Considering the recent discussions of the U.S. government-ordered assassination of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki on this board, the responses convinced me that it is indeed relevant to our community's situation, however indirectly, since there have been strong attempts to make us, like those accused of being "terrorists," into a special class of people exempt from constitutional protections.

Hence, I welcome all who are interested in this important case to read ⛓️‍💥[Removed] by Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer specializing in constitutional law who is one of the most courageous, committed to principle, and genuine progressives in the present era.

Some notable excerpts for all of us to consider:

So a panel operating out of the White House that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider. It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that; I genuinely wonder whether the Good Democrats doing so actually first convince themselves that if this were the Bush White House's hit list, or if it becomes Rick Perry's, they would be supportive just the same. Seriously: if you're willing to endorse having White House functionaries meet in secret with no known guidelines, no oversight, no transparency, and compile lists of American citizens to be killed by the CIA without due process, what aren't you willing to support?

Of all the things I've seen over the past several years, easily one of the most repellent has been the number of people, especially journalists, who are running around definitively asserting that Awlaki had an "operational role" in Terrorist plots and had "taken up arms" against the U.S. even though they have no idea whether that's actually true [emphasis in original]...

Just consider how even the anonymous government officials who spoke to Reuters in order to defend the Awlaki killing characterize the "evidence" they have to support that claim:

"The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.

"But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki's hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy" [emphases in original].

Remember, Good Democrats hate the death penalty because they think it's so terribly barbaric to execute people whose guilt is in doubt (even if, unlike Awlaki, they've enjoyed an indictment and full jury trial, lawyers, the right to examine evidence and to confront witnesses, multiple appeals, and habeas petitions).

There was a "strong suspicion"--not that Awlaki participated in this email plotting, but that he was "at the side" of someone who did. Who needs "beyond a reasonable doubt"? That is so pre-9/11. "A strong suspicion" that he may have been next to someone plotting an attack: that's the McCarthyite standard Democratic Party loyalists are holding up to justify the due-process-free execution of their fellow citizen by a secret, lawless White House "panel."

What's crucial to keep in mind is that nobody can see this "evidence" which these anonymous government officials are claiming exists. It's in their exclusive possession. As a result, they're able to characterize it however they want, to present it in the best possible light to support their pro-assassination position, and to prevent any detection of its flaws. As any lawyer will tell you, anyone can make a case for anything when they're in exclusive possession of all the relevant evidence and are the only side from whom one is hearing; all evidence becomes less compelling when it's subjected to adversarial scrutiny [sound familiar, people?--Dissident]

But no matter. Officials in the Obama White House and then the President decreed in secret that Awlaki should die. So the U.S. Government killed him. Republicans who always cheer acts of violence against Muslims are joined by Democrats who reflexively cheer what this Democratic President does, and now this death panel for U.S. citizens--operating with no known rules, transparency, or oversight--is entrenched as bipartisan consensus and a permanent fixture of American political life. I'm sure this will never be abused: unrestrained power exercised in secret has a very noble history in the U.S.

I don't think it's dispositive of the question here--because the U.S. Government isn't permitted to murder fugitives who aren't violently resisting apprehension and, in any event, Awlaki was never a fugitive since he was never indicted by the U.S. for anything...

I think it's quite obvious to everyone on this board right now that presidents should be supported or opposed on any given policy based on the nature of those policies, and not on the sole basis of what political party they happen to belong to, and that there is a big difference between "less than perfect" and "less than good."