Please read the full article, and the memo if possible. Even if you have full trust in Obama and our government in general... this has to set off a warning or two. Its effectively saying that important people can drone-strike an American if they believe they are an "imminent threat". That may very well mean they are a proven terrorist who has killed hundreds, but frankly its worded waaaay too loosely for my liking.

"Gun violence poses an imminent threat to the very fabric of American society." That's been the word lately.

"Those that possess assault weapons in violation of the weapons ban contribute to that threat." Makes sense in the context of the weapons ban we all know is coming.

"Therefore those who possess guns are an imminent threat to society." Logical conclusion.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

As much as I don't like this, the founding fathers seem to think that people imposing imminent threats should be handled differently.

Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution
"The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Nor does it fall under the Assassination Ban Executive Order 12333 enacted by Reagan. During the Clinton years assassination limits were redefined to exempt self-defense retaliation.


W. Bush would also introduce Executive Orders to enhance the powers of our Director of National Intelligence. Obama's DNI, Dennis Blair, had this to say:



I'm not justifying any of it, but its been in the making for awhile.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." Benjamin Franklin

Its a fine quote, but what happens when liberty gets in the way of life and the pursuit of happiness? Sometimes all three can't coexist.

Historically, our nation has traded life (lives) for liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That's why we have a volunteer military. We signed up to possibly give up our lives for your pursuit of happiness, life and liberty.

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2013 AAR: Chris Harper

My interpretation of the quote is that if we are willing to give up a basic right (in this case the right to a fair trial) in order to feel safer, we will lose both the right and our safety. The slope is slippery. In the pursuit of safety, our government has already infringed on our civil rights - illegal wiretaps, search and seizure, and now summary execution.



There are processes in place to insure the balance of the three. We cannot allow these processes to be bypassed.

The 3rd, 4th, and 5th Amendment allude to our right of privacy, but there should be an Amendment laying that right out clearly.

Without liberty or the pursuit of happiness there is still life. Without life there is no liberty and no pursuit of happiness. Soldiers and law enforcement giving up their lives for the country are giving up their most important right for the rest of us to enjoy all three.

The liberty to own firearms is consistently superceding the right to life of many Americans. Our nation is great because of these basic, innate rights, but they are not all three equal.

And when someone takes away the right to life by killing someone with that firearm, then they are given their due process and penalized as is set forth under our legal system.

You can't stop criminals from committing the crimes. You can only punish them after the fact. Taking away a right under the constitution because you believe that it will help stop criminal activity isn't how it's set up to work. You take away the rights of the criminals, NOT the law abiding citizens.

You can punish them before the fact. That's what this whole thread is about.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with Kid here (or him with me!!).

The second amendment has been argued (ad nauseam) in several other threads. Wouldn't want this thread to be taken over. This is about the government deciding to execute a citizen without due process. Heck, I could see an argument for conviction in absentia, but not a summary execution.

If you seriously believe that a person can and should be punished before they do anything wrong, then I think we are done here

Agreed. American citizens should be afforded the right to due process, no matter what. One man's terrorist is another man's patriot.

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

Also the DOHS has been stockpiling ammunition for quite a while now, a large number of them hollow point bullets. I've heard counts of up to 1.4 billion rounds of ammunition. The department of agriculture, social security department, department of education, and the IRS have all been ordering bullets like crazy over the last 3 years or so. I honestly have no idea as to why, but I doubt it could be a good reason. It's especially puzzling when you learn that the use of hollow points in war violates the Geneva convention. Check the facts yourself please.



There are quite a few articles about this you can find, just search whatever news site or channel you watch followed by stockpiling of bullets and you can find many of them confirming this.

The Geneva Convention only applies to wars between countries. "Police efforts" are excluded.

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Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro

He is hold back the legion of boom - skater18000

This is why I love the ACLU - here to protect our civil rights!!

Just had to throw that out there to see if Kid and Smokin are going to continue being my "yes men!"

Sure, it's a great idea! Legally the term would be "Precedential Guilt" - the commission of an act which leads to the creation of law, making that act a crime. If subsequent individuals will be punished for commission of the same crime, those which committed acts leading to the creation of said law should be held retroactively to the same standard.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

Sorry to sidetrack from the debate of drone use on Americans, but when reading the article linked above from NBC, it talked about Social Security buying 174,000 rounds of hollow point bullets. It said they totaled about 590 per agent they have to investigate fraud and other illegal activities associated with the agency. They go on to add that most of these rounds will be fired at the firing range. Now, I don't have a problem with the purchase of bullets for officers, but why expend the more expensive hollow point rounds at the range? You'd think with the sheer amount of bullets purchased for law enforcement across the nation, that it would be "penny-wise" to purchase a cheaper bullet to use in the ranges and save the hollow points for use when actually on duty.