Runnymede Repealed?

Daniel Laison runs a blog called "Eunomia" at American Conservative Magazine. In the excerpt below he explains why the Obama administration's claimed right to target American Citizens for assassination, in secret, with no judicial review, based on its war powers pursuant to a war that will never end with a battlefield encompassing the entire world, is so dangerous.

"The [] more important argument is over the administration’s refusal to allow review or accountability for the power being claimed. The problem here is obviously that the administration is claiming the authority to order the death of a citizen on the basis of evidence that the public cannot see as part of a process that allows for no legal remedy if this power is abused. If someone tries to sue, the government will shut down the lawsuit by invoking secrecy and national security. This is the very definition of unaccountable, lawless government. Defending the particular instance of targeting al-Awlaki for assassination doesn’t even address the main question, which is the administration’s effective claim to be beyond the law.

In al-Awlaki’s case, there may be ample evidence in the public domain to persuade us that he has committed treason and has sided with the declared enemies of the United States, but the administration is claiming that it would have the authority to order a citizen’s death solely on the basis of evidence not available to the public, and it could theoretically carry out that order anywhere. We have to trust that this does not apply to potential targets in the U.S. because there are more “practical” ways of apprehending them, and because it is formally against the law, but who exactly would hold a future administration accountable if it violated the law?

It is the outrageous nature of the claim and the enormous potential for abuse that provoke outraged complaints against tyrannical government. If this actually were just a narrow claim about the authority to kill a handful of enemy operatives, the debate would be a lot less heated and it would be rather less important. What we’re talking about is the executive’s ability to create unchecked authority for itself to kill citizens it deems guilty as part of an essentially undefined, open-ended, global conflict that has no apparent end."

Precisely! When supporters of the administration's claim point out that al-Awlaki is a terrorist, they miss the point entirely. This case is a trial balloon for a Presidential power grab that would take us all the way back to the year 1214 - if you don't get my drift, do some research on the big event in 1215. It is not that anyone cares about al-Awlaki. It is that he is a U.S. citizen who is not on any legally recognized battlefield. It is not that we don't know that he is a terrorist - we do. It is that the Obama administration is claiming the power to kill U.S. citizens anywhere in the world, based on secret information that it need not reveal to the public.

That is tyranny.
Joe H.