"Due process" is "the process due to you as defined by law".
What a ridiculous statement. Due process is clearly defined under the Constitution and related laws. You don't get less due process because of another law. That's not how that works. You can have less protections because you voluntarily sign waive them (such as waiving Miranda rights) or if you have rights taken away from you due to a conviction in court (parolees, for instance, do not have protections against searches at any time for any reason by the police). But aside from those options, there is no 'but a different law just says that you get less'. That's definitionally unconstitutional on it's face.
You're confusing "standard process" with "due process". Most of us get the standard process. Under certain circumstances, the process due to you by law is not the standard process. For example, the process due to military personnel much of the time is not the standard process, but is instead a court martial, which works by substantially different rules. Enemy combatants get yet another process.
No. We ALL get standard process. The military agrees to be held to a second set of laws, with a second set of rights assigned under those laws, but they agree to those up front and clearly -- it's briefed and understood that you are agreeing to a new paradigm. Further, that paradigm isn't very much removed from "standard" as far as due process goes -- you still have a right to a jury trial, you still have right to representation, you still have the right to face your accuser, etc. Your due process is handled by a different system, but is still there. And, to top it off, if you commit a civilian crime while enlisted, you're prosecuted by the civilian authorities and get your full set of due process there. So the military has a second set of laws, they don't obviate the "standard" set.
Enemy combatants are not US citizens nor are they on US soil. It's a shorthand for non-uniformed hostiles, which actually affords them greater protections than the Geneva Convention does (the GC pretty much hangs out to dry non-uniformed combatants as having zero protections). Even if you accept the concept that you can name a US citizen as an enemy combatant for whatever reasons, that naming doesn't remove his citizenship and
the due process that goes along with it.
I think the ability to do that (I believe it is a legal process, not a bureaucratic one) is in the Patriot Act.
It is not a legal process. There was no legal process followed here. The Administration dubbed Alwaki and enemy combatant and solicited a legal opinion from Justice as to whether or not they could kill him. Justice said, 'Yup, we think so,' and so they did. At no point did this ever become a legal process.
It is *both* of their faults - if you leave your gun lying around where it can be easily picked up, you are in part responsible for what happens from there - that's basic gun safety. This guy is hardly the only person to have what we'd normally think of as his rights abrogated - a bunch of them are still sitting in Guantanamo, and Obama didn't put them there.
So, your contention is that if something is left somewhere, which is not illegal but maybe foolish, and someone else does something horrible, then blame needs to be apportioned between the person that, without coercion, did something horrible, and the person that did something foolish? Mmkay. I suppose, then, that you apportion blame to Obama for people that use the ACA to commit fraud? He left it there, right?
Any argument that apportions blame based on another party's actions is a straight up fail. Bush didn't do anything right with the Patriot Act, and he did plenty more wrong under it and other things, but none of that,
none of that, in any way makes him responsible in the least for Obama deciding, on his own, to pursue a new understanding of the law that allowed him to assassinate a US citizen without trial.
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Yes, for the reasons Umbran already stated.
Umbran is wrong, and you should know it.
Nope. See above.
See also the diminished rights afforded "enemy combatants".
Where was Alwaki's US citizenship revoked? Under what circumstances can
your due process be diminished?
Because, with his status as an enemy combatant, he wasn't entitled to the full suite of those protections.
He was a US citizen, and had the full suite of those protections. He was also an enemy combatant, with many fewer protections. Under due process, he's entitled to ALL of the legal rights and protections he can have. So he got the ones under enemy combatant, and conveniently was bureaucratically denied those under his US citizenship.
NOTHING revoked Alwaki's citizenship. He died a (scumbag adherent of a vile ideology) US citizen. One denied his due process.
The 4th prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. Well, by law, the secret courts DO require a showing of probable cause before a judge.
Yes, they do. No warrant to search or seize Alwaki was issued. You misunderstand what the FISA courts had jurisdiction over.
But the secret courts don't act like jury trials. They're more akin to warrant hearings or grand juries: the "defendant" has no right to testify or confront witnesses.
No, you are correct. Grand juries can be used to indict ham sandwiches. We appear to be in full agreement that Alwaki has not yet had his due process.
And as near as we can tell without higher clearance, his case DID pass through those secret courts:
http://www.politifact.com/texas/sta...s-citizens-killed-obama-drone-strikes-3-were/
Your source says nothing about courts, and Alwaki's "case" didn't go through any court. I scare quoted "case" because there wasn't anything like a case.
Your source does, however, vet my explanation of events. Obama sought a legal opinion from Justice on whether or not he had the legal fig leaf to assassinate a US citizen abroad. He then made the call.
This isn't about blaming Bush, even though he was the sitting president when the Patriot Act was passed and signed. Our Legislative branch has just as much blame to shoulder. And, it should be noted, that other, subsequent laws were passed that expanded government powers in support of it, and extended it, and were signed by both Bush and Obama.
Firstly, the only law Obama used to assassinate Alwaki was the AUMF. The Patriot Act, grand pile of steaming mess that it was, really has no bearing here.
In the final analysis, Obama used a tool that was handed to him by Bush and prior legislators (of both parties)- there's blame enough to spread, if you wish.
God forbid you ever hand your neighbor a screwdriver and he kills someone with it, because you'd have blame. Right?
But let us be 100% honest:
I haven't been anything but.
1) as I asked before, would you be more comfortable if other methods with higher collateral damage probabilities been used?
No, I disagree with the notion that we had the right to assassinate Alwaki the way we did. Why on Earth would you think that I would like a splashier method of assassination?
2) what would the public & political if Obama (or any subsequent president) pushed for the repeal of the laws that let him order those drone strikes?
Again, what? If I manage to parse that properly, you're asking what the fallout would be for repealing the laws authorizing generic drone strikes? I dunno, no one tried. I've not be happy with the drone program for quite some time. When used in direct support of US troops, I like drones. When used as roving assassination tools, I hate them. I'd have been fine with they're authorization revoked.
But that aside, the issue here isn't that Obama could either decide to reinterpret the AUMF to authorize drone strikes anywhere in the world (he did this) AND that they allowed the assassination of US citizen OR he could advocate for their repeal. Obama did not have to use the tools left him. Further, he didn't have to expand them in scope. Even further, he didn't have to seek a new legal opinion about the legality of assassinating US citizens. This isn't a serious case of 'he had to do it that way or he had to risk the political fallout of seeking the repeal of the laws that formed the basis of the drone program.'
I had thought you were wanting to be 100% honest, but it seems you'd rather just frame the conversation in stilted and illogical ways so that you can reach your desired outcome: Obama had no choice.
