As the Washington Post's Dana Priest recently revealed, al-Alaqi was added recently to a short list of other Americans for whom there are kill orders in place.
A senior Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has told me that to his knowledge, there has been no serious discussion in the Committee of stripping US citizenship from terrorists, but a senior Pentagon official has confirmed that some in the military are exploring the upsides and downsides of such a more routenized mechanism for stripping citizenship.
He was a terrorist; let him eat cake...
Does that sound like a good idea to you? I mean, if true, that makes some American sympathizers traitors and treasonous douche waffles, right?
Dead fucking wrong.
Fuck it...sounds good to us.
It's called the Constitution, and no matter how much the Praetorian Guard Pentagon wants it, you cannot hold some "tainted" or "attaint"...Specifically, under the old English common law:
The word "attainder", meaning "taintedness", is part of English common law. Under English law, a criminal condemned for a serious crime, whether treason or felony (but not misdemeanor, which referred to less serious crimes), could be declared "attainted", meaning that his civil rights were nullified: he could no longer own property or pass property to his family by will or testament. His property could consequently revert to the Crown or to the mesne lord. Any peerage titles would also revert to the Crown. The convicted person would normally be punished by judicial execution as well—when a person committed a capital crime and was put to death for it, the property left behind escheated to the Crown or lord rather than being inherited by family. Attainder functioned more or less as the revocation of the feudal chain of privilege and all rights and properties thus granted.
See this guy? Benedict Arnold? Synonymous with "traitor" in America? Even he wasn't under attainder...he was just hanged, along with every other person comitting crimes against the territorial sovereignty of the U.S.
Well, what does the Constitution specifically say about this who business of "tainting" by removing citizenship? Ahem. The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed." Jesus Christ, people. It's our governing document, you might want to -I don't fucking know- read the goddamned thing occasionally, hell, even once.
Goose feather quill not included. But, you can read one for free here.
BTW: I really wish I could claim credit for douche canoe, but I just can't...
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