US senators propose assassination court to screen drone targets

Via Michael

 

Jonathan Turley, a well-known legal scholar and professor at George Washington University, told FoxNews.com that congressional action is "clearly warranted."

"President Obama has become the president that Richard Nixon always wanted to be. In the face of an imperial president, it is Congress' duty under the Constitution to do whatever it can to check such an abuse of power," he said in an email.

However, Turley expressed concern that a new court would "legitimate the claim of inherent authority by the president to kill citizens without charge or judicial review."

"A formal process, even if accepted by the White House, could be viewed as a concession that such power exists," he said. "It would be a lethal version of FISA where constitutional provisions are set aside in favor of a largely meaningless process of review."

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It sounds like an Orwellian idea from a futuristic sci-fi movie. Government officials gather in a secret courtroom, poring over documents and weighing whether to approve the fly-by killing of a suspected terrorist.

If the judges say yes, the target dies. If not, the target lives.

But U.S. senators are now floating the idea of an assassination court as a way to rein in the ever-expanding drone program -- a secretive operation that, as it is, sounds like thriller fiction, but isn't.

The idea was bandied about during Thursday's confirmation hearing for CIA director nominee John Brennan, who fueled the talk by saying he thinks the concept is "worthy of discussion." The nominee, as a vocal supporter of the targeted-killing program, has come under scrutiny for what some lawmakers see as the administration's unchecked power to kill, even if the target is an American citizen.

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