I heard an interview with this guy. He's an independent journalist and it
sounded like he was definitely targeted.
Miriam
Trump Justice Department Asserts Unreviewable Discretion to Kill US Citizens
By Megan Mineiro, Courthouse News
21 November 20
Drawing alarm at the D.C. Circuit, a lawyer for the United States argued
Monday that the government has the power to kill its citizens without
judicial oversight when state secrets are involved.
"Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?" U.S. Circuit
Judge Patricia Millett asked Justice Department attorney Bradley
Hinshelwood, paraphrasing his claim as giving the government the ability to
"unilaterally decide to kill U.S. citizens."
The hearing before the federal appeals court came as the government fights
to hold off allegations by two journalists who say it wrongly targeted them
as terrorists in Syria.
One of the journalists, U.S. citizen Bilal Abdul Kareem, says his interviews
with al-Qaida-linked militants landed him on the U.S. kill list. Just in
June and August 2016, Kareem says, the U.S. government targeted him five
times, including one drone strike involving a U.S.-made Hellfire missile.
Though the United States has not confirmed whether Kareem or his
co-plaintiff, Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, pose any such threat, it has withheld
information related to their case on the basis of national security.
Arguing only on the claims brought by Kareem, the Justice Department's
Hinshelwood conceded Monday that a strike against a U.S. citizen is a
serious undertaking. Where the judiciary can step in, he said, is in
ensuring that the state-secrets privilege was appropriately applied.
But Kareem's attorney, Tara Jordan Plochocki, argued the government was
radically expanding sovereignty, domestically and abroad, allowed under
state-secrets privilege.
"Whether that's in a parking lot in the United States or abroad in Syria,
the government has claimed - for the first time ever in this case - that it
has unfettered and unreviewable discretion to kill US citizens at will,"
Plochocki said.
Shrugging off Kareem's claims as baseless speculation, the government argued
the alleged airstrikes occurred at a time when Syria was wracked by civil
war.
"In all of these circumstances, he's not even the only person present, much
less is there anything to suggest that he's actually the target of any of
these specific attacks," Hinshelwood said.
The three-judge panel took seriously the defense that bombs pummeled Syria
in 2016 as the conflict between the Assad regime and rebel groups roared.
U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson, a George H. W. Bush appointee, said she
viewed it as a "spectacular delusion of grandeur" that Kareem claims a
series of U.S. missiles were aimed at him.
Expressing looser skepticism, Millett followed up saying: "Like Judge
Henderson, I remember the news." The two judges heard the case together with
Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan, who like Millett is an Obama
appointee.
While Plochocki did not dispute that cities like Aleppo and Idlib were
subject to severe and routine bombings, she argued U.S. attacks on Syrian
territory were not indiscriminate.
"These happened with eerie precisions," the attorney argued, referring to
the five alleged strikes against her client.
She later claimed the government was arguing Kareem needed to "provide the
make and model of the missiles fired at him."
"Of course, that's not a reasonable expectation," Plochocki said. Urging the
D.C. Circuit to remand the case, she argued such evidence would come out in
discovery if the state secrets privilege is lifted.
