US can take out "American Terrorists"

[sharingwisdom]

License to Kill? Intelligence Chief Says U.S. Can Take Out American Terrorists
February 3, 2010, ABC News
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/license-kill-intelligence-chief... (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/license-kill-intelligence-chief-us-american-terrorist/story?id=9740491&page=1)

The director of national intelligence affirmed rather bluntly today that the U.S. intelligence community has authority to target American citizens for assassination if they present a direct terrorist threat to the United States. "We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community; if we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee. "Whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American ... is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved." Blair explained.



According to U.S. officials, only a handful of Americans would be eligible for targeting by U.S. intelligence or military operations. The DNI said that Internet and social media sites have become critical to terrorism recruitment efforts. "The homegrown radicalization of people in the United States is a relatively new thing." Blair said U.S. intelligence was rapidly working to counter the emerging problem.



Note: To read a valuable commentary on Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair's claimed "war exception" to the Constitution, permitting assassination of American citizens by the US military and intelligence services without judicial review or legal process of any kind, Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com (https://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/04/assassinations/index.html)
For the views of several legal experts RIGHTS: Legal Experts Slam "Targeted Killings" of US Citizens (https://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=2835)

[LenInSebastopol]

Obviously thinking in old world terms of "nations" and warring with such. This kind of "war" is not so since there's no geography, no uniforms, no head guy or gal.
I kind of agree with Osama: get out of Saudi Arabia, get out of Israel (although I am not clear with that so easily since I don't know why we are there) and all will be jake. That was his original message; and I notice finding his later ones are getting tougher. I wonder our gov't will modify that and kill us on our own soil? Spooky.

[justme]

Who decides the definition of "threat"? :hmmm:

[LenInSebastopol]

A bunch of guys in a room. Why? Feel it?
In the real world I would well imagine that the guys that are threatening the termination of life-as-we-know-it-by- violent-means know who they are. No? Or do you think they will lower the standards to, say, leaving a shopping cart in the parking space at the market?

[Hot Compost]

so by "take out" they're not talking about buying you dinner ... i gather.

[Valley Oak]

Gee, with all of the stuff that I say I certainly hope I'm not on the government's hit list. I survived 8 years of Republican administration. I think I'll do alright under Obama's.

Edward



License to Kill? Intelligence Chief Says U.S. Can Take Out American Terrorists
February 3, 2010, ABC News
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/license-kill-intelligence-chief... (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/license-kill-intelligence-chief-us-american-terrorist/story?id=9740491&page=1)

The director of national intelligence affirmed rather bluntly today that the U.S. intelligence community has authority to target American citizens for assassination if they present a direct terrorist threat to the United States. "We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community; if we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee. "Whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American ... is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved." Blair explained.



According to U.S. officials, only a handful of Americans would be eligible for targeting by U.S. intelligence or military operations. The DNI said that Internet and social media sites have become critical to terrorism recruitment efforts. "The homegrown radicalization of people in the United States is a relatively new thing." Blair said U.S. intelligence was rapidly working to counter the emerging problem.



Note: To read a valuable commentary on Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair's claimed "war exception" to the Constitution, permitting assassination of American citizens by the US military and intelligence services without judicial review or legal process of any kind, Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com (https://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/04/assassinations/index.html)
For the views of several legal experts RIGHTS: Legal Experts Slam "Targeted Killings" of US Citizens (https://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=2835)

[LenInSebastopol]

Gee, with all of the stuff that I say I certainly hope I'm not on the government's hit list. I survived 8 years of Republican administration. I think I'll do alright under Obama's.Edward

V.O., it's clear we don't persactly agree on much, but when they come to take you away we'll be standing side by side saying, "Come get me, copper". Of course that means being your self, walking, talking and posting will be illegal then. And with THIS administration it damn may well be! Don't "believe" in any of those bums voted in.

[Valley Oak]

Thank you for your solidarity. I didn't see it coming.
;0)

Nonetheless, I get the feeling that you very easily believe that this administration is far more capable of violating our fundamental human rights than the previous government, despite the fact that Bush tortured, kidnapped (extraordinary rendition), suspended habeas corpus, pushed through an intimidated congress both Patriot Acts, so on and so on.

I feel much, much more secure now with Obama as president than I ever did during the 8 years with Bush in office, in every way. Under Bush, I honestly feel that my phone has been tapped, my email read, etc. And yes, I do believe it so because of the highly controversial subjects that I comment on and the even more controversial positions that I take. They used systems that would weed out words and combinations of words in peoples' emails and phone conversations. There is no doubt in my mind that I have been surveilled.

I'm not saying that the instant that Obama walked into the Oval Office that he had me in mind and made a direct call for the authorities to stop watching over me. There is a good chance that they are still doing so. But again, I still feel far more secure under Obama than under Bush.

Edward



V.O., it's clear we don't persactly agree on much, but when they come to take you away we'll be standing side by side saying, "Come get me, copper". Of course that means being your self, walking, talking and posting will be illegal then. And with THIS administration it damn may well be! Don't "believe" in any of those bums voted in.

[sharingwisdom]

I've been keeping tabs on the Obama Administration since it started just to see if and how things could really change. I've kept a list of articles from verifiable newspapers. Now I'm a firm believer that the US media is extremely censored and that the appearance of two political parties is just that...an appearance...the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome. But in all fairness to being open, I thought the possibility of the media reporting what really is going on would be....hmmm...interesting. So here is only my partial list, which isn't even sourced from Project Censored, enough to get the point across. (And I do believe in change and transformation but rather it not come through struggle, hardship, denial and lies...thus wake-up time for humanity)

Biotech "Yes Men" on Obama's team threaten to expand the use of dangerous genetically modified (GM) foods in our diets.
Jeffrey Smith: Obama's Team Includes Dangerous Biotech "Yes Men" (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/obamas-team-includes-dang_b_147188.html)


Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool
Although Obama has issued orders banning torture and closing secret CIA prisons, his administration has sent mixed signals on extraordinary rendition and the legitimacy of court challenges. Obama's nominee for CIA director, Leon Panetta, said last week that he approved of rendition for foreign prosecution or brief CIA detention. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-rendition1-2009feb01,0,4661244.story (https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-rendition1-2009feb01,0,4661244.story)
https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/09/BAGS15QB5B.DTL (https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/09/BAGS15QB5B.DTL)


Obama's NSC Will Get New Power
February 8, 2009, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/07/AR2009020702076.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/07/AR2009020702076.html) President Obama plans to order a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Council, expanding its membership and increasing its authority to set strategy across a wide spectrum of international and domestic issues. The result will be a "dramatically different" NSC from that of the Bush administration or any of its predecessors since the forum was established after World War II ... according to national security adviser James L. Jones, who described the changes in an interview. Jones, a retired Marine general, made it clear that he will run the process and be the primary conduit of national security advice to Obama. The new structure ... will expand the NSC's reach far beyond the range of traditional foreign policy issues


Goldman, JPMorgan Won’t Feel Effects of Executive-Salary Caps
February 5, 2009, Bloomberg News
https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=azVLk.22AkLI (https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=azVLk.22AkLI)<o:p></o:p>
Executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and hundreds of financial institutions receiving federal aid aren’t likely to be affected by pay restrictions announced yesterday by President Barack Obama. The rules, created in response to growing public anger about the record bonuses the financial industry doled out last year, will apply only to top executives at companies that need “exceptional” assistance in the future. The limits aren’t retroactive, meaning firms that have already taken government money won’t be subject to the restrictions unless they have to come back for more.

Obama administration defending Bush secrets
February 16, 2009, MSNBC/Associated Press
https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29225492/ (https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29225492/)<o:p></o:p>
Despite President Barack Obama's vow to open government more than ever, the Justice Department is defending Bush administration decisions to keep secret many documents about domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens, and interrogation of suspected terrorists. "The signs in the last few days are not ... encouraging," said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (https://www.aclu.org/), which filed several lawsuits seeking the Bush administration's legal rationales for warrantless domestic wiretapping and for its treatment of terrorism detainees. The documents sought in these lawsuits "are in many cases the documents that the public most needs to see," Jaffer said. "It makes no sense to say that these documents are somehow exempt from President Obama's directives."

U.S. Won’t Label Terror Suspects as ‘Combatants’
March 14, 2009, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/us/politics/14gitmo.html (https://t.ymlp164.com/eejuatauwjanaqejarahhmm/click.php)<o:p></o:p>
The Obama administration said Friday that it would abandon the Bush administration’s term “enemy combatant” as it argues in court for the continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a move that seemed intended to symbolically separate the new administration from Bush detention policies....The filing, in Federal District Court in Washington, was meant to provide a definition of those detainees who can be held and bitterly disappointed critics of Guantánamo, who said it seemed to continue the policies they have criticized for more than seven years. It was the latest example of the Obama administration’s taking ownership of Guantánamo, even after having announced it would close the prison, where 241 men remain.

U.S. to pull 12,000 troops from Iraq as withdrawal begins
March 9, 2009, Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-troops-violence9-2009mar09,0,6503133.story (https://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-troops-violence9-2009mar09,0,6503133.story)
The Iraq withdrawals are crucial to the administration's plans to devote more military resources to Afghanistan. Senior U.S. national security officials are nearing completion of a strategic review of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, a step that Obama has described as an effort "to stabilize a deteriorating situation." Seven years after the U.S. invasion, Afghanistan's stability is threatened by a renewed Taliban insurgency. Last month, Obama announced plans to send 17,000 additional U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan -- deployments that would more than offset the troop reductions in Iraq.

Handling Of 'State Secrets' At Issue
March 25, 2009, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032403501.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032403501.html)<o:p></o:p>
Civil liberties advocates are accusing the Obama administration of ... adopting the same expansive arguments that his predecessor used to cloak some of the most sensitive intelligence-gathering programs of the Bush White House. The first signs have come just weeks into the new administration, in a case filed by an Oregon charity [accused] of funding terrorism. President Obama's Justice Department not only sought to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing that it implicated "state secrets," but also escalated the standoff -- proposing that government lawyers might take classified documents from the court's custody to keep the charity's representatives from reviewing them.

'Global War On Terror' Is Given New Name
March 25, 2009, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818.html) The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase "global war on terror," a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor. In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation

Days after releasing top-secret memos that detailed the CIA's use of simulated drowning while interrogating terror suspects, President Barack Obama went to the spy agency's Virginia headquarters on Monday to defend his decision and bolster the morale of its employees. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103295254 (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103295254)

Bush's Search Policy For Travelers Is Kept
August 28, 2009, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704065.html (https://t.ymlp74.com/mujbaraeewanauussalahhmm/click.php)<o:p></o:p>
The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>.
It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth <o:p></o:p>
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), French political thinker and historian. <o:p></o:p>


Thank you for your solidarity. I didn't see it coming.
;0)

Nonetheless, I get the feeling that you very easily believe that this administration is far more capable of violating our fundamental human rights than the previous government, despite the fact that Bush tortured, kidnapped (extraordinary rendition), suspended habeas corpus, pushed through an intimidated congress both Patriot Acts, so on and so on.

I feel much, much more secure now with Obama as president than I ever did during the 8 years with Bush in office, in every way. Under Bush, I honestly feel that my phone has been tapped, my email read, etc. And yes, I do believe it so because of the highly controversial subjects that I comment on and the even more controversial positions that I take. They used systems that would weed out words and combinations of words in peoples' emails and phone conversations. There is no doubt in my mind that I have been surveilled.

I'm not saying that the instant that Obama walked into the Oval Office that he had me in mind and made a direct call for the authorities to stop watching over me. There is a good chance that they are still doing so. But again, I still feel far more secure under Obama than under Bush.

Edward

[Valley Oak]

The real changes needed are systemic. We need Proportional Representation, a multi-party model, and a parliamentary cabinet.



I've been keeping tabs on the Obama Administration since it started just to see if and how things could really change. I've kept a list of articles from verifiable newspapers. Now I'm a firm believer that the US media is extremely censored and that the appearance of two political parties is just that...an appearance...the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome. But in all fairness to being open, I thought the possibility of the media reporting what really is going on would be....hmmm...interesting. So here is only my partial list, which isn't even sourced from Project Censored, enough to get the point across. (And I do believe in change and transformation but rather it not come through struggle, hardship, denial and lies...thus wake-up time for humanity).
... <o:p></o:p>

[LenInSebastopol]

This, that or the other administration WILL dent if not deny your stuff. That is what they DO. Partly because they can't help it since we keep voting in the bastards AND we don't take responsibility for making the best person run, keeping their word and proving integrity of character. Only ego maniacs and other sociopaths, backed with special interests ($) throw their hat into the ring.
As for the last guy, and this one as well, most all administrations will keep doing that mentioned below because they are of the mind that we are at war. Probably has an element of truth since others have stated they are warring against US, did stuff and are trying to do more.
Under other iterations some believe that I am not liberal. When it comes to folks doing and being all that, go for it. Truth is, if it don't scare the horses then you are right on the button. It's just that if you come to the public square to present issues, then stand reasonably ready to present, as well as allowing others to do the same.



Thank you for your solidarity. I didn't see it coming. Nonetheless, I get the feeling that you very easily believe that this administration is far more capable of violating our fundamental human rights than the previous government, despite the fact that Bush tortured, kidnapped (extraordinary rendition), suspended habeas corpus, pushed through an intimidated congress both Patriot Acts, so on and so on. I feel much, much more secure now with Obama as president than I ever did during the 8 years with Bush in office, in every way. Under Bush, I honestly feel that my phone has been tapped, my email read, etc. And yes, I do believe it so because of the highly controversial subjects that I comment on and the even more controversial positions that I take. They used systems that would weed out words and combinations of words in peoples' emails and phone conversations. There is no doubt in my mind that I have been surveilled. I'm not saying that the instant that Obama walked into the Oval Office that he had me in mind and made a direct call for the authorities to stop watching over me. There is a good chance that they are still doing so. But again, I still feel far more secure under Obama than under Bush.

Edward