gallantwarrior
Gold Member
Eric Holder, one of Obama's right-hand henchmen, has openly addressed the legality, the Constitutionality, of having killed al Awlaki, an American citizen.
"The Fifth Amendment provides that no one can be "deprived of life" without due process of law. But that due process, Holder said, doesn't necessarily come from a court.
"Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process," the attorney general said."
While I fully agree that some serious charges could have been made against al Awalaki due to his anti-American, terrorist activities, I do not believe that due process was executed. Now Holder, as an extension of the Obama administration, is suing to grant the president the power to secretly declare any American citizen an enemy of the state and order their extrajudicial killing. Does conveying this type of power to any one person scare any of you?
U.S. News - Holder: US can legally kill Americans in terror groups
"The Fifth Amendment provides that no one can be "deprived of life" without due process of law. But that due process, Holder said, doesn't necessarily come from a court.
"Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process," the attorney general said."
While I fully agree that some serious charges could have been made against al Awalaki due to his anti-American, terrorist activities, I do not believe that due process was executed. Now Holder, as an extension of the Obama administration, is suing to grant the president the power to secretly declare any American citizen an enemy of the state and order their extrajudicial killing. Does conveying this type of power to any one person scare any of you?
U.S. News - Holder: US can legally kill Americans in terror groups
Treason was specifically defined in the United States Constitution, the only crime so defined. Article III Section 3 delineates treason as follows:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
However, Congress has, at times, passed statutes creating related offenses that undermine the government or the national security, such as sedition in the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, or espionage and sedition in the 1917 Espionage Act, which do not require the testimony of two witnesses and have a much broader definition than Article Three treason. For example, some well-known spies have been convicted of espionage rather than treason.