11:06AM
Time's Battleland: TERRORISM - Minority Report has finally arrived
Tuesday, February 5, 2013 at 11:06AM 
Read it and weep: "Memo Cites Legal Basis for Killing U.S. Citizen in Al Qaeda."
As a U.S. citizen, the government can now kill you in advance of your actually committing a crime - simply by knowing that you are likely to act in a dangerous manner.
Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.
Reader Comments (2)
I don't see the Obama administration killing US citizens... at least not within the United States… anytime soon. So when those drones fly over me, in the new drone filled skies coming to America, I don't have to be afraid… at least not just yet. But what happens when we have our first Tea Party president? How would Michele Bachmann interpret these new powers?
What happens when the executive branch decides to designate the political opposition a clear and present terrorist threat to the safety and security of the United States? We have/had laws, checks and balances built into our system to prevent any individual, most specifically the executive branch, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, from exercising tyrannical powers. Our Constitutional system was designed to prevent any one man for making himself King or Caesar. Without those laws, without the courts to arbitrate, without Congressional oversight, any future president could very well choose to liquidate whomever they choose, and they could do so without even revealing to anyone outside their circle what they've done. Assassination without consequence?
How long now before any US citizen, any of us, can be arbitrarily designated an enemy of the state and eliminated, along with our family members, friends, virtually anyone connected with us? It seems that under these new powers a president, or their aides, advisers, heck the White House chef perhaps??? All they would have to do is point a finger and nod to the right people.
Is that Osama bin Laden I hear laughing at us from the grave? Did he accomplish what he set out to do, show the West to be amoral and corrupted beyond redemption?
The problem is the mixing up of war time vs. peace time law. This is what happens when "the war" really isn't a war, but a bunch of military missions. I frankly do not think it passes constitutional muster, because of the assertive "ambiguity" of the executive. Almost all of this hinges on the executive branch's character and honesty....which is NOT to be depended on...that is the entire justification for checks and balances.
By the way, Aaron, your little "Tea Party" quip is not very informative. How do you know? With EVIDENCE about Obama's aggressiveness, you then have to point to a HYPOTHETICAL long shot presidential candidate to show a "danger?"