Ending the Debate on Due Process at the Point of a Missile.

Nat Hentoff wrote an article for CATO on Targeted Killings, a worrying trend in the ultimate extralegal power of government to decide who lives and dies, giving a much needed update on the potential situations arising that I warned about about in April of last year in an article called Targeted For Termination - Assassination in the 21st Century.

During a Feb. 3 hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified that the U.S. intelligence community, when dealing with direct terrorist threats to the United States, does "take direct action against terrorists" (Washington Post, Feb. 4).

And "if we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."

Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer turned news analyst, avoids euphemisms. "Special permissions" without judicial authorization, says Greenwald, amounts to "basically giving the president the power to impose death sentences on his own citizens without any charges or trial" (Salon.com, Feb. 4)

Read the rest here: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11259

H/T Renae

Tempus Fugit