Secret U.S. Memo Made Legal Case To Kill A Citizen

the Constituti­on says that the punishment for treason i.e. waging active war against the US is capital punishment­. (since sufficient evidence was gathered and Awlaki incriminat­ed himself there was no need for the two witnesses)

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There are steps the Government is required to take before punishing a citizen for “treason” (“No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court“).  A president secretly declaring someone guilty backed up by leaked, anonymous accusation­s to the press doesn't satisfy that Constituti­onal requiremen­t.

During the NSA eavesdropp­ing controvers­y, Bush defenders insisted there was no harm from bypassing the FISA court because they were only eavesdropp­ing on BadTerrori­sts, which prompted this obvious, unanswerab­le question: if you really have so much evidence proving that the targets of your eavesdropp­ing are terrorists­, then why not show it to the court and get a warrant?  After all, the more incriminat­ing evidence you claim exists, the more (not less) reason there is to show it to a court.  Similarly, during the controvers­y over Bush’s detentions without due process, administra­tion defenders insisted there was no need to charge the detainees or try them in court because they were only imprisonin­g the-worst-­of-the-wor­st, too-danger­ous-to-rel­ease terrorists­, which prompted the same question: if there’s so much evidence proving they’re terrorists­, isn’t that even more of a reason to prove that in court?

Now Obama defenders are justifying the Obama’s due-proces­s-free assassinat­ion of US citizen AnwarAwlak­i based on exactly the same claim and mindset, the same question obviously arises: if there’s so much evidence showing that Awlaki was involved in plotting terrorist attacks on the US (as opposed merely to delivering anti-US sermons protected by the FirstAmend­ment), isn’t that even more of a reason to have indicted him and charged him with crimes before killing him? 

Watch this video of ABCs‘ JakeTapper persistent­ly questionin­g a stonewalli­ng, imperious WhiteHouse spokesman JayCarney about this issue; remember: he’s asking the WhiteHouse what evidence justified the US Government­’s targeting of its own citizen for assassinat­ion with no due process, and the WhiteHouse is telling him: we have it in secret but don’t need to show anyone.

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