The Legal Basis for Killing U.S. Citizens in Al Qaeda

Administration lawyers have asserted that it would be lawful to kill a United States citizen if “an informed, high-level official” of the government decided that the target was a ranking figure in Al Qaeda who posed “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if his capture was not feasible, according to a 16-page document made public on Monday.

The white paper is available here.

How far Should Science Take Us...?

NYT's Armchair Ethicist posed the following:

Recently, scientists at two laboratories tweaked a dangerous bird-flu virus in order to make it more contagious. Was it ethical to even undertake such an experiment? Does the importance of preparing for a pandemic justify publishing the experiment’s results? Should the importance of preventing bioterrorism justify governments’ suppressing the information? Is some information simply too dangerous to share — or even to ascertain?

Read the responses here.

A Due Process in War

What legal argument authorized the targeting of an American citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, in Yemen?

The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials...

“What constitutes due process in this case is a due process in war,” said one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closely held deliberations within the administration...

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights argued on behalf of Aulaqi’s father last year that that there is no “battlefield” in Yemen, and that the administration should be forced to articulate publicly its legal standards for killing any citizen outside the United States who is suspected of terrorism.

Read the article here.