
A Citizen Is Suing the US for Putting Him on the 'Kill List' - matt4077
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/
======
avar
Most of the comments here, and even the article itself shows just how far the
Overton window has moved when it comes to these discussions.

The article makes a few mentions of how perhaps killing non-Americans isn't
fine either:

> We wiped out the Geneva Convention by creating the unlawful enemy combatant,
> a term that simply means a person not protected by the Geneva Convention.

But even for the Rolling Stone the discussion has mostly moved on. The
post-9/11 world of killing people in "warzones" (war was never declared)
without any regard for the Geneva Convention is taken as a given.

~~~
throwaway5752
Okay.. what do we do, declare war on Pakistan in order to prosecute a conflict
in Waziristan? War with Afghanistan to go after violent Taliban factions in
northern provinces? There is not a nation state entity to declare war against,
and for example in Afghanistan you have a national population on the order of
the city of Beijing, and hundreds of the police die there per year in this
internal conflict. The national governments are probably complicit/cooperative
for their own reasons. Also, the Geneva convention has obligations for both
sides of a conflict, and - even though conduct shouldn't be dictated by the
lowest common denominator - it's just not intended for this situation. I think
it's possible to distinguish targeted (however flawed) drone campaigns from
mass casualty bio/chem attacks like are done in Syria (with Russian support)
or other cases.

~~~
pjc50
I think it's worth stepping back and asking the question of why the US is
involved in the conflict there in the first place? And to what extent the US
is _really_ threatened by people on the other side of the planet?

~~~
vorpalhex
> why the US is involved in the conflict there in the first place?

Active and believable threats directed at the US, including sending resources
and fighters to actively engage the US. It'd be great if we could give just
give Iraq a ring and ask them to go shove a boot up these folks other-sides,
but since they're massively losing cities and land to these warlords, they're
not really in a place to handle the situation themselves. Something about a
terrorist group taking large swathes of your land, borderline enslaving your
people into forced labor and selling the pretty ones as "wives" to be raped
endlessly kind of makes it hard to function as a normal country.

> to what extent the US is really threatened by people on the other side of
> the planet?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_li...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_linked_to_ISIL)

\+ June 2016

\+ November 2016

\+ October 2017

~~~
clouddrover
> _Active and believable threats directed at the US_

American police kill more Americans than do terrorists. I'd call that an
active and believable threat:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police-
shootings-2018/)

[https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-americans-do-cops-kill-
eac...](https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-americans-do-cops-kill-each-
year-480712)

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/counted-us-
police...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/counted-us-police-
killings)

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-karabel/police-
killing...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-karabel/police-killings-
lynchings-capital-punishment_b_8462778.html)

[http://www.globalresearch.ca/police-violence-us-cops-
killed-...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/police-violence-us-cops-killed-more-
people-this-year-than-in-2014/5497416)

So when will the war on police start?

~~~
lostmsu
Total or innocents?

~~~
ahartmetz
The guilty are citizens (and people) too, you know. Inalienable rights and
all?

------
flexie
As a non-US citizen, I find it a terrible thought that somehow it should be
morally better (or more legal) to kill non-US citizens than US citizens.

The only concern should be whether they are proven to be dangerous terrorists,
not what their nationality is. If it's okay to kill a dangerous Afghan
terrorist in a war zone in Afghanistan, then it's also okay to kill a
dangerous American terrorist in a war zone in Afghanistan. Outside of war
zones, I don't see any excuse for killing anyone, unless in self defense.

I am still not sure about what to think of the whole drone war. I see how it
saves hundreds of thousands of lives, compared to bringing in ground troops,
but it sure feels wrong and dystopian.

~~~
jacquesm
Even (suspected!) terrorists have rights. It's easy to think about the drone
war: It's plain wrong. Sending guided missiles into other people's airspace is
an act of war, and killing people without even so much as a sham trial is
murder.

The more of this stuff we collectively condone the more the Bin Laden's of
this world are winning. That's the real tragedy, that after 9/11 the West lost
its moral compass.

~~~
nerdponx
It's hard because we don't know the counterfactual scenario.

I, for one, am OK with the fact that [almost] all terrorist attacks on US soil
in the last 10 years have been domestic.

~~~
pjc50
The logical next step then is drone strikes on US soil? I mean, why not?
What's the legal difference?

~~~
crankylinuxuser
It wouldn't be the first time the US military has dropped bombs on its own
citizens inside the USA.

[https://rightsanddissent.org/news/may-13-1985-the-day-a-
city...](https://rightsanddissent.org/news/may-13-1985-the-day-a-city-bombed-
its-own-people/)

~~~
dekhn
That was the city of Philadelphia, not the US military. Also, it was generally
recognized as a completely unacceptable action. Don't try to pretend like
that's evidence of some sort of ongoing US-military-bombing-US-citizens-on-US-
soil, it's not.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Because the police have sacks of C4 hanging around? That'd be a big fat no.
They obtained essential support from the military.

And sure it was considered unconscionable. Who went to prison in the
administration of the time? Hint: not the police, military, or politicians who
ordered it.

There's also the case in which the Air Force bombed Tulsa. Still, more African
Americans, so it wasn't really a big deal (notice a trend?).

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot)

~~~
dekhn
The supplies came from the FBI, not the military. FBI is civilian. Also, wrt
the Tulsa race riot, it was individuals with personal aircraft, not the Air
Force.

It's fine to be angry but not OK to twist basic facts.

------
whack
> _" We kill suspects whose names we know, and whose names we don’t; we kill
> the guilty and the not guilty; we kill men, but also women and children; we
> kill by day and by night; we fire missiles at confirmed visual targets, but
> also at cellphone numbers we hope belong to targets."_

That is just chilling.

~~~
dannyw
This is unfortunately the sort of action you are enabling, when you’re
building a ML system for drone imagery.

~~~
rangibaby
I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists... I
would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would
help farmers with their work — for example a lawnmower.

Mikhail Kalashnikov

The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...
the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had
known, I should have become a watchmaker.

Albert Einstein

~~~
hutzlibu
Yeah well, about Mikhael Kalashnikow. He build the famous AK47 for Stalins
UdSSR. NKWD, Gulags, etc. were active since many years by that time, organized
state-terrorism against anyone opposed to the glorious soviet system and their
leader ... in other words, his words sound quite hypocryte. But when you
consider your system belong to the good ... you probably close your eyes to
everything else.

But I go along with Einstein. The more technogy is avaiable to the masses, the
more powerful a single persons becomes. There might come a time soon, when
anyone could just tinker a atomic bomb together in his garage ... we seriously
need to change our way of thinking, till that happens.

~~~
zeth___
Given that the alternative the USSR had to Stalin was Hitler it was a pretty
good deal all things considered.

~~~
phyller
You might want to do some research on that one. Hitler might be considered an
amateur compared to Stalin.

~~~
hutzlibu
In terms of total power? Maybe.. Hitler was not the ultimate Dictator like he
seem to many today, but in terms of genocide? Not really. Even if the famine
in the Ukraine, you are probably referring to, was a planned event and not
just missmanagement and ignorance, it still would be no organized genocide to
wipe out a whole race.

------
christophilus
I just started reading "Society and Sanity"[0]. It's an interesting read so
far, and opens with a prediction that if society forgets what a human is, that
society will tend towards this sort of behavior-- arbitrary treatment of
fellow humans, with the only argument against such treatment being, "I don't
like it, and I wish you'd be kinder to people." And the counter argument
being, "I like it, and I don't want to be kinder to people." If we're to solve
this problem, we have to get back to the essential foundational idea that
human beings have intrinsic rights which exist and are not simply concessions
of the state.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Society-Sanity-Understanding-Live-
Tog...](https://www.amazon.com/Society-Sanity-Understanding-Live-
Together/dp/1586177303/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532005703&sr=8-1&keywords=society+and+sanity)

~~~
jtbayly
Yes. All sorts of things like this that ignore human intrinsic value and
rights.

Abortion is a prime example.

~~~
ionised
How?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I presume the point was that, as a fetus is genetically human, treating it as
something to be killed at our convenience is an example of the problem
("arbitrary treatment of fellow humans", rather than recognizing that "human
beings have intrinsic rights which exist and are not simply concessions of the
state").

------
dbatten
Unfortunately, I think this is a thornier issue than most of these articles
give it credit for.

Suppose for a second that the US was at war with Canada and John Doe was an
American citizen, but he was serving as a uniformed combatant in the Canadian
army. Under such circumstances, I can't imagine anyone would have a problem
with the United States military killing John Doe in battle without trial.

Obviously, the circumstances around the kill list are murkier... The "war on
terror" isn't a war in the traditional sense, terrorists or suspected
terrorists are not uniformed combatants, the CIA is not necessarily the
military, and it's not really certain that dropping a bomb on somebody's "cafe
experience" is equivalent to killing them in a pitched battle in a declared
war.

Still, I have a hard time imagining what rights a US citizen is supposed to be
entitled to when they are effectively a foreign terrorist working to attack
the US. Are we supposed to have a trial for them without them present? (We all
know how that would go.) Ask for their home country to extradite them?
(Country will almost certainly either be unwilling or incapable.) Send the
Navy Seals to kidnap them and force them to stand trial? (Dangerous and wildly
impractical, not to mention boots on the ground increasing the risk of
creating a larger conflict with a foreign nation.)

Personally, I have two take-aways on the issue:

1) I wouldn't want to be the judge that has to sort this stuff out, and I hope
they do it well. It's not easy.

2) I think the bigger problem is drone killings in other nations FULL STOP.
Regardless of who the targets are, it's completely unacceptable for any
country to think they can just fly into another nation's airspace and start
dropping bombs on anybody they please without a declaration of war, some sort
of cooperative MOU, or a join military exercise...

~~~
alexandercrohde
So the "murkiness" apparently comes from:

A. America tries to have a high standard of justice and the value of a life

VS

B. Countries at war usually will summarily kill enemies, defectors, and often
innocents for convenience sake with 0 recourse or oversight.

\---

I think the questions we need to ask are whether these looser moral standards
we apply to actual wars should still apply to the situations overseas that are
not declared wars by congress and have been going on for over a decade and
involve targets who are not armed combatants on the battlefield.

We also need to ask at what point is a justification owed to the american
people on this.

~~~
sseveran
Its almost two decades now, although one could argue that this has been going
on for almost three decades depending on when one thinks this conflict
started. The thing I find the most insane is that at the end of next year
young men and women will begin to deploy to Afghanistan and other bases around
the world that were not even born when 9/11 happened. And that is something
that we should not accept.

------
AdmiralAsshat
So, hypothetical law question here: if the US government has deemed you worthy
of being killed, are you legally obligated to die?

I asked this question once before in the context of whether you are "breaking
the law" if you flee from a cop that is shooting at you, but it seems apt here
as well.

~~~
matt4077
It's a somewhat silly question (what punishment would you propose for
noncompliance). The obvious legal answer is "no", because you are not
obligated to do something unless there's a law to that effect, and there's no
law creating such an obligation because it would be silly.

As an approximation, it might make sense to look as some analogues: the fifth
amendment right not to incriminate yourself in a criminal trial, for example,
speaks to a recognition of every humans' (even criminals') right to protect
themselves. If you can't be forced to provide information against your
interests, you can certainly not be obligated to inflict the ultimate
punishment onto yourself.

A very similar train of thought finds expression in German law, where it is
not a crime to break out of prison, a fact often justified by reference to a
fundamental human urge to seek freedom (any property damage, or injury
inflicted on others is, however, criminal).

------
turc1656
IANAL but it seems to me the mental workflow of determining the legality of
all this is definitely not what I think it should be.

For the non-citizen, it seems clear to me the judge's determining that there
is no standing to even raise the issue in a US court is sound. If I was
theoretically plotting against some other (non-US) nation - say, Canada for
argument's sake - I have no relationship, obligation, or anything really with
Canada. And they have none with me. So the idea that Canada should be forced
to explain itself to me or prove anything to me is absurd. They owe me nothing
and I owe them nothing (unless perhaps I am within their borders, then a few
obligations are there for both sides).

For the US citizen, the court definitely has jurisdiction as this is a federal
court and we're talking about the actions of the federal branch of the US
government taking action against a citizen. Also, this is a _civil_ case, so
the question then becomes whether or not there is presiding law on this and
whether the claims have merit. There is very little law for this specific type
of case (drone strikes). The lawsuit didn't actually claim a rights violation
(which seriously surprised me). But before all of that, the heart of this
drone strike murder issue against a US citizen has it's roots in due process.
The big question is whether or not due process still applies to actions
against a citizen when not on US soil. That answer is most definitely not
clear and to my knowledge has never been answered by a court. Clearly, the
constitutional and the law in general apply within US borders. However, in
most cases the law ends at the border. But there are things that citizens can
do overseas and face charges for at home. So is the reverse true? Is there
anything that the US government can do to us while we are not on US soil that
violates the law? Does the obligation to protect (or at least not violate) my
constitutional rights still exist once I cross the border? Until this question
is answered, I don't think anything else in this case can be answered with
certainty.

This also excludes the entire examination of potential criminal (not civil)
violations or violations of international law, war crimes, violations of
conventions like Geneva, Hague, etc.

------
vowelless
This has happened before, and it was unprecedented when the US citizen [1] was
assassinated by the US President with explicit targeting (putting the name on
a 'kill list'). As I understand, Awlaki was an Al Qaeda member, mostly
concerned himself with writing for 'Inspire' and giving YouTube lectures.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-
Awlaki#Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki#Death)

> he became the first United States citizen to be assassinated by a U.S. drone
> strike without the rights of due process being afforded.[15][16] President
> Barack Obama ordered the strike.[17] His son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (a
> 16-year-old U.S. citizen), was killed in a U.S. drone strike two weeks
> later.[18] On January 29, 2017, al-Awlaki's 8-year-old daughter, Nawar Al-
> Awlaki, was killed in a U.S. commando attack in Yemen which was ordered by
> President Donald Trump.[19][20][21][22]

[1] Please note: I am not justifying Awlaki's work. He was an Al Qaeda member.
But also a natural born American citizen.

~~~
nerdponx
Since he was a US citizen, was he entitled to some kind of due process, maybe
via extradition?

Edit: it was in the OP article.

 _There was some outcry about the president now having authority to kill even
Americans without due process – “I think it’s sad,” said U.S. Congressman Ron
Paul – but the uproar soon faded, and America’s assassination program
accelerated still more. By late 2011, we’d killed more than 2,000
“militants.”_

~~~
danesparza
I think the idea is that as long as you can make the case for classifying them
as an 'enemy combatant in an active war zone' it doesn't matter that they were
a US citizen.

I'm not saying I agree with this -- I'm just trying to respond to your
question.

~~~
imron
> as long as you can make the case for classifying them as an 'enemy combatant
> in an active war zone

Under the Obama administration, they decided to count all military-age males
in a strike zone as enemy combatants, unless there was explicit intelligence
posthumously proving them innocent [0].

Was a bomb dropped on a wedding to kill a terrorist? Well, all the other men
aged 18-50 at the wedding are also classed as enemy combatants too, meaning
'no innocent civilians' were killed. Way to go Mr. Nobel Peace Prize winner.

0:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-o...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-
obama-men-killed-by-drones-are-presumed-to-be-terrorists/257749/)

~~~
danesparza
Good lord. I wasn't aware of that one. Thanks for the link.

~~~
imron
Yeah, not exactly his finest hour.

------
pjc50
The most likely resolution to this is that the US finds some way of stripping
him of his citizenship, thereby making it legal to murder him.

~~~
ggm
Which is what the US did to many members of the ACP after WWI deporting them
en masse to Russia (not killing them, Stalin did that for the US government
distrusting the foreign communists)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids)

[the article implies the deportees were 'aliens' but I think the legalism here
is wafer thin. I think they held themselves to be Americans, internationalists
maybe, but not aliens]

I was very surprised when I read that the US state and federal authorities
were calmly happy to deploy machine guns against strikers, and even more
bemused when they chose to deport people and remove citizenship. I really
didn't think states like "us" did that, but apparently I was wrong.

Australia reneges on the AU-NZ treaty all the time, deporting Kiwi's for
trivial offences. Green card holders can be stripped and dumped for offences
which citizens would walk away from with a finger wag.

------
sschueller
Is the kill list available online? Can we get it via FOIA request?

------
dorfsmay
When I listen to Noam Chomsky I often think he exaggerates, and then this! And
like the article points to, this is not specific to Trump or Bush, but also
Clinton and Obama.

I would love to know what U.S. citizens who have put thought into and truly
believe that their second amendment protects them from their government abuse
think of this.

------
dzdt
Who remembers in 2002 when an American citizen was arrested on American soil
and transferred to a military prison, where he was held for three and a half
years with no trial while the government claimed he had no rights or recourse
because they had determined him to be a terrorist? [1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Padilla_(prisoner)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Padilla_\(prisoner\))

~~~
dayofthedaleks
I do! As I recall, he sort of was a terrorist though? Something about the
planning or discussion of apartment house gasline bombings? They didn't even
need an agent provocateur to produce evidence for this one.

On a semi-related note, I hope John Walker Lindh gets a hell of a party upon
his release next May.

~~~
jonathanstrange
The idea behind due process is that everyone has a right to it, not just a
select class of people your government is sympathetic with.

~~~
nerbert
It's incredible how a simple idea like that seems so difficult to grasp for
many people.

~~~
Khaine
Just like free speach allows you to say horrible things.

------
throwaway5752
So to clarify - this sort of political story is okay, but increased white
nationalist group activity, Russian interference in 2016 election, and forced
separation of migrant families seeking asylum are not? It's a bit hard to
figure out the editorial stance on HN lately.

edit: this seems off the front page, which answers my (not hypothetical or
sarcastically intended) question.

~~~
nerdponx
It's at least partly a commentary on black box machine learning, so I can see
the additional relevance. But really that's a stretch, and I think all of the
above are relevant for "hackers" as long as they don't flood the front page.

~~~
throwaway5752
The Russian campaign is a hacker goldmine. AI/human force multiplication for
mass social media influence campaigns, hacking social systems, data
sovereignty and use of social media metadata...

------
mieseratte
Would it be a bit too crass to say "Thanks, Obama!" for this one?

It's a bit more shocking when you realize a Constitutional Law professor is
the one who opened up this can of worms.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Obama's "Disposition Matrix" was a furthering of Bush era policies. It's not
really fair to say he opened this can of worms, though that doesn't make his
actions any less terrible.

~~~
mieseratte
> It's not really fair to say he opened this can of worms

He was the sitting President and personally authorized the first extrajudicial
assassination of an American Citizen in the GWOT.

As the Executive Chief, "The buck stops (t)here."

~~~
StavrosK
> the first extrajudicial assassination of an American Citizen

As in, there were extrajudicial assassinations of people before, but this one
was too far because this time it was an American Citizen Capital A Capital C?

~~~
mieseratte
I know for the non-American reader it might come off a bit... wrong, but yes.
To be clear, I'd rather we didn't go around droning folks or sending JSOC on
an FFF mission unless they're, say, directly engaging troops.

It is incredibly unnerving to see one's own government explicitly authorize
the death of a fellow citizen without due process of law.

~~~
boomboomsubban
When you read the Bill of Rights, "due process" is not a right reserved for US
citizens. No person should have that right infringed, so it's just as
unnerving to see the government explicitly authorize the death of a fellow
person without due process of law.

------
to_bpr
I got about 3 paragraphs into the article and tired of the "white folks be
like... but black folks be like" narrative.

Do better.

~~~
vinceguidry
Well, you missed a gripping account of the struggles of the judicial system to
bring rule-of-law accountability to a secret executive war fighting
department.

~~~
matt4077
Plus a really good joke, actually.

