Assassination court ‘won’t address the concern’
Sat Feb 9, 2013 4:29PM
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/288123.html
While a number of U.S. senators are proposing to create a court to provide a judiciary review to the Obama administration’s targeted killings program; that would “not address the concern” as the CIA has the authority to kill suspects whose identities are not known.
“I think one of the problems of this is that most of the killings are not happening by targeted assassination” when the identity of the person is known, Media Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK said in an interview on Saturday.
The majority of CIA drone strikes are “signature strikes” which are based on suspicious patterns of behavior, and the identity of the individual is not known, she added.
“Even if you had a court that was reviewing, as long as you continue to give the CIA the ability to kill people on the bases of suspicious behavior, this won’t address the concern.”
U.S. senators are reportedly considering an idea to create a secret “assassination court” that would be charged with deciding if “suspects” can be assassinated by U.S. drone strikes.
US senators propose ‘assassination court’ to screen drone targets
Sat Feb 9, 2013 1:49PM
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/288098.html
U.S. senators are reportedly considering an idea to create a secret “assassination court” on the model of the FISA courts that rubber-stamp wiretapping, only this court would be charged with deciding if “suspects” can be assassinated by U.S. drone strikes.
The idea has some support, though officials say it is unlikely any such proposals will be acted on any time soon. The notion of a secretive court deciding who gets killed by robots looming overhead anywhere on the planet strikes some as somewhat morbid.
On the other hand, the drones are already looming overhead and killing people by the thousands worldwide as it is, and the change would just be some nominal court oversight to the whole process of killing people en masse, which at present is entirely up to President Obama. That is a power he is unlikely to be willing to give up.
John Brennan expressed some skepticism about the idea, saying he would consider it but that it would have to be a different type of court from anything in existence. He argued that drone strikes aren’t about guilt for past actions but rather are aimed at preventing a future action, adding that this is an “inherently Executive Branch” function.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D – CA), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is spearheading the effort, seeking some method of regulating the killings and hoping to translate the FISA model more or less directly.
Sen. Angus King (I – ME) suggested even that might be a bridge too far, and that he believes such a court should be limited only to considering the execution of American citizens, while the executions of everybody else would never see the inside of a court, secret or not.
On the other hand Sen. King did express concern about the killings of Americans, saying that making the president “prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all in one is very contrary” to U.S. tradition. That apparently did not apply to foreigners. Antiwar
FACTS & FIGURES
The program has been controversial as some say it offers the administration power to kill without any oversight or regulation, even if the person being assassinated is an American. The Daily Mail
Jonathan Turley, a well-known legal scholar and professor at George Washington University, said that congressional action is “clearly warranted.” FoxNews.com
“President Obama has become the president that Richard Nixon always wanted to be. In the face of an imperial president, it is Congress’ duty under the Constitution to do whatever it can to check such an abuse of power,” he said in an email. FoxNews.com
A confidential Justice Department memo concluded that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaeda or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S, according to NBC News.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney earlier called the strikes “legal, ethical and wise,” and said that they were constitutionally sound. Huffington Post
In January, the United Nations announced that it had launched an investigation into drone warfare to look into charges of unlawful killings and to help put into place “appropriate legal and operational structures.” The Daily Star
Ben Emmerson, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and Counterterrorism has said that he would not shy away from the possibility of digging up evidence of “war crimes” in his investigation, according to wired.com
Retired General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has acknowledged that the strikes create great resentment around the world, and says their use should be re-evaluated. peoplesworld.org
The United States has carried out more than 360 assassination drone attacks in Pakistan since 2004, killing about 3,500 people, according to a recent study by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism.