Holder: drone strikes on citizens in U.S Legal
 

Well, well I'll see your, DHS armored cars and drones seen by airline pilots with this.. http://washingtonexaminer.com/eric-h...rticle/2523319 have a nice post consitutional day,..

Anyone planning a wedding should watch out! :o

It should be noted that the Attorney General is not the final authority on what is and ain't legal. The AG is in the Executive Branch and is, in effect, the POTUS' attorney.

The Judicial Branch is the one that determines what is and ain't legal.

Holder saying this is like the head attorney of Exon saying that it is OK to dump oil. Just because he said it is legal does not mean that it is legal.

Conspirator at larger. :shifty:

Nor does it say it doesn't or won't happen.

Sadly, very true. Through out our history, our government has done illegal things or things illegally and not been held accountable. :nope:

Meh. Holder is the Obama administration's Donald Rumsfeld; the guy that talks too much for his own good and loves gnawing on his own foot. America survived Rummy, and we'll be fine with Holder too. I know this likely does not fit into the sky is falling narrative, but for the OP, the sky is always falling.

Drones don't kill people....right?
Drones seem to spark a lot of controversy but you just might consider it as another weapon...like sniper rifle or SWAT team armed to teeth.
So ..

'Striking US citizen in US legal" should be the name of the game here yet drone strike makes it more dramatic and fearsome isn't it?

Fixed. :yep:

It's a bit disconcerting when I find myself on the same side of an issue as yubba and Rand Paul.

Great movie btw Skyfall saw it 2 days ago.....wait...what are we on about here?
*scrolls up*

Ahh......

HunterICX

Biggest problem with folks like that is they marginalize what are often legitimate concerns. We should not let our disdain for the messenger cloud our ability to debate such a provocative issue.

The fact the AG is claiming the right to kill American citizens with drone missiles and that the administration says that "collateral damage" is acceptable is something we should definitely be discussing. It's not how far Holder and Obama would push it but rather how a future AG and President will stretch the limits.

When Income tax was being debated in Congress, at the time just 2% (iirc) one of it's members proposed setting a maximum upper limit of 10% but the amendment failed because nobody wanted to imply that it could actually go that high. Too bad for all of us.

Yeah, you see this is what I'm talking about. More than likely Holder was referring to terrorist cells operating within the US. What people then do make the slippery slope argument, and then the sky is falling. Before you know it, you're believing in Bush's secret Illuminati castles in Colarado or Obama's Hitler Youth army. People love their hysteria, and this forum is becoming saturated with it.

The slippery slope argument is a valid one. Every government stretches the limits of what is legal and acceptable.

Bush did it with the creation of the Guantanamo prison. Obama is now doing it by claiming the right to kill American citizens here in the states by surprise missile attack. How far will the next POTUS push it? We can't let the yubbas of the world keep us from discussing and setting limits. After all Obamas hitler youth army might not exist but that doesn't mean we should let a future president create one.

Lets say there is car heading for Washington with big big bomb in it and it needs to be taken out , how would you prefer it done with f16 or Apache helicopter to make you feel better or the fearsome terminator drone?
Should you send hasty swat team and risk complications instead?
What would you do to make your self feel better asuming that this is not all some evil scheme of the government?
Also i see those post about drone surveillance while people don't mind their picters being taken every where they go by conventional cameras.
Just put world drone next to something and here we go.....

It's not the means that concern people. It's the fact that the executive branch can unilaterally act as judge, jury and executioner of American citizens on American soil.

How do you know this car has a big bomb in it? What about everyone else on the road? Do you wait until he slows down at a crowded toll booth before dropping the hellfires?

As for cameras, big difference between a camera and a missile. Besides I know when a conventional camera is peeking though my window because it's impossible to miss the police helicopter it'd be mounted on. Not really possible with drone the size of a fly which is what they'll have before very long.

Best to create the limits and the prohibitions now before they hit the market.

Well said.

Yes it is something to be concerned with but i don't really thing that in current system the government could do it every Monday without being investigated.

...last minute intel or what ever.
Assuming your POTUS is not some evil bastard this is a difficult decision he would be faced with...if wrong he would be put to lynch if right would be a hero...probably.

Just as a quick pre-amble. I am not in support of civilian authorities use of drones as a surveillance instrument, however, I can see why it is done, and the major advantages that it brings.


The big sticking point is that if drone surveillance be it armed or otherwise can stop major loss of life through a large scale terrorist attack, then do the ends justify the means?

In fact, I think that THIS question, above all others (Do the ends justify the means) is the question that we are now facing as we enter the 21st century in a state of siege against radicalism. No matter what we do, there will always a countermeasure under development against it. At the moment drones have an advantage, but rapidly they are becoming vulnerable to spoofing and hijacking, there will be breakthroughs in the future in more secure drones, but equally there will be counter-breakthroughs in hacking.

Society itself, however, is becoming more and more open, people are, in the whole, more ambivalent towards surveillence than they used to be. Remember the big hoo-hah when CCTVs began springing up on street corners, nowadays people rarely give them a second thought but once upon a time people were concerned that it would be the start of a police state. Sites like Facebook and Twitter make it easier for the next generation to move into a very open society, on the internet there is no such thing as a secret, 4chan has proven this, if you wrong them, then they can find your address, your social security number, your place of work and telephone number within a day. A man once anonymously posted a photograph of himself standing barefoot in a crate of lettuce in a Burger King restaurant saying "This is what they serve you", and within a very short time, using just the photograph of his feet, the crate, the lettuce and the floor, 4chan were able to locate the place and the person.

Our generation will likely be the last to place such a high value on secrecy, as ease of access trumps security and the attitude of 'those things happen to other people, not me' grows. Although there may be a second rise of 'luddites' who shun the open web in fear of the invasion of privacy that it brings, the roots of this sort of movement are visible now in people who decide to disengage from social media and items such as 'Steam' because of a mistrust of the safety of their information.

The problem is, this is a natural progression, before the internet big companies already had your details, and before them, the government, and before that the local barons and lords. There has rarely been pure secrecy from those who would call themselves your superiors, unless you are one of the few who are able to live 'off the grid' or you've become a hermit.

So, coming back to the drones, I can't see them going away, and in fact I can see them getting smaller and more prevalent in our lives, and I can also see people getting used to them as a background object, not to be worried about until the day it directly impacts your life in a positive or negative manner. Certainly there may come a time when a major terrorist attack is foiled through the use of drones, and this will in the media and general public give a positive vote to their use and operation. The mantra will be 'If you haven't done anything wrong then you've got nothing to worry about', but in reality the drones will likely be more used to detect and prosecute minor criminal activity because the major players will have developed methods to foil the drones, as they are already doing in places like Mali, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Then it will be looking for the next great detection device, thought patterns? Detection of future crimes before they happen? ID cards? (very likely in my opinion within the next 100 years, although they will probably be chips rather than cards and will also tie into consumerism and finances, so to buy something you just wave your hand in front of a scanner and bang, done, or it can be used to unlock your door, or car, or gun.) There are many pros and cons in the future of surveillance, better public security and safety, but greater authority control over personal data, greater chances of personal data theft or duplicity. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Or is it a continuation of a trend that has been going since the dawn of society?

Time will tell, but I imagine that in a hundred years time, there will be people sitting on this forum, in some manner, debating over the new ID system, or the new weapons that the NYPD has that can seek out and take down a criminal simply by using his DNA. It is the logical trend, and will continue long after we and our children have left this Earth. As I said in another thread, there is no stopping this freight train.