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From the Los Angeles Times

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Awlaki death rekindles legal debate on targeting Americans

The slaying of two Americans renews questions about whether killing U.S. citizens is legal under rules of war or constitutes an extrajudicial execution in violation of U.S. and international law.

by Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer

September 30, 2011

The killing of two Americans by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen has reignited a debate about whether targeting U.S. citizens — even terrorists — is legal under the rules of war or constitutes an extrajudicial execution that ignores their rights.

The Obama administration contends that U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar Awlaki was a legitimate target because he played an "operational" role in Al Qaeda, alleging that, among other plots, he directed a 2009 Christmas Day plan to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner.

"Awlaki was the leader

of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," President Obama said Friday. "In that role, he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans."

But some human rights advocates and legal scholars said the administration had never produced evidence to back up that claim. They said the 40-year-old cleric was an influential recruiter and motivator, but there was little evidence to directly link him to belligerent operations against the United States.

The attack also killed Samir Khan, 25, a U.S. citizen and anti-American propagandist who ran an

Al Qaeda-linked website that called for attacks on the United States.

Diane Marie Amann, a University of Georgia law professor who has monitored terrorism trials for the National Institute of Military Justice, said the debate over whether Awlaki's killing was legal hinges on whether the war against Al Qaeda is an armed conflict or an international police action.

"Viewed through the lens of ordinary criminal justice, for the government to kill a suspect rather than put him on trial is summary execution, clearly forbidden by U.S. and international law alike," Amann said. "Viewed through the lens of armed conflict, the result is different, however: The laws of war permit a state to kill its enemies."

An array of international law experts defended the legality of the airstrike, illustrating the conflicting interpretations of law in the fight against terrorism.

"There is strong linkage between Awlaki and the Christmas Day bomber," said Duke law professor Scott Silliman, a former Air Force staff judge advocate, referring to the young Nigerian reportedly groomed by Awlaki before his botched attempt to detonate explosives smuggled aboard the plane in his underpants.

"We do know there were also some email links between Awlaki and Maj. [Nidal Malik] Hasan at Ft. Hood," Silliman said, in reference to the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused in the Nov. 5, 2009, shootings that left 13 dead at the U.S. military base in Texas.

"When you put that together, and with some indications in the intelligence community that he was the head of or at least very active in the leadership of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, I think it was clear he was more than just a propagandist. That type of activity puts him in the category of a legitimate target."

Amos Guiora, a University of Utah law professor and author of a forthcoming book on targeted killings, said U.S. military and intelligence agencies were within their rights to eliminate Awlaki. He said the operation appeared to have been carried out with appropriate preparation and care to avoid civilian casualties, despite the ostensibly unintended killing of Khan, who was with Awlaki at the time.

"This attack appears to have met the criteria of proportionality, military necessity and the absence of alternatives to be in full accordance with a state's right to aggressive self-defense," said Guiora, a former Israel Defense Forces legal advisor involved in targeted killing decisions in the Gaza Strip in the mid-1990s.

Constitutional rights advocates have clashed with that point of view throughout the so-called war on terrorism pronounced by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The killing of Awlaki was "the latest of many affronts to domestic and international law," said Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, disparaging the claimed executive power to kill any U.S. citizen deemed a threat.

Ben Wizner, national security litigation director for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that lethal force beyond the battlefield is lawful "only as a last resort to counter an imminent threat of deadly attack."

Much of the legal and ethical dispute festers because the administration has invoked state secrecy to prevent disclosing to either the public or judiciary the evidence it says it holds pointing to Awlaki's operational involvement.

Micah Zenko, a Council on Foreign Relations fellow on conflict prevention, said the known evidence linking Awlaki to Al Qaeda operations is slim but that the intelligence agencies and military special forces involved in such a strike would be unlikely to disclose any detail that could compromise intelligence gathering and future targeted killings.

Then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made that position clear in a federal court filing a year ago, when he asserted a state secrets privilege in urging a federal judge to dismiss a suit brought by Awlaki's father, Nasser, seeking a court injunction against any attack on his son. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the elder Awlaki's case, saying it wasn't the court's role to intervene in military operations.

Awlaki's U.S. citizenship didn't entitle him to any special right of due process beyond what a foreign terrorism suspect would have, the legal analysts said.

A 1942 Supreme Court decision upholding the war-crimes convictions and death sentences of Nazi infiltrators caught attempting to sabotage East Coast defense operations rejected special consideration of one saboteur who claimed U.S. citizenship. The justices found all eight men to be "enemy belligerents" subject to the prosecution and punishment allowed under the law of war.

In Ex parte Quirin, the justices found all eight men to be "enemy belligerents" subject to the prosecution and punishment allowed under the law of war.

"The constitution guarantees due process for every 'person,' not just for citizens, and the laws of war do not preclude the possibility of one state's citizen taking up arms against his own country," said David Glazier, a national security law professor at Loyola Law School.

"From the U.S. government's perspective, that's the real beauty of treating [the fight with Al Qaeda] as an armed conflict," Glazier said. "Both U.S. national and international law are in agreement that the nationality of the target doesn't matter."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-awlaki-due-process-20111001,0,5639625,print.story

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Radical cleric took winding path to become 'Pied Piper of jihadists'

Born in New Mexico and raised in Yemen, Anwar Awlaki learned to preach in the U.S. As a young man, he studied in several U.S. states, including California.

by Valerie J. Nelson

September 30, 2011

While living in San Diego in the late 1990s, Anwar Awlaki regularly fished for albacore and shared his catch with a neighbor. At the local mosque where he preached, he delighted in playing soccer with young children and taking the teenagers paint-balling.

"He had an allure. He was charming," Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director of an Islamic center in Falls Church, Va., where Awlaki later gave sermons, told reporters in 2009.

With his fashionable eyeglasses and fluent English, the U.S.-born radical cleric also had been called a "Pied Piper of jihadists," an Internet phenomenon who produced video and audio recordings to lure Westerners to his extremist ideologies.

Awlaki, who had been linked to several terrorist plots in the U.S., was killed Friday in a joint CIA-military airstrike, U.S. officials said. He was 40.

His was born in 1971 in Las Cruces, N.M., where his father had moved from Yemen to study agricultural economics at New Mexico State University. At 7, Awlaki returned with his family to Yemen, and his father served as the country's agriculture minister.

When he was 20, Awlaki returned to the U.S. to study civil engineering at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. Fellow students later recalled him as a soft-spoken, average student who enjoyed table tennis.

He often mentioned to other students that he had spent a summer training with the Afghan mujahedin , Muslim fighters who battled the Soviet Union's occupation in Afghanistan.

At an Islamic center in Fort Collins, Awlaki discovered he had a flair for preaching when volunteers took turns giving the Friday sermon.

At 25, Awlaki moved to California to study education at San Diego State University. He gave sermons at a Sunni mosque bordering La Mesa and lived with his wife and two toddlers in a small, adjoining house.

When a member of the mosque suggested Awlaki record his lectures on compact discs, a popular series followed beginning in 2000. More than 50 CDs alone were devoted to the "Life of Muhammad."

San Diego police twice picked up Awlaki for soliciting prostitutes, and Awlaki received probation, according to media reports.

In 1999 and 2000, Awlaki was investigated by the FBI, but no criminal charges were filed against him. Around that time, he met two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, and the FBI questioned him again after the 9/11 attacks.

Awlaki moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs in 2000 and pursued postgraduate studies at George Washington University. Two years later, he left for London, where he preached at mosques known for radical ideologies.

In 2004, he returned to Yemen with his Yemeni wife and their family. He was believed to have as many as five children.

Yemeni authorities arrested him in 2006 with a group of five Yemenis suspected of kidnapping a Shiite Muslim teenager for ransom. Soon after his release from jail in 2007, he returned to the center of his Awalik tribe in the southern province of Shabwa, considered an Al Qaeda stronghold.

A hint of what he expected from the future could be found in his farewell to Lincoln W. Higgie III, the San Diego neighbor who he gave pieces of albacore, the New York Times reported in 2010.

When Higgie told him to stop by if he was ever in town, Higgie said Awlaki replied, "I don't think you'll be seeing me. I won't be coming back to San Diego again. Later on you'll find out why."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-awlaki-profile-20111001,0,2345618,print.story

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Anwar Awlaki: Targeted for death

Anwar Awlaki was targeted for killing by the U.S. government with no transparent, legal, reviewable process and no opportunity to respond to specific allegations.

October 2, 2011

Amid all the self-congratulation over the killing of Anwar Awlaki and the confident assertion that the world is a better place as a result, it is worth remembering that the secret, unilateral, targeted assassination of a U.S. citizen far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan is hardly something to celebrate.

If Awlaki was in fact the architect of terrorism attacks inside the United States, as officials maintain he was, then perhaps his demise is to be welcomed. But we don't really know, do we? There was no transparent, legal, reviewable process by which he was placed on the list of those targeted for killing by the U.S. government. There was no judicial procedure, nor any public airing of the charges against him. He had no opportunity to respond to specific allegations.

Even in wartime, the killing of a U.S. citizen — or anyone else — who poses no immediate danger is morally obnoxious. It also is impossible to harmonize with the U.S. Constitution. The 5th Amendment says that no citizen should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. If Awlaki had been arrested in America, rather than assassinated in Yemen, he would have had an incontestable right to a trial.

The Obama administration's interest in Awlaki is understandable. The charismatic preacher, an American-born Muslim, is said to have incited the attempted Christmas Day bombing in 2009 and may have directed a plot to blow up a cargo plane bound for Chicago. He also was in touch with Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at the Ft. Hood Army base.

We understand the government's conundrum. In this dangerous new world, our enemies don't wear uniforms, threats cross national borders, and an order given abroad can quickly lead to devastation at home. The U.S. has struggled for a decade with how to safeguard people without crossing moral lines or violating individual rights.

But if the United States is going to continue down the troubling road of state-sponsored assassination, the government should, at the very least, provide a clear understanding of the criteria used to decide who should be placed on the target list. And there must be some form of judicial review of those decisions; why should a judge's approval be required to place a wiretap on a suspected terrorist but not to kill him? Since Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. has detained many alleged terrorists, only for courts to discover that the evidence against them was unreliable or wrong.

Last year, Awlaki's father asked a federal judge to rule that the United States may not assassinate an American citizen outside a war zone "unless he is found to present a concrete, specific and imminent threat to life or physical safety, and there are no means other than lethal force" to neutralize the threat. The judge declined, saying the issue was a political question best left to the president. But President Obama should be pressed to abide by those guidelines.

The war on terror is not a free-for-all in which the United States may behave as it wishes without accountability or adherence to principle. We would have been pleased if Awlaki could have been captured and brought to this country for trial, because the promise of due process is a fundamental, bedrock American value.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-1001-awlaki-20111002,0,5371695,print.story

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14 tons of marijuana seized by U.S. Border Patrol

A canine officer doing a routine inspection at the State Highway 86 checkpoint near Salton City detected the load, which was hidden inside large wooden crates. Agents pulled out more than 1,100 bundles of marijuana, worth an estimated $22.6 million. The 35-year-old driver was arrested.

The seizure is the latest in a series of enormous marijuana busts along the California-Mexico border. In November, U.S. authorities in San Diego seized 25 tons of marijuana, and two weeks later an additional 20 tons. Both loads were discovered in warehouses linked to Mexico by tunnels.

Last October, Mexican authorities seized 134 tons of marijuana in Tijuana -- the largest bust in Mexican history. Those drugs were believed to belong to the Sinaloa drug cartel, Mexico's most powerful organized crime group, authorities said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration declined to comment on the ongoing investigation of Wednesday's seizure, which was the largest in Imperial County history.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/14-tons-of-marijuana-seized-by-us-border-patrol.html

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From Google News

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Guns in bars now OK in Ohio

The law was signed by Gov. John Kasich in June but the legislation to allow patrons with concealed-carry licenses to enter bars and other establishments that serve alcohol with their weapons officially went into effect Friday.

It's a "fantastic" change, according to Michael Shafer, of Whipple, an NRA-certified instructor with handgun training through the United States Army, Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy and the National Rifle Association. He offers group and private courses to individuals who want to learn more about handgun safety.

"I really applaud Gov. Kasich and those who laid the plans to make this a law," he said. "Any person who goes through the course (necessary to receive a concealed-carry permit) is going to be the most law abiding citizen you will ever come across. This law allows citizens to protect themselves if need be."

Shafer said that opponents of the law who express concerns should read up on what it takes to earn a license to carry a concealed weapon.

"They must go through an outstanding program that the state of Ohio has and then a background check through the sheriff's office," he said.

Shafer cited incidents in Columbus where criminals targeted certain patrons and restaurants with bars because they knew no law-abiding concealed-carry permit holder would be present. He also suggested that the Virginia Tech massacre, when student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 and wounded 25 in 2007, might have gone differently had the shooter known that concealed-carry permit holders were present.

Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks said that the objection from the statewide view of law enforcement is that alcohol and guns don't mix; however, in Washington County, he doesn't foresee it becoming an issue.

"In Washington County, we don't have problems with people who have CCW permits and we don't anticipate any problems. But (establishment owners) still have the option to post that weapons are not permitted," he said, adding that he believes that would be enough of a deterrent for permit holders not to enter the establishment.

"A person who is carrying should not be drinking at all and (with this law) they are not to be drinking in the establishment. Owners do have the right, if they suspect someone is carrying, to refuse them service," he said.

For some restaurant and bar owners, the law doesn't really change anything.

"We don't have a sign up and we probably won't," said Jason Ware, manager of No Idea Sports Dining on Pike Street in Marietta. "I don't foresee it being an issue. But I do think they should have done something more to educate (bar owners) about the law and suggestions on how to enforce it. I do think that somebody dropped the ball on that part."

Kevin Whitby, owner of the Harmar Tavern and Spagna's in Marietta, agrees that he would have liked to have had more input.

"Nobody asked me," he said, "I think those who made the law should have talked to liquor license owners. But it's going to be hard to get laws like this changed. No one wants to go against the NRA."

Whitby added that he thinks the law puts bar owners in an unfair situation of trying to determine who might be drinking and carrying a gun.

"If it's concealed, how do I know they have (a gun)? I shouldn't have to police it," he said. "Alcohol and guns do not mix."

http://www.mariettatimes.com/page/content.detail/id/539038/Guns-in-bars-now-OK-in-Ohio.html?nav=5002

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Federal grants awarded for community policing

Pennington County, Rapid City and Box Elder police departments have been awarded three-year grants to improve community policing efforts.

Rapid City is expected to use its $823,804 grant to strengthen its Street Crimes Unit, according to Capt. Deb Cady.

"It's very good news," Cady said. Police Chief Steve Allender will ask the city council to accept the grant at the Oct. 17 meeting, she said.

Rapid City has received COPS grants in the past that were used to fund additional officers and support extra projects by the department.

At the end of three years, the local law enforcement agencies must be prepared to continue the new positions for a fourth year.

The grants are intended to help departments address problems within their communities, according to Cady.

Rapid City's grant application mentions the city's "several, isolated geographic, including business districts, public use area and neighborhoods ... where people are either afraid to use, or to live, due to a transient population which frequents those area." Panhandling is mentioned as a major complaint that frequently leads to other issues and crimes.

Sheriff Kevin Thom said the county will use its $186,144 to add an additional staff to enhance the county's community policing efforts particularly in schools.

"It will help us fulfill that mission," Thom said.

In the grant application, the sheriff's office noted that the county provides five school liaison officers to schools in the county which encompasses five school districts.

The sheriff's office identified a need to develop and test incident response plans that would prepare the sheriff's office to respond to violent situations within the county's schools and administration buildings.

Box Elder will receive $165,715 that it intends to use to address crime in the growing community, according to its grant applications.

The three local grants were part of a $1.3 million allocation for South Dakota announced Friday by Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D. Watertown also received a $181,285 COPS grant

U.S. grant will allow Detroit to hire 25 police officers

The grant will fully pay for entry-level salaries and benefits for the officers, a news release from the Police Department said. According to the Department of Justice, the grants provide funding for newly hired or rehired full-time officers over a three-year period.

As of Friday, there were 2,768 sworn members of the Police Department, spokeswoman Sgt. Eren Stephens said.

"The awarding of this grant is (evidence) that we are aware of our budgetary constraints and are effectively seeking external funding sources," Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. said in the news release. "The Detroit Police Department will relentlessly seek available assistance to increase our manpower and resources, so to provide the citizens of Detroit with the exemplary police service that they require and deserve."

In August, following a particularly violent weekend, city leaders expressed hope that Detroit would be selected for a COPS grant. The city is combatting a 22.7% rise in homicides this year over the same period last year, with 265 people killed as of Tuesday.

Friday's announcement came the day after Detroit police and the U.S. Attorney's Office announced a federal initiative to focus on gun crimes in the 48205 ZIP code for the next 30 days.

The Detroit Police Department was among 2,712 applicants for the 2011 COPS Hiring Program, according to the release. Funding decisions, the Police Department said, were based on an agency's commitment to reducing crime rates and being committed to community policing, among other things.

"There is nothing more important than keeping Detroit safe," Mayor Dave Bing said in the release. "This grant will help us increase our presence in the community and continue reducing crime."

http://www.freep.com/article/20111001/NEWS01/110010444/U-S-grant-will-allow-Detroit-hire-25-police-officers?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

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