"If Barak Obama isn't doing what he was elected to do, I will be one of his harshest critics"
To date, while I haven't agreed with 100% of the policy decisions his administration has made, I have had a generally favorable view of his presidency.
With this policy announcement, my view of the Obama presidency has gotten a bit dimmer.
In a recent article for the online magazine Salon.com, writer Glenn Greenwald detailed his shock and disgust over a recent action by the Obama administration:
In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.
A large part of American civil liberties revolve around what is called "due process", which is the principle that the government must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person according to the law. By arguing that an American citizen's right to due process can be arbitrarily ignored without legal recourse, that the office of the President has the indisputable power to put an American citizen to death without proof that can be presented (and refuted) in a court of law, is an inexcusable abuse of power.
In my opinion, anyone involved in the death of an American citizen under these circumstances, should be prosecuted for conspiracy and murder. I can agree that the need for secrecy as a means of protecting this nation is necessary in some instances, and I have no problem with the Executive Branch of our government holding the power to make the determination as to what should be kept secret. However, I draw the line when secrecy as it relates to our national security equals carte blanc to essentially operate death squads targeting American citizens around the world.
