No, you can't just and go and kill your citizens!

That the Obama Administration - and a president who is a lawyer and one-time law lecturer - has sanctioned extra-judicial killings of US citizens outside America, is astounding.

Not surprisingly, as CommonDreams reports, the decision is now the subject of challenge:

"Two of the nation's most influential human rights organisations have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone."

***

"Col. Morris Davis, the Defense Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases who argued on behalf of a terrorism suspect that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials, tells IPS:

"The 5th Amendment says U.S. citizens can't be 'deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.' If the Constitution prohibits the government from taking your house without giving you a hearing and the opportunity to defend yourself, it seems rather ironic that they might take your life with even less formality and less process."

Glenn Greenwald, constitutional lawyer and contributor to Salon.com, is similarly troubled by the targeting policy. He concludes: "We really are talking about a President who believes he has the right to send the CIA to murder American citizens based purely on allegations and suspicions of wrongdoing."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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