This article is terrible. It's clearly designed to make people think that the suspect is targeted for execution via drone. The reality is that they're just trying to find him. They'll have an IR camera in the air to help search in the woods where the guy is hiding.
The guy claimed that he has a shoulder-launched surface to air missile and that he'll shoot down any helicopters that come looking for him! It's no wonder that police would rather use an unmanned aircraft instead of putting one of their pilots at risk!
Look at the comment threads here to see why a story like that sells; plenty of people on HN really want to believe that Obama is deploying drones armed with ABEMSPKEROIII2#$* missiles against random people in the United States, because that's convenient for them. They think we live in a Tony Scott movie.
According to the article they're using drones to look for him. I would be extremely surprised if they were to attack him with one. In any case, Obama does not have, or claim the authority to take him down with a drone; his actions against terrorists elsewhere are based on the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which is explicitly limited to members of the organization involved in the 9/11/2001 attacks.
I think you're conflating drone strikes against foreign nationals with the (very few) strikes that implicated American citizens. The former set is not bounded by Al Qaeda membership. The latter set is.
The drones they're using are unarmed. Right now though the only US armed drones employ missiles, and southern California isn't exactly Afghanistan. I can't imagine them risking the massive collateral damage in LA or Big Bear from firing a missile (meant for attacking structures or armor) at a single human.
So if Obama give the thumbs up we can just execute the suspect on the spot.
Edit: sure, downvote me, but what I said is actually 100% true. http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-jus... The legal reasoning supporting execution of Al Queda leaders who are US citizens overseas holds true completely for any anti-American people on US soil
No, it is absolutely not true. Even in the fictional universe in which armed drones had been deployed, Obama does not have the authority to use them against Americans unaffiliated with Al Qaeda or while they are on American soil even if they are affiliated with Al Qaeda. The power Obama has to order drone strikes derives from the AUMF that put us at war in Afghanistan and is structurally identical to the power FDR used to order bombings in Europe during WW2.
You are more or less parroting conspiracy theories from the Internet.
You're absolutely right, and people are being very hyperbolic. However: Obama's power to launch a targeted strike against an American citizen does not exactly "derive from the AUMF." It derives from the Obama administration's interpretation of the AUMF (and other law). That interpretation may or may not be constitutionally correct, and at no point was this administration forced to argue the constitutionality of the strike before carrying it out. Even if we accept that the AUMF granted Obama the right to kill an American citizen abroad, Obama is making constitutionally controversial decisions without oversight.
Although the white paper justifying the Aulaqi assassination did not argue that the assassination of non-Al-Qaeda citizens within the U.S. would be justified, many people are concerned that this sort of oversight-free executive decision-making sets a bad precedent, and that eventually some president might use similar arguments to justify drone strikes against American citizens.
I think I mostly agree with you, and if we diverge, it's because where you trace the problem back to an overreaching executive branch, I trace it to a legislative branch that was willing to declare war on a state of mind rather than a sovereign state.
Don't see anything about these drones being armed. However, I'm sure there is some obscure way to justify it either because of his prior use of deadly force or military training or both...
This is a really disturbing case on many levels. Drones are just extra food for speculation and media attention.
There's no justification for killing an innocent man. The 'manhunt' is of an innocent man, which status he maintains until found guilty in a court of law by a jury of his peers. That's the standard. Or at least it was once the standard. Now the "legal" system of the USA seems to be all about coercing guilty pleas and adding people to secret lists while sweeping corruption and fraud under the rug.
The government is more likely to fire an APKWSII based missile from a drone in an attempt to kill him from the air than it is to bring him in alive for a trial.
No it isn't, and you're mistaken. Go read the White Paper in which the legal reasoning is laid out; Dorner would not fall within the scope of the AUMF.
The victims of US executions are not required to be covered under AUMF: "the Department does not believe that US citizenship would immunize a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or its associated forces from use of force abroad authorized by the AUMF or in national self-defense". So, the "or in national self-defense" clause would apply here. And also a careful reading reveals that nothing hinges on it being Al Qaida specifically. Attacking US law enforcement would easily be reason. And none of this requires due process so this whole argument is moot anyhow.
First, you are reading a legal brief, not a judicial decision or legislation. Briefs are written to throw every argument against the wall that can possibly stick.
Second, you're misreading the brief, which places the entire drone program into the context of the "war" with Al Qaeda and the AUMF.
Third, the 2012 NDAA, which I now ironically find I get to use to squelch a conspiracy theory instead of watching it used as an accelerant for one, makes this issue clear: must be affiliated with Al Qaeda, must not be on US soil.
Administrative consideration often is the due process. If you look into decisions by courts on administrative law, you'll find that 'due process' is by no means limited to the judicial branch. A lot of people seem to think 'due' is practically an abbreviation of 'judicial.' It isn't.
I disagree; the word "abroad" above implies this justification only holds off of U.S. soil. "National self-defense," further, implies a national security threat, which one fugitive clearly is not. He is also not a member of al-Qa'ida, and I that language seems specific to that organization.
I agree with your point about due process; it does not take a presidential order to kill an alleged cop-killer; cops kill suspects all the time in the name of self defense or danger to others.
From the memo: "There is little judicial or other authoritative precedent that speaks directly to the question of the geographic scope of a non-international armed conflict [...] the myopic focus on the geographic nature of an armed conflict in the context of the transnational counterterrorist combat operations serves to frustrate that purpose"
They mean as opposed to within the borders of Afghanistan. As you may recall, drones have been heavily employed in Pakistan, and to a lesser extent in Yemen.
That passage still explicitly applies to citizens associated with al-Qa'ida. Killing police officers does not associate someone with al-Qa'ida. This interpretation of the law is entirely in your head and has never been espoused by any US official in words or in practice.
They say Al Qaida but none of the legal reasoning relies on it being Al Qaida. It's all about anyone who threats the US, whether an immediate one or not, and they even say such threats need not have clear evidence.
"an 'imminent' threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future"
"A lethal operation against an enemy leader undertaken in national self-defense [...] would fall within a well established variant of public authority justification and therefore would not be murder" ... no mention of Al Qaida. Again, the theory behind this has nothing to do with them.
Just happened to read this[1] article today--apparently the first was back in 2011:
In June 2011 a county sheriff in North Dakota was trying to track down three men, possibly carrying guns, in connection with some missing cows. He had a lot of ground to cover, so — as one does — he called in a Predator drone from a local Air Force base. It not only spotted the men but could see that they were in fact unarmed. It was the first time a Predator had been involved in the arrest of U.S. citizens
The border patrol has been using drones for quite a while to track humans on US soil. The only real difference in this case is they are trying to keep someone in instead of keep someone out.
Not only that, but the general touchiness about drones is misplaced anyway. The problem with drone strikes isn't the drones per se, it's being aggressive about killing people and the collateral damage that causes. It doesn't really matter whether there's a guy in the airplane or not.
It's a pity they don't include his full manifesto ( http://christopher-dorner.com/christopher-dorners-manifesto-... ). He has a lot of support on the internet and in the LA community.
I've heard him being called black Rambo (the one from Rambo I).
Basically he is on a revenge rampage on corrupted LAPD officers.
He deliberately murdered an unarmed woman because she was a blood relative of an LAPD official. Anyone who says they support him has revealed something unbecoming about themselves.
The guy claimed that he has a shoulder-launched surface to air missile and that he'll shoot down any helicopters that come looking for him! It's no wonder that police would rather use an unmanned aircraft instead of putting one of their pilots at risk!
Here's an article that includes actual news, rather than inflammatory headlines: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/376732/Man-hunt-for-ex-s...