Obama Administration Says President Can Use Lethal Force Against Americans on US Soil & Attorney General: Obama Can't Order Drone Attack on Americans on US Soil & No, Obama Will Not Execute You With a Drone 5&7&8MAR13

I do not like Sen rand paul R KY. I do not like his politics and I think he is both ignorant and hypocritical in his personal and political life. HOWEVER, I do appreciate his filibuster on drones in the Senate this week, both for the subject and because he was on the floor of the Senate publicly conducting his filibuster and not hiding behind a cowardly, anonymous hold. Considering the Obama administration's lack of respect for civil liberties and human rights (rivaling that of the previous bush administration) Sen paul did us all a favor by forcing the government to state publicly they will not use drones to attack and kill Americans on American soil. What a sad commentary that a people actually had to ask this of their own government. From Mother Jones....

—By Adam Serwer

Fang Zhe/Xinhua/ZUMAPress

UPDATE March 7 4:12 PM EST: Attorney General Eric Holder sent a second letter to Senator Rand Paul on Thursday clarifying the administration's views on the use of military force inside the United States.

Yes, the president does have the authority to use military force against American citizens on US soil—but only in "an extraordinary circumstance," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday. 

"The US Attorney General's refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening," Paul said Tuesday. "It is an affront the constitutional due process rights of all Americans."

Last month, Paul threatened to filibuster the nomination of John Brennan, Obama's pick to head the CIA, "until he answers the question of whether or not the president can kill American citizens through the drone strike program on US soil." Tuesday, Brennan told Paulthat "the agency I have been nominated to lead does not conduct lethal operations inside the United States—nor does it have any authority to do so." Brennan said that the Justice Department would answer Paul's question about whether Americans could be targeted for lethal strikes on US soil.

Holder's answer was more detailed, however, stating that under certain circumstances, the president would have the authority to order lethal attacks on American citizens. The two possible examples of such "extraordinary" circumstances were the attack on Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. An American president ordering the use of lethal military force inside the United States is "entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront," Holder wrote. Here's the bulk of the letter:

As members of this administration have previously indicated, the US government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat. We have a long history of using the criminal justice system to incapacitate individuals located in our country who pose a threat to the United States and its interests abroad. Hundreds of individuals have been arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses in our federal courts.

The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.

The letter concludes, "were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the president of the scope of his authority."

In a Google+ Hangout last month, President Obama refused to say directly if he had the authority to use lethal force against US citizens. As Mother Jones reported at the time, the reason the president was being so coy is that the answer was likely yes. Now we know that's exactly what was happening. "Any use of drone strikes or other premeditated lethal force inside the United States would raise grave legal and ethical concerns," says Raha Wala, an attorney with Human Rights First. "There should be equal concern about using force overseas."

This post has been edited to include Paul's statement and the final line of Holder's letter.

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Adam Serwer is a reporter at the Washington, DC, bureau of Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. You can also follow him on Twitter. Email tips and insights to aserwer [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS | TWITTER

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http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/obama-admin-says-it-can-use-lethal-force-against-americans-us-soil

Attorney General: Obama Can't Order Drone Attack on Americans on US Soil

—By Adam Serwer

| 

Attorney General Eric Holder testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. C-Span

It took Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) filibustering for 13 straight hours, but the White House has finally clarified that President Barack Obama cannot order a drone strike on an American citizen on American soil. In a curt, 43-word letter, Attorney General Eric Holder clarified the administration's stance. 

"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" Holder wrote. "The answer to that question is no."

Holder had previously stated in a letter to Paul that he believed it would be appropriate to use deadly military force on American soil in two "catastrophic" scenarios—namely another Pearl Harbor or 9/11.

"Nobody questions if planes are flying towards the Twin Towers whether they can be repulsed by the military," Paul said during his filibuster Wednesday. "Nobody questions whether a terrorist with a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher is attacking us, whether they can be repelled."

Paul had also asked during his filibuster whether an Arab American "sitting in a cafeteria in Dearborn, Michigan," and suspected of ties to terror could be targeted with lethal force by a drone. "As for Paul and Holder, I suspect they're in complete agreement on the 'café' hypothetical—but who isn't?" says Steve Vladeck, a professor at American University School of Law. "This isn't about cafés—it's about dirt roads in northern Yemen."

Here's Holder's letter:http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/holder-president-cant-order-drone-attack-americans-us-soil

No, Obama Will Not Execute You With a Drone

This week, Eric Holder wrote to Rand Paul in response to a letter the senator wrote to John Brennan inquiring whether the administration could use drones to kill American citizens on American soil. It was difficult to miss, with headlines blazoned everywhere, from The Huffington Post ("Eric Holder: Drone Strike To Kill U.S. Citizen On American Soil Legal, Hypothetically") to CNN ("Holder does not rule out drone strike scenario in U.S.") to Mediaite ("Obama Administration: Yes, The President Can Drone Strike Americans On U.S. Soil") -- even Glenn Beck's The Blaze carried the story ("Revealed: Holder Says President Could Authorize Military Drone Strikes Inside U.S. in Emergency").

But the headlines were mostly misleading.

If we dig beyond the headlines and read the actual letter Holder wrote, we'd realize that Holder absolutely did not write what those headlines would lead us to believe.

Before we continue, I'd like to make my position on all of this perfectly clear because it's becoming increasingly difficult to carry on a rational discussion about the use of lethal force against enemy combatants born in the U.S., as well as the use of drones as a military weapon. The president is on shaky ground when it comes to these related issues, given the endless nature of the war on terrorism and the war powers provided by the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force (endless war equals endless war powers, and such a prospect is unacceptable). The AUMF should be repealed, the president's war powers rescinded and the use of drones regulated and defined, otherwise we're allowing the president to retain war powers in perpetuity, making them ostensibly permanent.

But however much I disagree with the policy and the potential abuse of the technology, I can easily understand the administration's position. Congress granted it the wartime authority, both in terms of war powers and in terms of funding for drone technology. Under the current status of the executive branch (which I believe ought to be repealed) the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon has the power to fight the enemy as they see it, as has every administration that's operated under congressionally approved war powers.

Got it? I'm opposed the administration retaining its war powers. Against it.

So back to it. Nearly half of Holder's one-page letter discussed how it's not the administration's policy to use drones on American soil. In fact, Holder says the administration has no intention of ever doing so. Though if you read the headlines and leads in each of the above items, you'd think the White House was launching drones off the White House lawn and deploying them to your back yard. Holder continued:

As a policy matter, moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat. We have a long history of using the criminal justice system to incapacitate individuals located in our country who pose a threat to the United States and its interests abroad. Hundreds of individuals have been arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses in our federal courts.

This is an explicit rejection of drone strikes against citizens inside the borders of the United States in lieu of a fairly straightforward embrace of traditional law enforcement mechanisms. And it's not a surprise. Since the outset, the administration has attempted to migrate the counter-terrorism process into line with something more closely resembling a traditional legal and judicial process. If you recall, the administration attempted to close Guantanamo and move its detainees to maximum security prisons on the mainland, but nearly every member of Congress, including very liberal members by the way, blocked funding for the move while simultaneously screaming the familiar "not in my back yard" refrain. Furthermore, Holder attempted to bring suspected terrorists to trial in American courts -- another move that was almost universally rejected.

In the third paragraph of his memo, Holder responded to Rand Paul's "hypothetical" scenario with speculation about an impending Pearl Harbor or 9/11 attack. But the paragraph contains no mentions of drones. None. Instead, Holder wrote that the president has the power to "authorize the military to use lethal force" against armed attackers. Granted, it's conceivable Holder was implying the use of drones, but he didn't explicitly write about the use of drones. Then again, what difference does the weapon make? If a hijacked plane is hurtling toward a skyscraper, does it really matter whether it's potentially shot down by a fighter jet (as were deployed on 9/11) or with a surface to air missile or with a predator drone?

As big a conundrum as this presents, he president absolutely has the authority to shoot down a hijacked airplane in a 9/11 scenario. Likewise with a Pearl Harbor attack -- even more so given the presence of foreign attackers. Or what if a Secret Service agent or an armed military escort spots a man in a window overlooking the presidential motorcade and the man is aiming a rifle at the president? Naturally the Secret Service agent is within the boundaries of the law to shoot that man in the head. These are the kinds of situations the Holder letter described, and the president has always held these powers long before the war on terror and long before Barack Obama.

Thus, this week's array of headlines weren't entirely inaccurate -- jumping to the conclusion that Holder believes the president reserves the right to use drones against American citizens on our soil, full stop. It's much easier, more dramatic and there's more potential for web traffic to hyper-jump to the conclusion that the attorney general put into writing that the president can wantonly deploy drones to patrol our skies with the authority to kill you if you're somehow suspected of being a threat to national security. He did nothing of the sort.

Fast forward to yesterday when Holder wrote a second letter to Rand Paul further clarifying the issue.

Dear Senator Paul:

It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" The answer to that question is no.

Sincerely,

Eric H. Holder, Jr.

So the question should be more or less settled. The administration confirms that it doesn't have the authority to kill you while you're sitting at a cafe drinking coffee, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) described this week. Furthermore, there's no authority granted to the president to deploy lethal force against an American citizen on American soil unless they're engaged in an attack against Americans.

Now tell me, I wonder how Rand Paul -- who, by the way, recently grilled Hillary Clinton in a senate hearing over the president's alleged failure in Benghazi -- would react if President Obama had refused to thwart such attacks and allowed them to happen. It's not a stretch to assume that Paul and his Republican Party would launch an inquisition leading to an impeachment trial if Obama had the opportunity but failed to shoot down a hijacked airliner and it crashed into, say, the U.S. Capitol building or a civilian facility like the Georgetown University Hospital. Imagine the Benghazi screeching times a gazillion.

But not once has any Republican, including Cruz and Rand Paul, mentioned anything about ending the war on terrorism or repealing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The lack of nuance, as well as the lack of a sense of history on both the far-right (and the far-left for that matter) is eerily coincidental. Again, it's important to have oversight on drones, but let's get real here. Too many players seem to have hastily constructed a bridge of paranoia and hyperbole between "a guy having a coffee" and "hijacked planes careening towards skyscrapers."

Why?

Other than the addition of a new weapon in the arsenal, what exactly has changed in terms of the president's military powers and policies inside the borders of the United States? Based on Holder's letter, nothing -- traditional law enforcement in nearly every circumstance and lethal military force if another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor happens to be in progress.

There's no harm in having an ongoing conversation about presidential powers and military authority. Such an endeavor requires perpetual diligence from both citizens and the press. But there's currently so much hysteria circulating around the topic of drones it's nearly impossible to see beyond the apoplexy. Historical precedent and heretofore commonly acknowledged presidential powers are forgotten, and too many people become instantly outraged whenever those powers are brought up in a 2013 context. Yes, throughout American history, the military and law enforcement has reserved the right to use lethal force to thwart crimes inside the United States. But when the word "drones" gets shoehorned into the context, everyone flips out and the truth gets lost. That's most certainly the case with the Holder letter.

Cross-posted at The Daily Banter.
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