American drone planes.

by Alex Porter ’13

New Mexico born American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda leader, was killed late last month in Yemen in a CIA-led strike by an unmanned drone aircraft. Al-Awlaki was called “the leader of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula” by President Obama, and was a spokesman and recruiter known for his use of the internet and Youtube videos. This assassination is outside of the American government’s limitations, as a citizen was killed without a trial. While Al-Awlaki was undoubtedly a terrible man who threatened the United States, his status as a citizen is worrying, as it may lead to more justified killings of Americans. For now it is only terrorists, but it runs the risk of expanding to other Americans. Even the concept of being a terrorist is expanding to anyone who commits a crime that injures others in a dramatic enough way to warrant media coverage. This increase in federal power through the ability to authorize extrajudicial killings of Americans far outsteps the nations need for security. I do not mean to suggest that the United States should go undefended. However, our nation’s defense should be handled legally and properly by the uniformed armed forces tasked with it, and not intelligence agency bureaucrats. When we as Americans strip away our rights for security, what are we even trying to protect? This nation was founded on all people being treated equally under the law, no matter how good or bad they are.