"President Obama Just Stated That He Can Have Any American Citizen Killed" Jonathon Turley on CPSAN

[stockholmer]

Cellophane citizens

part 1

part 2

part 3

[DURHAM D]

1. Could you give us a summary? I can't watch him.

[stockholmer]

5. some Turley articles

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/21/1047695/-Turley:-President-Obama-says-that-he-can-kill-you-on-his-own-discretion?via=sidebar


Noted constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley was on C-SPAN yesterday, and he had some pretty scary things to say about the current state of civil liberties under President Obama:

President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own. If he’s satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world including in the United States.
Two of his aides just … reaffirmed they believe that American citizens can be killed on the order of the President anywhere including the United States.

You’ve now got a president who says that he can kill you on his own discretion. He can jail you indefinitely on his own discretion

*

I don’t think the the Framers ever anticipated that [the American people would be so apathetic]. They assumed that people would hold their liberties close, and that they wouldn’t relax …

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http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/opinion/la-oe-turley-civil-liberties-20110929

Obama: A disaster for civil liberties:
He may prove the most disastrous president in our history in terms of civil liberties.

With the 2012 presidential election before us, the country is again caught up in debating national security issues, our ongoing wars and the threat of terrorism. There is one related subject, however, that is rarely mentioned: civil liberties.

Protecting individual rights and liberties — apart from the right to be tax-free — seems barely relevant to candidates or voters. One man is primarily responsible for the disappearance of civil liberties from the national debate, and he is Barack Obama. While many are reluctant to admit it, Obama has proved a disaster not just for specific civil liberties but the civil liberties cause in the United States.

Civil libertarians have long had a dysfunctional relationship with the Democratic Party, which treats them as a captive voting bloc with nowhere else to turn in elections. Not even this history, however, prepared civil libertarians for Obama. After the George W. Bush years, they were ready to fight to regain ground lost after Sept. 11. Historically, this country has tended to correct periods of heightened police powers with a pendulum swing back toward greater individual rights. Many were questioning the extreme measures taken by the Bush administration, especially after the disclosure of abuses and illegalities. Candidate Obama capitalized on this swing and portrayed himself as the champion of civil liberties.

Jonathan Turley's reply to reader comments: The difference between civil liberties and civil rights

However, President Obama not only retained the controversial Bush policies, he expanded on them. The earliest, and most startling, move came quickly. Soon after his election, various military and political figures reported that Obama reportedly promised Bush officials in private that no one would be investigated or prosecuted for torture. In his first year, Obama made good on that promise, announcing that no CIA employee would be prosecuted for torture. Later, his administration refused to prosecute any of the Bush officials responsible for ordering or justifying the program and embraced the "just following orders" defense for other officials, the very defense rejected by the United States at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

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http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/jonathan-turley-obama-stated-that-he-can-have-any-american-citizen-killed-anywhere-cspan-interview-video-professor-turley-legal-scholar/

“Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals at Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Northwestern, and other schools.

After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the George Washington faculty in 1990 and, in 1998, was given the prestigious Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. In addition to his extensive publications, Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades ranging, representing whistleblowers, military personnel, and a wide range of other clients.

In 2010, Professor Turley represented Judge G. Thomas Porteous in his impeachment trial. After a trial before the Senate, Professor Turley (on December 7, 2010) argued both the motions and gave the final argument to all 100 U.S. Senators from the well of the Senate floor — only the 14th time in history of the country that such a trial of a judge has reached the Senate floor. Judge Porteous was convicted of four articles of impeachments, including the acceptance of $2000 from an attorney and using a false name on a bankruptcy filing.

In 2011, Professor Turley filed a challenge to the Libyan War on behalf of ten members of Congress, including Representatives Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md); Dan Burton (R., Ind.); Mike Capuano (D., Mass.); Howard Coble (R., N.C.); John Conyers (D., Mich.); John J. Duncan (R., Tenn.); Tim Johnson (R., Ill.); Walter Jones (R., N.C.); Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio); and Ron Paul (R., Tx). The lawsuit is pending before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Other cases include his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the famous Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy; and four former United States Attorneys General during the Clinton impeachment litigation. In the Foretich case, Turley succeeded recently in reversing a trial court and striking down a federal statute through a rare “bill of attainder” challenge. Professor Turley has also served as counsel in a variety of national security cases, including espionage cases like that of Jim Nicholson, the highest ranking CIA officer ever accused of espionage. Turley also served as lead defense counsel in the successful defense of Petty Officer Daniel King, who faced the death penalty for alleged spying for Russia. Turley also served as defense counsel in the case of Dr. Tom Butler, who is facing criminal charges dealing with the importation and handling of thirty vials of plague in Texas. He also served as counsel to Larry Hanauer, the House Intelligence Committee staffer accused of leaking a classified Presidential National Intelligence Estimate to the New York Times. (Hanauer was cleared of all allegations).

Among his current cases, Professor Turley represents Dr. Ali Al-Timimi, who was convicted in Virginia in 2005 of violent speech against the United States. He also represents Dr. Sami Al-Arian, accused of being the American leader of a terrorist organization while he was a university professor in Florida. He also currently represents pilots approaching or over the age of 60 in their challenge to the mandatory retirement age of the FAA. He also represents David Murphee Faulk, the whistleblower who disclosed abuses in the surveillance operations at NSA’s Fort Gordon facility in Georgia. Most recently, Professor Turley agreed to serve as lead counsel representing the Brown family from the TLC “Sister Wives, a reality show on plural marriage or polygamy. He also agreed to serve as the legal expert in the review of polygamy laws in the British of Columbia (Canada) Supreme Court. In the latter case, he argued for the decriminalization of plural union and conjugal unions.

Turley has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, including the Florida House of Representatives. He also served as the consultant to the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on the impeachment of Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá.

Professor Turley is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. Professor Turley is also a nationally recognized legal commentator. Professor Turley was ranked as 38th in the top 100 most cited “public intellectuals” in the recent study by Judge Richard Posner. Turley was also found to be the second most cited law professor in the country. He has been repeatedly ranked in the nation’s top 500 lawyers in annual surveys (including in the latest 2010 rankings by LawDragon) – one of only a handful of academics. In prior years, he was ranked as one of the nation’s top ten lawyers in military law cases as well as one of the top 40 lawyers under 40. He was also selected in 2010 and 2011 as one of the 100 top Irish lawyers in the world.



http://jonathanturley.org/about/

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Is he taking requests? Can I get a bulk discount?

Something about that claim just strikes me as stretching the truth.

[Ian David]

3. That's kind of an odd thing for the GOP to vote to allow him to do. n/t

[izquierdista]

6. Despite their crocodile tears....

....they know he has a track record of giving them 99% of what they want. So they just have to enlarge their hit list by 1%.

[frylock]

7. because, as we all know, a republican will never ever inhabit the white house ever again..

right?

[Enrique]

9. its' odder to me that the Democrats would allow it

I wouldn't expect the GOP to give a shit about civil liberties.

[mysuzuki2]

4. "I'm making a list, I'm checking it twice ..."

[sabrina 1]

8. Turley has remained consistent. He warned about the erosion of civil liberties under Bush also

Not that we needed him to warn us as Bush systematically shredded the Constitution.

As one of the articles says however, the US has frequently had to make corrections when the country has veered away from its Constitutional foundations and has done so. Which is why we could not wait to get rid of Bush.

But now it appears things are even worse. So what do we do now?

[avaistheone1]

10. Our savior would say no such thing.

Quit picking on Obama.

(sarcasm)