This is how I read between the lines and understood their statement: The Fourth of July reminds us as Americans of the freedoms and rights all citizens of our country are guaranteed by our Constitution. Among those is freedom of speech, often exercised in protests of various kinds. NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest but be advised that we will be monitoring your freedom of speech and anything you say or ever had said may be used against you in a secret court of law.
"We shall test your American citizenship by tossing a 1% loaded coin. If it shows tails, you are American, otherwise you are a foreigner and can be lawfully, legally, constitutionally, military and otherwise politically surveilled."
I think this is really one of the most important discussions we should be having as a society. What obligations ought we hold our government to as far as the rights of non-citizens? Right now the obligations of the government to non-citizens is likely very minimal (IANAL, But I'd love to hear a Constitutionalist's expert opinion on this front).
What limits ought we to establish on our government(s) with regard to the rights of citizens of other nations?
> Right now the obligations of the government to non-citizens is likely very minimal (IANAL, But I'd love to hear a Constitutionalist's expert opinion on this front).
I'm not an expert, but Constitutional Law 101 is that the Constitution generally has territorial scope. It reaches citizens, whether they are on U.S. soil or off U.S. soil, and non-citizens who are on U.S. soil. It makes intuitive sense: non-citizens in say Afghanistan don't have any protections under the Constitution, because the Constitution is an expression of U.S. law and U.S. law has no force in Afghanistan other than to U.S. citizens who are bound to it by virtue of their citizenship.
I think it's better to leave citizenship out, or focus on treating your own citizens. The rest should follow (this is also what Scahill says in the following story): American citizenship does not protect you from targeted assassination.
No, American citizenship does not great a blanket protection against being killed by the military while waging war against the U.S. It guarantees you nothing more and nothing less than "due process." What process is "due" (literally, "warranted") is an inherently context-sensitive question. What process is "due" to someone who spent a decade waging war against the U.S. while refusing to submit to the justice system of any country?
The trouble with making it context-sensitive like that is, how do you demonstrate that the person deserves the lower standard?
Your question is mis-phrased. It should be stated as, "What process is due to someone who is accused of spending a decade waging war against the US?"
It appears to be to be completely nonsensical to use the gravity of the accusations against a person to decide what kind of trial (or not) they should receive. The whole point of the trial is to find out whether the accusations are, in fact, true.
Don't ignore the teenager son who was also a victim, separately. No one in government has been willing to admit that this killing was anything other than intentional.
What justice is due for a 16-year old who grew up in Colorado and has an "unresponsible" father? Are some people classed as waging war by speaking? Are their children classed as combatants from the moment they turn six years old?
The secret court has no power to make judgments that affect individual rights and liabilities. The only one I am aware of, the FISA court, has only one power and that is granting or denying foreign surveillance warrants, a process that didn't require any sort of judicial involvement prior to FISA.
