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Read the whole article (it's really good!): http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/us/politics/judge-challenges-white-house-claims-on-authority-in-drone-killings.html
Here's an excerpt:
Judge Collyer said she was “troubled” by the government’s assertion that it could kill American citizens it designated as dangerous, with no role for courts to review the decision.
“Are you saying that a U.S. citizen targeted by the United States in a foreign country has no constitutional rights?” she asked Brian Hauck, a deputy assistant attorney general. “How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen? Where is the limit to this?”
She provided her own answer: “The limit is the courthouse door.”
SWEET! It's so nice to see someone in power have the same feelings as me. Hell, I think she should be saying this even if there had been no Americans killed. All humans are created equal, right? So they deserve a trial before they are found guilty, sentenced to death and executed, right? Just because there's an (undeclared) war on terror going on doesn't mean their are no rules.
Another gem from the article:
Mr. Hauck acknowledged that Americans targeted overseas do have rights, but he said they could not be enforced in court either before or after the Americans were killed. Judges, he suggested, have neither the expertise nor the tools necessary to assess the danger posed by terrorists, the feasibility of capturing them or when and how they should be killed.
“Courts don’t have the apparatus to analyze” such issues, so they must be left to the executive branch, with oversight by Congress, Mr. Hauck said. But he argued, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has in the past, that there are multiple “checks” inside the executive branch to make sure such killings are legally justified.
Judge Collyer did not buy it. “No, no, no,” she said. “The executive is not an effective check on the executive.” She bridled at the notion that judges were incapable of properly assessing complex national security issues, declaring, “You’d be surprised at the amount of understanding other parts of the government think judges have.”
This is what "abuse of power" looks like. Right here. When one branch of government stops another branch from doing it's job. This is also a great example of what "undermining the United States Government" looks like. The Obama Admin needs to stop trying to sabotage how our government is supposed to work.
