Joel Gehrke @ The Washington Examiner:
Attorney General Eric Holder can imagine a scenario in which it would be constitutional to carry out a drone strike against an American on American soil, he wrote in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder replied in a letter yesterday to Paul’s question about whether Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”
Paul condemned the idea. “The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans,” he said in a statement.
Holder noted that Paul’s question was “entirely hypothetical [and] unlikely to occur,” but cited the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as the type of incidents that might provoke such a response.
“Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of his authority,” he concluded.
Against a US citizen on US soil without due process. Even Nixon wouldn’t have had the balls to take this position. If someone told me just 10 years ago that we would even be discussing this, I would have laughed. I’m not laughing now.
@Aqua:
While I think there are persuasive arguments for the use of drones in war zones against US citizens who take up arms against America, I also don’t feel very comfortable with the idea of drones on US soil. What is happening I fear is that the technology has outpaced our ability as a society and country to evaluate legally and morally the implications, so we’re playing catch-up, or making things up as we go along, largely driven by circumstances. This feels similar to the dawn of nuclear weapons, where the technology plus circumstances put them into play long before the implications could be fathomed.
The introduction of public and private drones into the US skies is already a reality. They are sure to be big business, so the pressure will be there from the start to open up new markets and ease regulations. They are not going away.
The implications of this technology and its usage will be an ongoing concern for decades. There’s been a lot of interesting discussions about these issues on the New Yorker site. I found this comment particularly troubling:
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/02/political-scene-the-past-and-future-of-drone-warfare.html#ixzz2MmyID4Kd
@Tom:
To your quoted New Yorker comment, that is the exact same idea that the US government has used already. The question is, what makes it any more moral, or legal, for the US to do it in other countries than for other countries to do it here? It is, as you say, troubling.
@johngalt:
I agree. We could be setting a precedent that will come back to haunt us. The more I think about it, the more nukes feels like the obvious analogue. 70 years down the road, we’re dealing with the specter of portable nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, something that probably didn’t seem plausible in 1950. To be fair, you can’t put the cat back in the bag. The short-term utility of a new technology will typically trump long-term fears.
@Tom:
It’s the same idea with the rush of a political party to gain power for itself, because it’s in power. Eventually, the other side gains power, and the use of that newfound power for itself to stymie the opposition and deny input or representation. And it’s always at that point that the lamentation begins for those who used the power first. Sometimes, things that can be done, ought not to be done.
@johngalt:
Because it’s easy to view precedents only through the short-term lens of a trusted current administration, I’ve found it useful project them through the prism of a hypothetical worst case scenario: how would I feel if President Dick Cheney said/did this?