On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair admitted that “government agencies may kill U.S. citizens abroad who are involved in terrorist activities if they are ‘taking action that threatens Americans,'” and that they “follow a set of defined policy and legal procedures” in doing so. “If that direct action, we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that,” Blair said.

Of course, the Constitution does not give government the authority to assassinate American citizens outside of a battlefield context based on simple suspicion that they’ve committed a crime — or worse, the mere belief that they are dangerous, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out. The ACLU has released two scathing statements, one from Staff Attorney Ben Wizner:

It is alarming to hear that the Obama administration is asserting that the president can authorize the assassination of Americans abroad, even if they are far from any battlefield and may have never taken up arms against the U.S., but have only been deemed to constitute an unspecified ‘threat.’ This is the most recent consequence of a troublingly overbroad interpretation of Congress’s 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force. This sweeping interpretation envisions a war that knows no borders or definable time limits and targets an enemy that the government has refused to define in public. This policy is particularly troubling since it targets U.S. citizens, who retain their constitutional right to due process even when abroad.

And one from Legal Fellow Jonathan Manes:

The American people have a right to know more about a policy that grants the president the unilateral authority to approve the killing of U.S. citizens. It is essential that more information be made available about who can be targeted for killing, who makes these decisions and on the basis of how much evidence, and whether lethal force can be used if arrest or capture are possible or have not been attempted. … [This policy] appears to allow for the deliberate targeted killing of American 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.

It seems highly likely to me that this authority is probably based on advice from the Office of Legal Counsel, which is generally the first line of defense against unconstitutional overreach from the executive branch. During the Bush administration, it rubber-stamped all kinds of lawless behavior, including torture. Was this policy approved during the prior administration, or has nothing changed?

I just want to add one more thing for those inclined to dismiss this kind of unilateral power as insignificant because it’s aimed at “the bad guys.” The majority of the detainees currently at Guantanamo are being cleared for release — not trial, not further indefinite detention. More than 800 people have been held at Guantanamo, and even if the administration’s claimed 20 percent “recidivism” rate is accurate (it more than likely isn’t), the vast majority of those once deemed “the worst of the worst” were mistakes.

Republicans seem to have accepted in principle the unrestrained use of state violence against any target the executive branch unilaterally deems legitimate, and the left is beginning to acquiesce to a level of presidential power that under Bush they would have deemed a threat to the Republic. My fear is that, if the left is co-opted into believing in John Yoo‘s vision of an imperial presidency as presented by Barack Obama, there will be little public support for scrutinizing this kind of use of executive power. Most of us will simply accept this as the new normal.

— A. Serwer