Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of US Citizens "Has No Geographic Limit" The Obama administration’s internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time. In a secret Justice Department memo, the administration claims it has legal authority to assassinate U.S. citizens overseas even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the United States. We’re joined by Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you look at the memo ... there’s no geographic line," says Jaffer. "The Obama administration is making, in some ways, a greater claim of authority [than President Bush]. NERMEEN SHAIKH: The Obama administration’s internal legal justification for assassinating U.S. citizens without charge has been revealed for the first time.
In September 2011, a U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed two American citizens: Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. You’ve looked at the white memo. JAMEEL JAFFER: Sure. JAMEEL JAFFER: Sure. The Sticky Questions Surrounding Drones And Kill Lists. Hide captionA French military drone takes off in December 2010 from a U.S. airbase in Bagram, Afghanistan. Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images A French military drone takes off in December 2010 from a U.S. airbase in Bagram, Afghanistan.
New York Times reporter Scott Shane and colleague Jo Becker reported last year that the Obama administration has a list of terrorists targeted for drone attacks, and that the president personally approves such strikes. The administration has been trying to keep details of its drone program under wraps, arguing that to make it public could threaten national security. Last week, he wrote that the U.S. has a military base in Saudi Arabia from which they launch drone strikes. But the location of bases, says Shane, was not the most interesting part of the story. "The most interesting part of this story," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "is how are we using a new military technology in countries where we're not at war to kill suspected terrorists? Carol T. Who can’t be on Obama’s “kill list”? Last month, America saw in graphic detail how the destructive notion of Too Big to Jail means for an executive branch that refuses to prosecute a single banker connected to the financial meltdown.
Today, with the release of a secret Justice Department white paper about the president’s so-called kill list, we are learning about another radical jurisprudential notion being pioneered by the Obama administration. Call it Too Big to Curtail. That’s the most accurate label to describe the machinery of the government’s ever-expanding drone war. As the white paper asserts, that war — which is likely creating more terrorists than it is neutralizing — cannot be curtailed by laws or the Constitution.
Therefore, the argument goes, the president no longer merely claims the power to detain and torture people without due process, nor does he merely claim the power to execute American citizens without indictment or trial. Secret ‘Kill List’ Tests Obama’s Principles. U.S. Approves Targeted Killing of American Cleric.