Amazing. Who runs things over there? Even George Bush didn't try to pull that one (h/t Ian Welsh).
First, the DNI (director of national intelligence) says in effect: "We can kill any citizen we want to." Note — citizen. From the N.Y. Times (emphasis mine):
The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.So who gives that permission? Any guesses? It better go all the way to the top (or maybe better not).
Mr. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and spent years in the United States as an imam, is in hiding in Yemen. . . .
A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president.
But the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, told a House hearing in February that such a step was possible. “We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community,” he said. “If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.”
And now Treasury, in effect: "And we can arrest and punish any lawyer who defends you." Note that Anwar al-Awlaki is the same guy as in the Times article above. The guy who hired the lawyer is al-Awlaki's father. From Glenn Greenwald (emphasis mine again):
A major legal challenge to one of the Obama administration's most radical assertions of executive power began this morning in a federal courthouse in Washington, DC. Early last month, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights were retained by Nasser al-Awlaki, the father of Obama assassination target (and U.S. citizen) Anwar al-Awlaki, to seek a federal court order restraining the Obama administration from killing his son without due process of law. But then, a significant and extraordinary problem arose: regulations promulgated several years ago by the Treasury Department prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with individuals labeled by the Government as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist," and those regulations specifically bar lawyers from providing legal services to such individuals without a special "license" from the Treasury Department specifically allowing such representation.Folks, this is what kings are made of (and queens). If Obama is a constitutional lawyer, I want out of the class. Why would he do this? Did someone leave a horse-head in his sheets the day he was inaugurated?
On July 16 -- roughly two weeks after Awlaki's father retained the ACLU and CCR to file suit -- the Treasury Department slapped that label on Awlaki. That action would have made it a criminal offense for those organizations to file suit on behalf of Awlaki or otherwise provide legal representation to him without express permission from the U.S. Government.
Seriously, why would he do this?
GP
