Adam Serwer

Adam Serwer

Reporter

Adam Serwer is a reporter at Mother Jones. Formerly a staff writer at the American Prospect, his writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the Root, the Village Voice, and the New York Daily News. 

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GOP Senators Introduce Pointless Drone Bill

—By

| Fri Mar. 8, 2013 12:24 PM PST

Not wanting to take Attorney General Eric Holder's word for it that the US government won't be sending deadly flying robots to kill its own citizens on American soil, Senators Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have introduced a bill that would "prohibit drone killings of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil if they do not represent an imminent threat." 

The bill all but disarms the US government, leaving it with few options for lethal force against citizens other than guns, tanks, helicopters, snipers, paramilitary squads, bombs, tasers and blunt force.

Unless you're not in the United States, or you're an "imminent threat." In that case, the government can drone away. 

This post has been edited to clarify that Holder was referring to domestic use of lethal drones.

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Republicans Are Furious at Obama for Prosecuting an Alleged Terrorist

—By

| Fri Mar. 8, 2013 11:23 AM PST
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina

When the Obama administration is killing alleged terrorists with deadly flying robots, Republicans complain that too many of them are being killed rather than captured. When the Obama administration captures alleged terrorists, Republicans complain that they're being given inappropriate trials instead of being locked away for life.

On Thursday, Suleiman Abu Gaith, identified by US officials as Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and a spokesperson for Al Qaeda, was indicted in federal court in New York City on charges of conspiracy after reportedly being handed over to the US by Jordanian authorities.  Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) promptly went ballistic, saying military detention was imperative. "By processing terrorists like Sulaiman Abu Ghayth through civilian courts, the Administration risks missing important opportunities to gather intelligence to prevent future attacks and save lives." They added that Obama's "lack of a war-time detention policy for foreign members of Al Qaeda, as well as its refusal to detain and interrogate these individuals at Guantanamo, makes our nation less safe."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

John Yoo to Rand Paul: Leave Barack Obama Alone on Targeted Killing!

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| Thu Mar. 7, 2013 2:23 PM PST

John Yoo, the author of the Bush administration legal memos justifying the use of torture, thinks President Obama is really getting too much grief over targeted killing. And he wants Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—who filibustered Obama's nominee to head the CIA for 13 hours on Wednesday—to lay off.

"I admire libertarians but I think Rand Paul's filibuster in many ways is very much what libertarians do, they make these very symbolic gestures, standing for some extreme position," said Yoo, now a UC Berkeley law professor, who once suggested it was okay for the president to order a child's testicles be crushed. Referring to Paul's marathon filibuster, an attempt to force the Obama administration to clarify its views on the use of military force against terror suspects in the United States, Yoo said "It sort of reminds me of young kids when they first read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and they suddenly think that federal taxation equals slavery and they're not going to pay any federal taxes anymore." Yoo's statements were made on a conference call Thursday held by the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal organization.

Paul's conservative colleagues also pushed back on him on Thursday: On the Senate floor, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) mocked Paul's objections as "ridiculous."

Yoo said that he thought the administration's problems stemmed from its belief that it needed to provide "due process" to terror suspects abroad—or even in the United States, referring to a recently leaked white paper outlining the Obama administration's legal views on targeted killings of US citizen terror suspects. Indicative of how the debate over Obama's counterterrorism policies has scrambled the usual partisan divides, Yoo said he agreed with the conclusion reached in Attorney General Eric Holder's letter to Paul earlier in the week suggesting that the president could order the use of military force on US soil under certain extreme circumstances. "I think it's right if an American joins an enemy with which we are at war he is or she is a valid target as an enemy combatant. That's been the rule throughout our history," Yoo said. "People in the Civil War were all American citizens, but the ones who took up arms were members of the enemy."

In the event of an attack similar to the one that occurred in Mumbai, India in 2008, Yoo said, "we would expect that our government would respond to those attacks not just by sending out the police but by sending out the military if necessary. If you could use force in that situation you could use drones just like you could use snipers or combat troops."

Also on the conference call were American University School of Law professor Steve Vladeck and former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, a writer for National Review.

Referring to an exchange between Attorney General Holder and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) over whether an American terror suspect "sitting in a cafe" in the United States could be targeted in a drone strike, McCarthy took Holder's side. Holder had said it would be "inappropriate" to use lethal force under such circumstances; pressed by Cruz Holder agreed it would be unconstitutional.

"I had sympathy for Attorney General Holder yesterday, particularly when he was being browbeaten by Senator Cruz," said McCarthy, who has alleged that the Obama administration is being controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. "I understood why the attorney general was reluctant to use the label unconstitutional, and substitute it with something that was more equivocal."

Holder sent a brief letter to Paul Thursday afternoon designed to address the concerns Paul expressed during his filibuster. "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" Holder asked. "The answer is no."

Attorney General: Obama Can't Order Drone Attack on Americans on US Soil

—By

| Thu Mar. 7, 2013 11:49 AM PST
Attorney General Eric Holder testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It took Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) filibustering for 13 straight hours, but the White House has finally clarified that President Barack Obama cannot order a drone strike on an American citizen on American soil. In a curt, 43-word letter, Attorney General Eric Holder clarified the administration's stance. 

"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" Holder wrote. "The answer to that question is no."

Holder had previously stated in a letter to Paul that he believed it would be appropriate to use deadly military force on American soil in two "catastrophic" scenarios—namely another Pearl Harbor or 9/11.

"Nobody questions if planes are flying towards the Twin Towers whether they can be repulsed by the military," Paul said during his filibuster Wednesday. "Nobody questions whether a terrorist with a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher is attacking us, whether they can be repelled."

Paul had also asked during his filibuster whether an Arab American "sitting in a cafeteria in Dearborn, Michigan," and suspected of ties to terror could be targeted with lethal force by a drone. "As for Paul and Holder, I suspect they're in complete agreement on the 'café' hypothetical—but who isn't?" says Steve Vladeck, a professor at American University School of Law. "This isn't about cafés—it's about dirt roads in northern Yemen."

Here's Holder's letter:

 

Republican Senator Filibusters Obama's CIA Nominee Over Drones

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| Wed Mar. 6, 2013 4:12 PM PST

UPDATE: Senator Paul ended his filibuster after midnight on Thursday after nearly 13 hours. As Paul ended his filibuster, he said “I would go for another 12 hours to try to break Strom Thurmond’s record, but I’ve discovered that there are some limits to filibustering and I’m going to have to go take care of one of those in a few minutes here." In order to hold the Senate floor, Paul was not permitted to even sit down, let alone leave to go to the bathroom.

On Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) engaged in a marathon filibuster of John Brennan, Obama's nominee to head the CIA, protesting the administration's policy on the use of drones in lethal operations. Paul began speaking at noon and was still filibustering six hours later. 

"I will speak until I can no longer speak," Paul said. "I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court." Paul also criticized the administration's rationale for targeting American terror suspects overseas, as laid out in a recently leaked white paper.

Paul has been pressing the Obama administration for weeks to answer if it believes the president has the authority to order a drone strike on American soil. On Tuesday, Paul received a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder stating that, in certain "extraordinary circumstances," such as the attack on Pearl Harbor or the 9/11 attacks, military force could be used domestically. Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Jon Cornyn (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) joined Paul's filibuster, although Wyden reiterated his intention to vote for Brennan's confirmation. The administration recently agreed to allow senators on the intelligence committee access to the legal memos justifying the use of lethal force against American terror suspects. 

"That Americans could be killed in a café in San Francisco, or in a restaurant in Houston, or at their home in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is an abomination," Paul said. "It is something that should not and can not be tolerated in our country…Has America the beautiful become Alice's Wonderland?" Paul also criticized the use of signature strikes—lethal operations targeted at anonymous individuals abroad who are believed to be terrorists based on a "pattern of behavior."

During a Senate judiciary committee hearing held earlier Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked Holder whether he believed that it would be constitutional for the president to order a drone strike on an American citizen suspected of terrorism in the United States who was "sitting quietly at a café." After a lengthy back and forth, during which Holder said that he did not think it would be "appropriate" to use lethal force in such a circumstance, and Cruz pressed him on whether that meant "unconstitutional," Holder acknowledged that he did not think it would be constitutional. "Translate my 'appropriate' to 'no,'" Holder said. "No." Holder said he didn't believe the letter he had sent to Paul was inconsistent with that answer. 

Later on during the oversight hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Holder if it would be constitutional for the US military to fire on a hijacked civilian plane that was aimed at the White House. Holder said yes. "When we say Congress gave every administration the authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda, we didn't exempt the homeland, did we?" Graham asked.

"No I don't think we did," Holder said. "In the letter that I sent to Sen. Paul, that's one of the reasons I mentioned September the 11th," Holder said, referring to an order given by then-Vice President Dick Cheney to shoot down passenger planes that were reportedly headed for the Capitol. The order was never carried out because it was received too late. 

"What I worry about are the people who say America is a battlefield," Paul said during his filibuster. "They're saying they want the laws of war to apply here." 

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Mon May. 21, 2012 8:12 AM PDT

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Thu May. 17, 2012 6:59 AM PDT

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Thu May. 17, 2012 6:54 AM PDT

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Wed May. 16, 2012 12:51 PM PDT

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Wed May. 16, 2012 12:46 PM PDT

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Wed May. 16, 2012 12:22 PM PDT

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Wed May. 16, 2012 8:54 AM PDT

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Wed May. 16, 2012 8:39 AM PDT

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Tue May. 15, 2012 8:26 AM PDT

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Thu May. 10, 2012 9:13 AM PDT

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Thu May. 10, 2012 8:05 AM PDT

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Thu May. 10, 2012 7:16 AM PDT

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Wed May. 9, 2012 12:43 PM PDT

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Wed May. 9, 2012 9:10 AM PDT

In Congress, Dem and GOPer Working Together to Change the NDAA
Wed May. 9, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

9/11 Judge: "Why Is This So Hard?"
Sat May. 5, 2012 1:16 PM PDT

Al Qaeda Gripes About Its Fanatical Internet Followers
Thu May. 3, 2012 9:40 AM PDT

On Bin Laden Killing, Ex-CIA Torture Chief Contradicted by…CIA
Wed May. 2, 2012 12:48 PM PDT

What Obama's Counterterrorism Chief Won't Say About Drone Strikes
Tue May. 1, 2012 10:25 AM PDT

Former CIA Official Seeking to Confirm Efficacy of Torture Does The Opposite
Mon Apr. 30, 2012 8:12 AM PDT

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Thu Apr. 26, 2012 9:54 AM PDT

3 Things to Know About the Challenge to Arizona's Immigration Law
Tue Apr. 24, 2012 12:20 PM PDT

Pew: Liberal Media Not So Hot On Obama in 2012
Mon Apr. 23, 2012 8:55 AM PDT

Nugent NRA Video Removed From YouTube
Thu Apr. 19, 2012 10:18 AM PDT

Allen West's Communist Conspiracy Implicates Woodrow Wilson
Wed Apr. 18, 2012 12:24 PM PDT

Study: All-White Jury Pools More Likely To Convict Black Defendants (UPDATED)
Tue Apr. 17, 2012 12:15 PM PDT

GOP's Favorite Muslim Activist Under Fire From Muslim Groups
Fri Apr. 13, 2012 9:46 AM PDT

Survey: Jewish Voters Still Heart Obama
Tue Apr. 3, 2012 9:10 AM PDT

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Fri Mar. 30, 2012 10:00 AM PDT

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Thu Mar. 29, 2012 8:49 AM PDT

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Wed Mar. 28, 2012 3:45 PM PDT

Obamacare's Supreme Court Disaster
Tue Mar. 27, 2012 12:00 PM PDT

Supreme Court Probably Won't Punt on Health Care
Mon Mar. 26, 2012 11:43 AM PDT

What the Supreme Court Could Do About Obamacare, Explained
Mon Mar. 26, 2012 12:08 AM PDT

The Right Goes Nuts Over Obama's Trayvon Comments
Fri Mar. 23, 2012 12:45 PM PDT

Beck's Website Calls Trayvon Martin "The Aggressor"
Wed Mar. 21, 2012 12:51 PM PDT

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Fri Mar. 16, 2012 1:10 PM PDT

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Thu Apr. 4, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

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Sun Mar. 31, 2013 8:50 AM PDT

MIA at the Supreme Court: DOMA Lawyer's Most Homophobic Arguments

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Fri Mar. 29, 2013 8:13 AM PDT

Here Are the 7 Worst Things Antonin Scalia Has Said or Written About Homosexuality

This week the Supreme Court will hear arguments about equal rights for gay Americans. But we already know what Scalia thinks.

Tue Mar. 26, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

The GOP Wants to Use This Bizarre Case to Scuttle Obama's Most Progressive Cabinet Nominee

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Fri Mar. 22, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

Shocker: Civil Rights Agency Did Not Discriminate Against Conservatives, Whites

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Wed Mar. 13, 2013 8:03 AM PDT

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Tue Mar. 12, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

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Wed Feb. 27, 2013 12:48 PM PST

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Wed Feb. 27, 2013 4:01 AM PST

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Thu Feb. 7, 2013 4:57 PM PST

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Thu Jan. 31, 2013 4:01 AM PST

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Tue Jan. 15, 2013 1:59 PM PST

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Mon Jan. 14, 2013 4:06 AM PST

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Thu Jan. 3, 2013 4:06 AM PST

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Fri Dec. 28, 2012 2:09 PM PST

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Thu Dec. 20, 2012 4:06 AM PST

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Tue Dec. 18, 2012 7:50 AM PST

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Fri Dec. 14, 2012 7:22 AM PST

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Tue Dec. 11, 2012 7:51 AM PST

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Thu Dec. 6, 2012 4:13 AM PST

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Thu Nov. 15, 2012 4:03 AM PST

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Wed Nov. 14, 2012 4:03 AM PST

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Mon Nov. 5, 2012 4:13 AM PST

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Fri Oct. 26, 2012 3:03 AM PDT

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Wed Oct. 24, 2012 3:03 AM PDT

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Mon Oct. 22, 2012 11:42 AM PDT

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Thu Oct. 11, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

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Fri Sep. 14, 2012 12:17 PM PDT

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Mon Sep. 10, 2012 3:00 AM PDT