Using armed drones, President Obama has overseen the targeted killing of
at least three U.S. civilians overseas — more than President Bush did
in office. Are the killings legal? Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s
National Security Project, says Attorney General Eric Holder’s defense
on Monday of the Obama administration’s policy authorizing the
assassination of U.S. citizens abroad “left open more questions than it
answered.” She says Holder’s speech amounted to a broad defense of the
administration’s claimed expansive authority to kill its own citizens,
far from any battlefield and without judicial review or oversight of
legal standards. "While Holder acknowledges that the Constitution
requires ‘due process’ before the government takes the life of one of
its own citizens,” Shamsi argues, “he says it is up to the Executive
Branch alone, without judicial review, to determine what process is due
and to make that decision without any oversight — and that’s simply not
the case in our constitutional system of checks and balances.” The ACLU is suing the White House to disclose its legal memos that justify targeted killings.Video
Source: Democracy Now!
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