So, news of Rand Paul’s filibuster has been seeping into my consciousness. What I’ve heard is that he is conducting a real filibuster – all talk, all the time. Good on that. I’ve also heard that he’s protesting that the Obama administration is claiming the authority to kill citizens. OMFG! But, I actually clicked through to Holder’s letter to Paul which said:
On February 20, 2013, you wrote John Brennan requesting additional information concerning the administration’s view about whether the President has the power to authorize lethal force such as a drone strike against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil without trial.
As members of this Administration have previously indicated, the U.S. 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 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 of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.
Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of his authority.
That’s the response that has him all worked up over an out of control government?
I’m all for Congress imposing more structural restraints on the war powers of the executive branch; for beefing up the due process rights of U.S. citizens; and improving the transparency of the federal government. Close Guantanamo, get rid of the mass wiretapping by the NSA, repeal the USA PATRIOT act. Legislate against existing, real world abuses.
But I’m baffled by a mindset that sees that mild response to a hypothetical scenario as a sign of impending tyranny when other, more routine abuses, actually exist and could stand legislative attention.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
The issue that’s the subject of Paul’s filibuster is certainly worth debating, although I would tend to agree about the “grandstanding” elements. So far as “hypothetical situations” go, I seem to remember some about the legality/morality of torture/waterboarding that involved a “ticking time bomb” situation. A number of shoes in that debate seem to be on the other foot this time around.
Paranoia runs deep in shallow minds.
Assuming that Holder answered in one clear declarative sentence, what would it prove? I understand why Republicans want to forget George W. Bush ever existed, but there’s a textbook case of the Executive being a law unto itself once it declares an emergency, innit? Such a statement would be rendered inoperative the moment it was rendered inconvenient.
Drones are machines that are capable of doing XYZ things, all of which are certainly capable of being done, and are currently being done by other machines, and by actual people. If we could send Fred, carrying a machine, to fire at Ralph, then logically, we could also give Fred a joystick with which to fire something at Ralph. Perhaps we ought to explore the question of under what circumstances we can send Fred out to fire something at Ralph in the first place, but focusing on the specific machine simply exploits the Henry Adamsish idea that it’s a new machine that’s not very fixed in our psyche yet. The simplest response, and I think we’ll come to it in the end, is to place the firing of things under the Dept. of Defense, and the non-military ‘taking of pictures of things” under the CIA.
At Balloon-Juice, mrmix makes an astute observation:
Let him keep talking. Every time he opens his mouth we know more about him, because:
“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.” ~ Maurice Switzer
And the source? http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/17/remain-silent/
The question is whether the government can kill people without due process. Mr Obama and Mr Holder claim the US government can kill people, on US soil, without due process – i.e., no judiciary involvement or oversight.
Stop being a pantywaist liberal Obama backer for a moment, and think about the impact of that policy.
Quit wetting your pants over boogeymen. There are real problems that should be addressed.
Of course there are situations where the federal government can use lethal force against U.S. citizens without a trial. Let’s say a guy is pointing a gun at the President. Are you saying that the Secret Service couldn’t shoot the guy without having a trial first?
You think President Lincoln arraigned and tried every Confederate committing treason against the United States before a U.S. soldier put a bullet in their head?
+1.
The hypothetical that Rand baited Brennan and Holder with received an adequate response. In the response to the hypothetical, the answere presuposses a situation where lawful civil authority would not exist and martial law could and probably would be declared.
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 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 of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.
Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of his authority
You are a made man, Dog. You can checkout, but you can never leave.
Someday, and that someday may never come, Carlito may ask for a favor from you. And with a name like Carlito, he only asks once.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/03/05/the-fixs-best-state-based-political-blogs-list-is-here/
Indiana
Masson’s Blog
Indy Politics
Hoosier Access
Howey Politics
Hehe. Yup. I’m kind of a big deal.
I teach online healthlaw classes. There is a common saying in the healthcare workplace and the classroom, “save your drama for your lama.”
Perhaps Paul should just save his drama for Obama.
One of my favorite kid’s books to read (mostly when the kids were couple of years younger) was Llama Llama Red Pajama. That book also spoke of llama drama.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/07/1684111/rand-paul-all-laws-protecting-workers-are-constitutionally-suspect/
This defies credulity. Paul calls the Lochner case a “wonderful decision.”
Nevertheless, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) took several minutes out of his lengthy talking filibuster yesterday to praise this “abomination” of a decision on the Senate floor:
You get to the Lochner case. The Lochner case is in 1905. The majority rules 5-4 that the right to make a contract is part of your due process. Someone cannot deprive you of determining how long your working hours are without due process. So President Obama’s a big opponent to this, but I would ask him — among the other things I’m asking him today — to rethink the Lochner case. . . . I think it’s a wonderful decision.
Paul must not have gotten the memo that Locher was overruled and Lochner is right up there with Dred Scott and the Japanese Confinement cases in WWII as a discredited case.
How on earth can people so clueless about law (and most everything else) get elected?
What I like to imagine Paul’s foreign affairs/ defense legislative assistant saying after reading the Attorney General’s response:
“So…..what your saying is that there’s a chance….?”
Moreover, if – in the most infinite of remote chances – there was a “terrorist” within the Borders of the United States, CIA would not be in charge of that investigation. CIA is in charge of investigations internationally. NSA is internal (see patriot act conspiracy blogs) with FBI backup. Further, due to Supreme Court precedent, these individuals wouldn’t be allowed to have the protections of the Constitution – see Ex Parte Quirin. So exactly what is the Senator from KY railing out? Who knows, but isn’t it nice to see an actual filibuster rather than the secret blue notes passed behind closed doors?
Agree with that. It’d be nice to require all of our filibusters to be spoken.
Dog, the Paul speech sounded better in his native Pig Latin.
Yep. If Sen. Reid would ever show some of that supposed backbone he has when he goes back to Nevada and shoots clay shots with his 12 gauge, he’d pull the trigger and force the minority to actually filibuster rather than agree to 60 vote thresholds for cloture ON EVERYTHING.
But what do I know?
I see that Rubio, the Republican’s non-fair haired, “fair-haired buy,” had to chime in on the filibuster.
No.