Current Events – Seminar Presentation
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Third Saturday Seminar 2012-2013
Return of the Elders, Unleash your Wisdom
Session 05
“Drones and Your Constitutional Rights”
Curt Gibby
Saturday, 16 February 2013
9:30AM til 12:00 noon
Room B-102, (the usual place), Lone Star College – Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive – Conroe, TX – 77384 – 936.273.7000
Recently our Congress and the media have brought to our attention two issues that have become related. The expanded use of remotely piloted aircraft (drones), not just for reconnaissance and surveillance in a combat zone but also for the delivery of lethal force and how the targets of that lethal force are selected and justified and how it relates to the inalienable rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Further, although the Air Force operates these drones in Afghanistan, the CIA is operating in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia where we are not, officially anyway, at war.
Drone technology, on the one hand limits the exposure of friendly fighters and pilots to enemy fire is it the latest slippery slope for death warrants to be conveniently issued by politicians and those who report to them with no review. Under the Obama Administration drone flights and drone strikes have mushroomed
Recently Michael Isikoff at NBC News had obtained a 16 page Justice Department white paper with the apparent purpose of justifying extra-judicial killing, even of American citizens. It doesn’t have to be by drones, but drones seem to be the natural choice with high value targets and high production of kills. And we don’t seem to be concerned with so called collateral damage that is killing of innocents.
The paper’s basic contention is that the government has the authority to carry out the extra-judicial killing of an American citizen if “an informed, high-level official” deems him to present a “continuing” threat to the country. This sweeping authority is said to exist even if the threat presented isn’t imminent in any ordinary sense of that word, even if the target has never been charged with a crime or informed of the allegations against him, and even if the target is not located anywhere near an actual battlefield. The white paper purports to recognize some limits on the authority it sets out, but the limits are so vague and elastic that they will be easily manipulated. More here
On the other hand, what does citizenship matter if the person declares himself enemy of the United States? But, does just thinking or even saying you hate the country and that you want to blow up pieces of it actually make you guilty in a court of law, unless you actually turn those boasts into a creditable action or order somebody under your control with the means to do it, or possibly provide them with the means. How is that determined?
Now if somebody in the U.S. were to rob a bank or murder someone, it wouldn’t make much difference what his citizenship was either, because for you to imprison or execute him you would have to indict him and take him to trial and prove his guilt. It’s called due process. It’s guaranteed by the 5th Amendment.
It is my opinion that it is time to get back on track, and before our souls go completely up in smoke get our society back to what our founders had in mind (I’m sure keeping their finger crossed as they savored the enlightened democratic concepts they had enshrined, for they were all too aware of our human nature and how easy it is to stray from what has made us great.)
The question “What has changed” has more to do with the name of the game (war or no?) being played than the available weapons, although the drone technology makes the slope even slipperier.
And please consider this:
Why, for instance, does the United States, and only the United States, possess the authority to treat the entire developing world as a war zone and rain high-tech death from above on villages in Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and other places so classified we don’t know about them yet? Some sources suggest that upwards of 3,000 alleged al-Qaida militants have been killed by drone strikes in those places during Obama’s presidency, along with several hundred civilians. (Hint: we are not the only country with drone technology, and just because some others are behind doesn’t mean they won’t catch up – Remember the“Spy vs Spy” cartoons in Mad Magazine?)
More: How do you explain drone killings? With post-Orwellian “Newspeak”
By Andrew O’Hehir
And as usual we will start with 45 minutes of current events:
What do you think about the State of the Nation? Did you watch the speech and/or the rebuttals? Debt? Immigration/Amnesty? Guns (Guns and Ammo sales are again outstripping the supply)
How about the Pontiff hanging up the crook?
As I finish writing this, the San Bernardino Sheriff’s men are waiting for morning to inspect the ruins of the burned cabin on Bear Mountain to see if Chris Dorner and anyone else was inside it was burned. What will be the fallout?
Come, join the discussion! Let’s see if there is hope!
Academy for Lifelong Learning: LSC-Montgomery
Registration
You can fill out a registration form (at the end of the schedule PDF link above)
and submit it to us at
LSC-Montgomery
Continuing Education/ALL Office Building E (Room 205)
3200 College Park Dr.
Conroe, TX 77384
or get in touch directly
- Phone: 936.273.7446
- Fax: 936.273.7262
- Sorry, no on-line registrations this semester
See you Saturday – Thanks for your support!
DON’T (be) PANIC(ked)
Curt Gibby
Director, Third Saturday Seminar
P. O Box 73207
Houston, Tx 77273
P.S. As usual if anything in this notice doesn’t make sense, please let me know. (You won’t be the first, I will appreciate it and say, “Thank you,” Curt)