Anwar Al-Awlaki Assassination Would Be Erosion of Constitutional Rights

Anwar al-Awlaki (Wikipedia)

Today the New York Times has a story about pending litigation involving the targeted killing of an American citizen overseas in Yemen for ties to Al Qaeda. The Obama Administration wants to assassinate Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico in 1971 who became a radical when he moved to Yemen in 2004. His name entered the government's consciousness following the Fort Hood massacre after Al-Awlaki praised the shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, and was brought up again during interrogations of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the now testicle-less Christmas Day bomber of 2009, and Times Square bomber Faisel Shahzad. Adbulmutallab allegedly received training in Yemen from Al-Awlaki and Shahzad had allegedly been in contact with Al-Awlaki prior to his failed bombing attempt.

Why We Cannot Strip American Citizens of Their Rights

Joe Lieberman's proposal to strip American citizens of their rights as American citizens is incredibly misguided and, to put it simply, wrong.  The call emanates from the arrest of Faisel Shahzad, the Pakistan-born American citizen accused of unsuccessfully trying to detonate a homemade bomb in the middle of Times Square.  As much as I hate that an American citizen is capable of something like this, the fact remains that Shahzad is an American citizen; this cannot be glossed over.  Shahzad has all of the rights you and I do under the Constitution despite his actions and this should not be stripped from him or any other American citizen misguided enough to try to attempt something like this.