Killing American Citizens
There
is a difference between killing an enemy and murder. What does a
person have to do become an enemy and eligible to be killed? The US
Constitution is specific on the subject, Article 3 Section 3,
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
I am not an attorney so whatever I say is subject to “further review”.
My memory is that the Supreme Court has ruled that the protections of
the First Amendment (free speech) do not apply to encouraging the
violent overthrow of the US Government.
The
Constitution makes it clear that levying war against the United
States is treasonable. Also adhering (taking the side of) to the
enemies of the US which the Constitution defines as giving “...Them
Aid and Comfort.” Which phrase I think is open to wide
interpretation. I does not specify how much aid or how much comfort
(or even what “comfort” is). However, and this is where the
government’s approach as outlined in their memo goes off track, the
Constitution plainly requires a trial before a citizen can be
declared treasonous, “
No
Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two
Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
”
Section
349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8
U.S.C. 1481),
as amended, states that U.S. citizens are subject to loss of
citizenship if they perform certain
specified acts voluntarily and with
the intention to relinquish U.S.
citizenship. Briefly stated, these acts include:
conviction
for an act of treason (Sec. 349 (a) (7) INA).
The
point is to remove the individual from Constitutional protections.
The trial could be in
abstentia and
since by definition no confession is possible it does not have to be
in open court. I'm not sure that there is a federal death penalty for
treason but the Congress can remedy that.
It
seems to me that the government has some work to do before it can
start killing US Citizens. Otherwise they may find themselves up on
murder charges.
A hypothetical with a real parallel: We go to war with X country because it declared war on us. Prior to the declaration of war X worked hard to place sympathetic sleepers into our population and to recruit supporters for itself from our general population.
A hypothetical with a real parallel: We go to war with X country because it declared war on us. Prior to the declaration of war X worked hard to place sympathetic sleepers into our population and to recruit supporters for itself from our general population.
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history.[1] In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government (for example the inhabitants of a sovereign state) irrespective of their ethnic make-up.[2][3] The word nation can more specifically refer to people of North American Indians, such as the Cherokee Nation that prefer this term over the contested term tribe.[1]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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