This is where we are headed..

You get what you sit back on your lazy a$$ and tolerate..

This isn't tyranny..



Secret panel can put Americans on "kill list'

(Reuters) - American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

Current and former officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda's Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.

The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama's toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki's killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.

In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush's expansive use of executive power in his "war on terrorism," is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments.

Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder.

Conservatives criticized Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki. They accuse Obama of hypocrisy, noting his administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of interrogation techniques many equate with torture, but refused to make public its rationale for killing a citizen without due process.

Some details about how the administration went about targeting Awlaki emerged on Tuesday when the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing.

The process involves "going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president, but the National Security Council does the investigation, they have lawyers, they review, they look at the situation, you have input from the military, and also, we make sure that we follow international law," Ruppersberger said.

LAWYERS CONSULTED

Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described.

They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC "principals," meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/05/us-cia-killlist-idUSTRE79475C20111005

This is where we have been for a while, America is fashioning itself the world police man with his own personal legal code .... at least we are the most unabashed ones, there are plenty of other countries secret services which do similar things on a much more subtle level. Like the Israeli's for instance........ so my question is what shall our a$$'s be doing about it?

What should my lazy a-- be doing about this that I am not already doing?

Further educating yourself as to just how deep the rabbit hole goes would be a start. Until we know exactly who the enemy is, we can't stop them.

Kleisto, that might be a start.... but I don't want to wake up in a strange ship eating gruel :)

Please don't encourage him!

Too late bud, whether you like it or not, we are here and we are not going away.

And sidenote, I don't know that a lot of what passes for food these days isn't gruel anyway lol. But that's a horse of another color.

heheh yes but it's sweet and yummy gruel :D and LPDon, creativity needs little encouragement right? unlike political motives which begs encouragement in the bucket-loads of money type, be it superpacs or the other kind of pac :);

I cant criticize too completely. Having family that was in the SEALS, there really are just some things that dont need to be 'public knowledge' when it comes to keeping the borders safe.

Remember, there is no information that can be exclusively sent to american citizens,, the whole world has access once its put out, including those who make the plans against us,,,,

Problem with that is, they can and often do abuse that. Once you allow them certain secrets, it opens the door to major corruption. And a lot goes on, no matter what you may think.

Oh and the war on terror has been a farce from the start, so your point on those who make plans against us really doesn't work given that.

I understand it can be abused, any authority can,, but that doesnt mean authority isnt needed and also used for good

there simply is no way to make EVERY detail of information known to the world , which essentially happens when we try to make sure AMERICANS get it,, and still keep us safe

wars are real, even if the war on terror isnt,

even if everyone doesnt hate us,, some do

and I dont see the option to be assaulted because of some policy to make every detail a public one any better than a policy to allow the authority to keep some things confidential

we ask government to operate like they have a facebook page, and we will be in trouble,,,

Have you ever stopped to wonder WHY people hate us? We try to police the world. Don't you think that's gonna step on a few toes? We could eliminate a lot of our problems if we simply stopped trying to be this global peacekeeper. Let people handle their own affairs, we got our own to worry about as it is anyway.

This isn't just about some arab living in pakistan that is directing attacks from his state secured compound.

The precedent is now being set that any American can be assassinated without due process of the law based on what some secret panel of bureaucrats say.

I really don't understand how someone can say that this is acceptable.

Once all the arabs/muslim terrorists are gone do you think they are going to dismantle this massive state security apparatus or do you think they are just going to define a new terrorist group to set their sights on?

Based on history I'll go with the second option.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.' Benjamin Franklin

And I dare to add that they will get neither anyway.

Amen! I will add to that though, there's a reason very little has really changed in the last decade. The war on terror serves a purpose for them, it allows them easy control over the populace. That was the whole reason it was started to begin with. They couldn't justify all their BS without it and they knew it. Thus they ran the false flag of 9-11 to invoke the war.

ITs an interesting dilemma

I remember many didnt want those in gitmo to have trials at all, because of their status as alleged terrorists

this man people wished to have a trial in spite of his alleged terrorism

I wonder if the debate is about how to handle terrorists
or how to handle americans

or whether an american terrorist should be seen as much as a terrorist as any other, or a little less because they are american,,,,

?


I dont know the answer, but its interesting


I think if someone is a terrorist(BIG IF) their nationality should not deter them from receiving what ever other terrorists would receive,,,