Free Talk Live

The big news this week is a secret memo from the Justice Department titled, “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen.” It was leaked to NBC News, and details the legal justification the Obama Administration believes legitimizes drone strikes on American citizens. When this story broke, most people’s first thought was of Imam Anwar al Awlaki and his 16 year old son, two American citizens assassinated in Yemen by the Obama Administration in two distinct drone strikes, but my first thought was the Free State Project.

Drone Striker in Chief is questioned by CNN on his kill list, he claims "national security" and says he can't tell people whether or not he is killing anyone. The reporter asks him "are the standards different when the target's an American?" Interestingly, while implicitly acknowledging his kill list exists, he lies and says "as an American citizen, they are subject to the protections of the constitution and due process."

For the first time in history, an American president has officially ordered the assassination of a US citizen. President Barack Obama has approved the “targeted killing” of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric who is reported to be in hiding in Yemen.

President Barack Obama ramped up drone strikes in Pakistan when he took office in 2009. There were 53 attacks that year, more than in the previous five years combined. Many Pakistanis oppose the attacks because they believe they mostly kill civilians, an allegation denied by the U.S. Independent research indicates that a majority of those killed are militants, but civilian casualties also occur.

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed.

A new report on the secret U.S. drone war in Pakistan says the attacks have killed far more civilians than acknowledged, traumatized a nation and undermined international law. In "Living Under Drones," researchers conclude the drone strikes "terrorize men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities." The study concludes that most of the militants killed in the strikes have been low-level targets whose deaths have failed to make the United States any safer.

Recently, Obama’s been quoted as saying “No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” yet, this comes from a man who…you know… regularly authorizes the raining down of drone bombs onto citizens in Yemen and Pakistan. This is not ‘The Onion’, people, this is ‘Reality Check’ with Ben Swann.

Remember when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) stood up on the Senate floor for nearly 13 hours in an ideological protest of the Obama administration’s hypothetical authority to use drone technology to kill U.S. citizens on American soil? Well, now he’s saying killing a certain U.S. citizen on some specific American soil in Watertown, Massachusetts last Friday may not have been the worst thing in the world.

A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.