Legal experts slam 'targeted killings'

Civil liberties advocates and legal authorities struck back Friday at what they describe as the "deliberate targeted killing of U.S. citizens far away from any active hostilities, as long as the executive branch determines unilaterally that they meet a secret definition of who the enemy is." In an admission that took the intelligence community and its critics by surprise, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a congressional hearing Wednesday that the U.S. may, with executive approval, deliberately target and kill U.S. citizens who are suspected of being involved in terrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union is among those expressing serious concern about the lack of public information about the policy and the potential for abuse of unchecked executive power. Attorney George Brent Mickum, who has defended a number of Guantanamo Bay detainees, told IPS, "I guess my sense is that it's just more fear mongering. They kill somebody and don't need to offer any justification." "We have killed thousands of innocent civilians while attempting to target alleged operatives. And let us not forget how frequently our intelligence has been wrong about alleged operatives," Mickum noted.