Filibustering Senator Cites Dearborn's Arab-American Community, Federal Use of Drones
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is opposed to the federal government’s use of drones, mentioned Dearborn’s Arab-American community during his nearly 13-hour filibuster that started Wednesday and stretched into early Thursday morning.
Paul held the filibuster as his way of blocking the Senate’s confirmation of John Brennan as the CIA director.
Paul was responding to a letter sent to him by Attorney General Eric Holder as a response to Paul asking if “the president has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”
Holder wrote that President Barack Obama’s administration has not carried out drone strikes in the U.S. and does not plan to. He also said law enforcement, not military force, is the best way to stop a terrorist threat.
“The question you posed in therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no president will ever have to confront,” Holder wrote, adding that the president would have no choice in the case of attacks like what happened at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Holder also wrote: “Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the president on the scope of his authority.”
Paul’s response in the filibuster, according to PolicyMic.com, included:
“If our country is attacked, the president has the right to defend and protect the country. Nobody questions that. Nobody questions if planes are flying towards the Twin Towers whether they can be repulsed by the military. Nobody questions whether a terrorist with a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher is attacking us, whether they can be repelled. They don’t get their day in court.
“But if you are sitting in a cafeteria in Dearborn, Mich., if you happen to be an Arab-American who has a relative in the Middle East and you communicate with them by email and somebody says, ‘Oh, your relative is someone we suspect of being associated with terrorism,’ is that enough to kill you? For goodness sakes, wouldn’t we try to arrest and come to the truth by having a jury and a presentation of the facts on both sides of the issue?
“See, the real problem here, one of the things we did a long time ago, is we separated the police power from the judicial power. This was an incredibly important first step.”
Paul also mentioned the issue in an interview with NBC. He said the policy could lead to a situation where “an Arab-American in Dearborn is walking down the street emailing with a friend in the Mideast and all of a sudden we drop a drone” on them.
Joe Slezak
Press & Guide Newspapers