US Justice Department Official: Executive Branch Holds No Accountability to Courts Over Drone Strikes

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Paul Lawrance


Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the United States District Court challenged the Obama administration’s claim that courts have no power over targeted drone killings of American citizens overseas last week during a hearing where the government requested to dismiss a lawsuit filed by relatives of three Americans killed in two drone strikes in Yemen.

On Friday Judge Collyer asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brain Hauck, “Are you saying that a US citizen targeted by the United States in a foreign country has no constitutional rights?”

She continued, "How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen? Where is the limit to this?”

Collyer answered her own question by saying, “The limit is the courthouse door.”

The disposition matrix: more details about Obama’s secret drone kill list, major mysteries remain

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Madison Ruppert

With new details about the Obama administration’s secret drone kill list known as the “disposition matrix” revealed, even more mystery and concern remains.

We have never known all that much about how the secret kill list works, as I pointed out in my first article on the subject in 2011. Since that time, attempts to learn more were repeatedly thwarted in court until a federal judge finally ruled that the Obama administration never has to explain the legal basis for the program.

However, Attorney General Eric Holder has assured the world that the secret reviews of classified evidence based on secret criteria conducted in secret by unidentified individuals count as due process.

The “disposition matrix” term was first made public in an October 2012 article in The Washington Post which identified the matrix as “a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list.”

Support and opposition arises for FISA-style secret court to oversee drone assassinations

Madison Ruppert, Contributor

In response to the disturbing reality that Americans can be killed by the federal government without charge or trial – or even clear evidence – some are pushing for oversight of the drone assassination program.

Currently, the government claims that they can say there is “due process” when unnamed Obama administration individuals secretly review classified evidence and declare the authority to assassinate Americans and others.

While the Obama administration claimed they were going to release the contested legal memos to intelligence committees outlining the justification for the so-called targeted killing program carried out by drones in Yemen (via a base in Saudi Arabia) and elsewhere, these memos have not been released for scrutiny in the court system.

The response to what the New York Times calls “the hidden bureaucracy directing lethal drone strikes” appears to be even more hidden bureaucracy in the style of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), built upon the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

US apologizes for more Afghan 'kill team' photos

Der Spiegel/Wikimedia Commons image

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military apologized again Monday after Rolling Stone published more photos and videos of members of an alleged rogue army unit "kill team" accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport.

A week after one soldier was jailed after striking a plea bargain to testify against the alleged ringleader, the weekly magazine published a series of graphic images and a long story including extensive detail of the allegations.

"The photos published by Rolling Stone are disturbing and in striking contrast to the standards and values of the United States Army," said a Pentagon statement.

US soldier pleads guilty over Afghan killings

US Corporal Jeremy Morlock
© AFP/US Army/File

AFP

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Washington (AFP) - A US soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to targeting Afghan civilians for execution, as part of a rogue US army unit in southern Afghanistan last year.

Corporal Jeremy Morlock, who is set to testify against four co-accused, admitted murdering or helping to kill three men, and using illegally obtained Afghan weapons to make it appear that the victims were enemy combatants.

Morlock is the first soldier to face court martial out of five members of a rogue US Army unit from the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Division's Stryker brigade, based out of Fort Lewis, Washington.

They were deployed in the southern Kandahar region of Afghanistan over several months early last year.

US army apologizes for Afghanistan abuse pictures

© AFP Peter Parks

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Army on Monday formally apologized "for the distress" caused by pictures portraying abuse allegedly committed by American troops serving in Afghanistan.

"We apologize for the distress these photos cause," said a statement released by the Army.

German weekly Der Spiegel earlier Monday published photos that it said showed two US soldiers in Afghanistan from a rogue army unit posing with dead Afghans.

Two photos, which Spiegel said US authorities had sought to keep secret, appear to show two members of a unit that allegedly killed Afghan civilians for sport.