Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Eric Holder: Yes, Your Government Can Drone You to Death on U.S. Soil (UPDATED) - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Eric Holder: Yes, Your Government Can Drone You to Death on U.S. Soil (UPDATED) - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
As members of this administration have previously indicated, the US government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat. We have a long history of using the criminal justice system to incapacitate individuals located in our country who pose a threat to the United States and its interests abroad. Hundreds of individuals have been arrested and convicted of terrorism-related offenses in our federal courts. 

The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront. 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. For example, the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.
(emphasis added)


Well, that's comforting.  If The President and Eric Holder should decide, for example, that it is in the National Interest to dive-bomb my home in the middle of a college town, I'm sure that I would die happy knowing that "My President" and Eric Holder would lose a night's sleep over it.


(The last sight registered in my cold, dead eyes?  I hope not!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are probably wrong about them loosing a nights sleep. I doubt that they would loose a minutes sleep.