Barack Jefferson on National Security

Forgive, dear reader, a half-baked historical analogy -- or rather, suggestion of long continuity in American executives' propensity to claim power over the life and limb of anyone they deem a threat to national security. First, Obama, asserting that right in court (via Washington Post:

The Obama administration urged a federal judge early Saturday to dismiss a lawsuit over its targeting of a U.S. citizen for killing overseas, saying that the case would reveal state secrets.

The U.S.-born citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, is a cleric now believed to be in Yemen. Federal authorities allege that he is leading a branch of al-Qaeda there.

Government lawyers called the state-secrets argument a last resort to toss out the case, and it seems likely to revive a debate over the reach of a president's powers in the global war against al-Qaeda.

Civil liberties groups sued the U.S. government on behalf of Aulaqi's father, arguing that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command's placement of Aulaqi on a capture-or-kill list of suspected terrorists - outside a war zone and absent an imminent threat - amounted to an extrajudicial execution order against a U.S. citizen.

They asked a U.S. district court in Washington to block the targeting.

In response, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the groups are asking "a court to take the unprecedented step of intervening in an ongoing military action to direct the President how to manage that action - all on behalf of a leader of a foreign terrorist organization."

Miller added, "If al-Aulaqi wishes to access our legal system, he should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions." 

Next, Thomas Jefferson, whose commitment to the rule of law was surprisingly equivocal.  Leonard Levy, in Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side, describes Jefferson's willingness, as a leading member of the Virginia legislature during the Revolutionary War, to declare open season on an alleged Tory brigand, a deed he defended to his dying day: