CIA Legal Justification to Kill US Citizens

The CIA is allowed to kill American citizens. No really, just ask them. A new report from Vice News gives us an inside look at the CIA, and how they can legally get away with killing a US citizen. A Vice News reporter filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice to track down this 22-page white page paper. He eventually got it, but only after the CIA blocked out all of the most “sensitive” information.

The DOJ put this paper together three years ago when lawmakers demanded answers for their legal rationale to kill a US citizen. The man in question was Islamic extremist Anwar al-Awlaki. He held a religious leadership position in Yemen, and CIA operatives determined he was a leader of al-Qaeda forces. He was the first of several American citizens to make the list of people the CIA is ‘allowed’ to kill.

A separate document from the DOJ lays out their legal basis for denying Awlaki due process under the Constitution. For several years, the Obama administration denied that this document even existed. One of the footnotes in the paper refers back to 1942 where a Supreme Court distinction highlighted the difference between lawful and unlawful combatants. The legal document clearly states that civilians not wearing uniforms, but also waging war against human life or property is a belligerent offender, subject to trial and punishment by a military tribunal. While the document does admit CIA operatives fall into this same category, they excuse the killings long as they act “within the laws of war.”

Here’s the most egregious part. The DOJ outlines all of the very rules the CIA is intentionally breaking, and then tries to explain why it’s okay. The CIA killing American citizens in foreign countries violates the fourth and fifth amendments, the foreign murder statute, the conspiracy to murder an individual outside the US and the War Crimes Act.

The CIA argument hides behind the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, claiming public authority as the justification for their agents to kill people. So when it comes to individuals, they cannot be tried as criminals because “they’re just following orders.” But what about the agency issuing the orders? When you strip away all of the legal jargon, we basically have one federal department violating the Constitution, and hiding behind the self-proclaimed authority of two other departments to get by with it.