wider audience. As bmaz points out, there is not much chance that such procedures will ever bear fruit, but as you point out, 22 years is a long time, and many things can happen.
Thanks,
Bob in AZ
Three conditions:
1) US refers to the ICC. Status: Not gonna happen
2) UN refers to ICC. Status: Not gonna happen.
So you’re pinning your hopes on:
3) Country in which offenses took place refers to ICC.
Can you name a country where the US committed offenses took place whose own political powers AREN’T implicated? If you can name one (I can’t think of one), is it willing to lose America’s good graces?
It looks possible on paper. But the reality is as bmaz has stated.
Boxturtle (You can still dream of Bush & Cheney perpwalked across the tarmac at The Hague)
I forgot to mention a fourth: The Office of the Prosecutor can initiate an investigation as well. The jurisdiction has to be among the three that I mentioned, but the investigation does not have to be requested by the parties I mentioned, and can be requested by anyone, in particular by any victim of the alleged crime.
Does that make it clearer?
The reality is not as bmaz has stated until the cases play out. The primary responsibility for prosecuting international humanitarian or human rights law lies with the states party to that law. That means compliance involves domestic prosecutions. The U.S. federal court system has been around a lot longer and has much greater capacity than the ICC, and the current U.S. system of courts martial has, as well. Has bmaz seen any prosecutions in those jurisdictions? Well then, not so cynical about the ICC.
The reality is what we choose to make it as a nation. It need not be the bankrupt realpolitik that currently characterizes the view of international law espoused by the U.S. legal community. There are people working pretty hard to make that kind of change, throughout the American educational structure, including the law schools. I think we will succeed.
Your version of reality is too defeatist for me, too cynical. But I’m not unused to being called a dreamer on this, and it doesn’t really phase me.
All correct; but also keep in mind that the subject here is drone killings and for that, the overt act by a human corpus takes place mostly in the US from what I understand. So the original act and jurisdiction is here.
CIA has their own Squadron. All ground maintenance, support and prep work is being performed by contractors and civilian US Government employees.
Are they complicit?
“Law” is simply the set of rules by which the powerful control the weak. As such it will never be applied to those who make and enforce it.
Law and violence are exactly the same – force. One is in the domain of the mental, the other the physical.
Nice letter, Dennis. Now will you back it up, or will you crumple like wet toilet paper like you did on HCR?
He’ll back dowh as soon as Obama gives him a stern talking-to.
There are no Progressives in Congress.
bmaz –
Living a pipe dream…
a synopsis of the 2008 Presidential election.
OT: Re.The Morning Thread. Laura Ingraham had Rand on for the clean-up ths morning…..chiding him for being on the show. He denies he’s a racist/against the Civil Rights Act. She helped by feeding him a lot of legal clarification……I s’pose this is his first of many follow-ups.
Rachel Maddow did the same with him last night.
Bob in AZ
Thanks Marcy! At the risk of seeming pedantic, shouldn’t we have a law, or maybe a group of laws; I know, written in fancy script, perhaps even on parchment, preventing the government from making extra-judicial targets for assassination of ANYONE?/s
What a….quaint…idea.
Boxturtle (Your a Quaker, right? :-) )
The Quaker doctrines appeal to me. Wasn’t NiXXon a Quaker? Even the best intentions can go awry!
I believe NiXXon was a Jack Quaker
Wonder what Elena thinks about this? snark
This is also conclusory bunk. The acts may not necessarily be practically prosecutable, but they most certainly do NOT comply with all applicable laws. Secondly, of course, we are not at war with Pakistan, so that is a particular nasty piece of disinformation you are pitching.
Exactly! That’s why we took out a Van of Mothers and Children a few months ago in Afghanistan.
This is where the rubber hits the road when you talk about government getting too big. It is hard to reconcile the fact that we have a policy that says we don’t assasinate world leaders that we have conflicts with yet we are willing to kill american citizens that side with anti american groups. So much for freedom of speech. If we can target an individual to be assasinated then why not capture that person and bring him or her to justice through due process? America, Where does it end and how accountable is our government to us in the twenty first century? We seem to be solidly entrenched in a pure and flagrant plutocracy at this point.
When are you progressives/liberals (I am a liberal, but a Jeffersonian one) going to realize that Obama is just another despot? That he is nothing more than a lackey for the corporations? I agree with emptywheel, “Of course, why anyone would need to introduce legislation to prohibit the killing of US citizens with no due process, I don’t know. Isn’t there already a piece of paper that prohibits such things?”
Yes, and that piece of paper says that when the President violates the Constitution there is a vehicle for his removal. Its called impeachment. And I can think of no more impeachable offense than targeting ones own citizens for assassination. If Obama pulled out a gun and shot someone, is that really any different than what he and Holder are proposing?
No it is not. We have a despot and a tyrant for our President.
Thank you for telling us what we’ve been discussing for the last several months.
Sorry, Dennis, you gutless bitch. After your HCR punk-out, I don’t trust you to do the right thing on anything anymore. I think this is just more symbolic bullshit from you. Fuck you, Dennis Caving-in-ich.
Vent your spleen elsewhere. I find all your expletives tiresome.
Bob in AZ
Kucinich knows this legislation has no chance of passing. That’s why he proposes it. If any piece of legislation were 50-50, then he would cave to the interests of the party big shots. Do you guys remember that he voted for the HCR bill only because Obama whispered something to his ear on a plane ride? Kucinich is a pretender.
The targeting should be done by and in the courts.
Ah yes, that would put the patina of “legality” upon it, especially if accompanied with that special gravitas, precedent.
Now where might we look, in our manifest legal “history”, for such precedent?
What threat, represented by any one or even many, may conveniently sweep aside our humanity, not to mention the quaint old Constitution?
How might we judge anyone or anything as deserving destruction simply because we imagine that they could be of some possible “danger” to us?
Why should the courts be willing to fatally engage in this circular madness?
When mere assumption, “life patterns”, becomes evidence?
The courts would be willing to condemn people to death on that flimsy basis?
I guess anything, now, is possible.
DW
Typical Kucinich.
Can’t come out to say it’s unconstitutional and raise hell. Can’t come out and say it’s illegal war, needs Department Of Peace instead. Posturers, knaves and fools, the lot of them.