Not that it really makes a functional difference, but...

[LMNO]

The Government has laid out its justifications for killing you without a trial.

The legal basis for using drone strikes to kill US citizens has been disclosed in a leaked Justice Department memo.

The undated 16-page Justice Department White Paper published by NBC gives more details of the justification for the use of drones outside recognised war zones.

The paper adopts a broad definition of "imminent threat", saying it is not necessary to produce evidence that a specific attack is being planned if the target is generally engaged in plotting against the US.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The paper adopts a broad definition of "imminent threat", saying it is not necessary to produce evidence that a specific attack is being planned if the target is generally engaged in plotting against the US.

Would that include, perhaps, blowing up US citizens by remote control outside of a war zone?

HAW HAW!  JUST KIDDING.

[Cain]

Also worth noting, this isn't the actual memo used to authorize the killing of Anwar al-Walaki.

Or rather, I should say memos.  Which have been requested repeatedly, and not given. 

[Pergamos]

Also worth noting, this isn't the actual memo used to authorize the killing of Anwar al-Walaki.

Or rather, I should say memos.  Which have been requested repeatedly, and not given.

How about Abdulrahman?  He seems like the one that would get the most sympathetic rage from the American public.

[Cain]

I believe he wasn't the main target of the strike which killed him.

Which is not to say he wasn't also an intended target (if not the primary target, given my suspicions re: al-Walaki/US intelligence fallout), but, on paper, it was Ibrahim al-Banna.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Yup. Not the actual memo. For some reason the full legal theory remains state secret despite a couple standing FOIA requests.

Also fantastic timing of this "accidentally leaked" document, as a run up to the confirmation hearings of John Brennan for CIA chief.

Here's a fun quote:

I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precendents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and the laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret...

The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me,

That's from the Federal Judge who upheld the Obama Administration's right to keep secret the legal theory behind targeted assassination.

EDIT: Oh, and in addition to the redefinition of "imminent threat" there's also some liberalities taken with "feasability". Essentially if there's a potential risk to any personnel involved in capturing the subject, then capture is deemed "unfeasible". To be fair, it does enhance the risk to ground personnel to be operating in a nation not in an otherwise authorized theatre of operations...Just look what happened to those poor CIA guys who can't even go to Italy anymore...

[The Good Reverend Roger]

SECRET LEGAL THEORY!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAIIIIIIEEEE!

CAN'T...STOP...LAUGHING...

[Junkenstein]

I wonder how secret it is. I'm fairly sure he still doesn't know.

Idea- spam this on right wing boards. They will LOVE it.

[Cain]

There are secret clauses in the Patriot Act, too.

[Elder Iptuous]

There are secret clauses in the Patriot Act, too.

wait, what?
actual legislation which is incorporated in the USC can be secret?!

[Cain]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act/

You think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden says it's worse than you know.

Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. Wyden (D-Oregon) says that powers they grant the government on their face, the government applies a far broader legal interpretation — an interpretation that the government has conveniently classified, so it cannot be publicly assessed or challenged. But one prominent Patriot-watcher asserts that the secret interpretation empowers the government to deploy "dragnets" for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.

[Cain]

It's kinda like how, in the legal justification set out above, the word "imminent" actually means, uh, "not imminent".

Or how ordering an assassination does not contravene the explicit ban on assassinations.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I LOVE THIS CENTURY! 

[Elder Iptuous]

got it.
so it's not the code itself, it's just the fact that there has been a distinct separation between the code, and the interpretation of it, which is what is actually acted upon.

so, when there is a court suit brought up where the plaintiff accuses the govt. of acting outside of the law, and the govt. says, "not according to our interpretation", does the court reveal the govt. interpretation?  how is that currently handled, given the newspeak we see here?

[Cain]

If it's classified, the court can't release it.