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<h1>Drone Lawyer: Kill A 16 Year-Old, Get A Promotion</h1>
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<span class="cat-date-line3"> <a
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<span class="cat-date-line4">By Medea Benjamin, <a
href="http://codepink.org/blog/2014/05/drone-lawyer-kill-a-16-year-old-get-a-promotion/"
target="_blank">www.codepink.org</a><br>
May 17th, 2014</span><br>
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<p dir="ltr">If you think that as a United States citizen you’re
entitled to a trial by jury before the government can decide to
kill you–– you’re wrong. During his stint as a lawyer at the
Department of Justice, David Barron was able to manipulate
constitutional law so as to legally justify killing American
citizens with drone strikes. If you’re wondering what the
justification for that is, that’s just too bad – the legal memos
are classified. Sounds a little suspicious, doesn’t it? What’s
even more suspicious is that now the Obama Administration wants to
appoint the lawyer who wrote that legal memos to become a
high-ranking judge for life.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Disturbingly, this is not the first time that the
president has rewarded a high-level lawyer for paving the legal
way for drone strike assassinations. Jeh Johnson, former lawyer at
the Department of Defense, penned the memos that give the “okay”
to target non-US citizen foreign combatants with drones. His
reward? He’s now the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security. These Obama nominations are eerily reminiscent of the
Bush-era appointment of torture memo author Jay Bybee to a
lifetime position of a federal judge.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Barron, a Harvard law professor and former legal
counsel at the Department of Justice, was recently nominated by
President Obama to the lifetime position of a judge on the First
Circuit Court of Appeals—just one step below the Supreme Court.
While at the Department of Justice, Barron wrote at least 2 secret
legal memos justifying the use of lethal drones to kill Americans
suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Should someone who has done such immense damage to the
rule of law and our moral sensibilities be awarded with a
judgeship on the First Circuit Court?</p>
<p dir="ltr">The Attorney General has conceded that four Americans
located outside the United States have been killed by drone
strikes since 2011. One of those killed was Anwar Al-Awlaki, who
was attacked while in a tribal region of Yemen in September 2011.
Then Al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, also an American
citizen, was shamefully killed in a drone strike in rural Yemen
two weeks later.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that Americans
suspected of committing crimes deserve to have charges brought
against them, to have a chance to surrender or be captured, and to
be given a fair trial. If they cannot be captured and refuse to
surrender, they could be tried in absentia. But Barron helped set
a terrible precedent that American citizens have no right to a
judicial process—something that human rights advocates around the
world have been fighting for since the signing of the Magna Carta
800 years ago.</p>
<p dir="ltr">How can Barron be a judge if he does not understand the
deeply valued laws of our land, laws that include habeas corpus
and the right to a fair trial? As stated in the Bill of Rights:
the<a
href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment04/">
Fourth Amendment</a> guarantees that a person cannot be seized
by the government unreasonably, and the<a
href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/">
Fifth Amendment</a> guarantees that the government may not
deprive a person of life without due process of law. A judge is
supposed to uphold the Constitution, yet Barron has already torn
it down.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In an <a
href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/05/12/david-barron-should-confirmed-court-appeals/5WHjPFvMfHqulSMWxO81CK/story.html">op-ed</a>
supporting Barron’s nomination, law professors Charles Fried and
Laurence Tribe argue that Barron didn’t order the strikes or
design the legal framework for their authorization. Certainly he
didn’t order the strikes, but his job as acting head of the Office
of Legal Counsel was precisely to provide legal opinions to the
President, opinions that became the legal foundation on which the
strikes were based.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Some Senators said they would not proceed with Barron’s
nomination until they got access to the memos he has written about
drone strikes. “This nomination cannot go forward unless this body
— every member of this body — is given access to any and all
secret legal opinions this nominee wrote on this critical issue,”
Grassley said. The White House responded by allowing all
interested Senators to go to a secret chamber to <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/05/14/morning-plum-obama-administration-may-release-drone-memos-good/">read</a>
“all written legal advice issued by Mr. Barron regarding the
potential use of lethal force against US citizens in
counterterrorism operations.” This pretense of transparency is
meaningless, though, because Senators won’t be able to publicly
question and challenge Barron about the memos unless they are
declassified.</p>
<p dir="ltr">That’s why <a
href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/07/1297529/-Senators-on-Barron-Drone-Strike-Memos-Where-Do-They-Stand">some
senators</a>, including Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Rand
Paul, are insisting that the memos be made public. That’s all well
and good, since we—the public–certainly should have the right to
read them. It makes no sense for legal memos to be considered
secret national security documents. Even the courts have said as
much, when a federal judge in April 2014 ordered the
administration to release the legal analysis to the public (an
order the administration has so far ignored).</p>
<p dir="ltr">But the Senators should go further and state that David
Barron is simply not fit to sit on the bench to interpret our
Constitution.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In the hopes of moving our nation back to one that
respects, honors and upholds the rule of law, <a
href="http://codepink.salsalabs.com/o/424/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7208">we
are pushing the Senate</a>—particularly Majority Leader <a
href="http://codepink.salsalabs.com/o/424/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7211">Harry
Reid</a>—to kill Barron’s nomination. Senator Rand Paul is one
of the few Senators challenging Barron’s nomination. “I can’t
imagine appointing someone to the federal bench, one level below
the Supreme Court, without fully understanding that person’s views
concerning the extrajudicial killing of American citizens,” <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/opinion/show-us-the-drone-memos.html?_r=0">he
wrote</a>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Unfortunately, now that the administration has placated
Senators by giving them access to Barron’s memos, he will most
likely be be confirmed. There is one good thing that could come
out of this, though – the sparking of a much-needed national
conversation about drone warfare and U.S. policy on the use of
killer drones. Does the use of drone strikes that often hit
innocent people and incite hatred towards Americans actually
ensure our safety, or trigger greater danger? In the meantime, we
should urge our Senators to push for the public release of these
classified drone memos and should oppose the appointment of David
Barron. We don’t need a judge on the bench who has already shown
his disregard for the Constitution and for the rights of American
citizens. <a
href="http://codepink.salsalabs.com/o/424/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7208">Tell
your Senator</a> to vote “no” for drone lawyer David Barron.</p>
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