[qqtt]

It's really impossible to understand and determine before hand how the court would rule on any of these theoretical cases that may result as a consequence of this decision. It is up to further cases to actually establish was constitutes "official" versus "unofficial" capacities as President and we can absolutely not guess before hand what that entails. From the decision, it seems that only those duties constitutionally mandated would fall under the "official" capacity, with quite a lot of leeway for determining how to evaluate individual actions.

Also I think we should all be reminded that there is separation of powers for a reason. The President is ultimately largely beholden to Congress. The government cannot sink into a dictatorship without the explicit approval of the majority of Congress. It is Congress' duty to remove Presidents from office that it feels are a danger to the country.

All these checks and balances still exist and will still be enforced. The President can not unilaterally go off the rails as many of these extreme hypotheticals seem to be implying.

[suzzer99]

> It's really impossible to understand and determine before hand how the court would rule on any of these theoretical cases that may result as a consequence of this decision.

I've got a pretty good guess, and it will be based on the political party of the defendant.

[riskable]

> The President is ultimately largely beholden to Congress. The government cannot sink into a dictatorship without the explicit approval of the majority of Congress.

This is nonsense. The President can just assassinate all of their political rivals in Congress that would hold them to account. Before this ruling there was an assumption that any such actions would be prosecuted after the President was no longer in office (assuming they didn't have enough power to interfere with a free election). Now that can't realistically happen.

There's a reason why folks are saying this ruling, "paves the way to a dictatorship"!

[nataliste]

If president has gone rogue and is assassinating members of congress (or rival candidates, why would they need legal immunity? Assassinating opponents is already the action of someone that refuses to relinquish office and has de facto immunity. They don't need the validation of the Supreme Court to do this; nobody is going to charge them in the case that it'll bring a death sentence.

[tines]

> why would they need legal immunity?

Because there's a gap between here and there, and we don't want to make that gap narrower than it already is. The president can now do a whole lot of illegal shit that falls short of "assassinating anyone at any time," and face no consequences. By allowing one we inch closer to the other.

[qqtt]

This is not really true though. Congress is responsible for granting authority to the President regarding valid military targets. This is why drone strikes are only legal against targets recognized by Congress as security threats. It cannot realistically happen for the President to start targeting individuals outside of Congressional authority.

For your hypothetical situation to arise, Congress would have to declare members of Congress themselves as valid military targets.

[ceejayoz]

> For your hypothetical situation to arise, Congress would have to declare members of Congress themselves as valid military targets.

Or just add them to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix.

"As reported previously, United States citizens may be listed as targets for killing in the database. Suspects are not formally charged of any crime nor offered a trial in their defense. Obama administration lawyers have asserted that U.S. citizens alleged to be members of Al Qaeda and said to pose an "imminent threat of violent attack" against the United States may be killed without judicial process. The legal arguments of U.S. officials for this policy were leaked to NBC News in February 2013, in the form of briefing papers summarizing legal memos from October 2011."

[qqtt]

A relevant decision by a Federal judge regarding the legality of the disposition matrix, concerning specifically US citizens abroad:

https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2012cv1...

It's an interesting read, but part of the argument was that there were Congressional checks and balances in place for security threat review and congress authorized force against the group in question which essentially gave the executive branch authority to add the specific targets in question.

The legality of the disposition matrix at large can still be tested and re-tested depending on the specific actions of the executive branch.

[HaZeust]

>"The legality of the disposition matrix at large can still be tested and re-tested depending on the specific actions of the executive branch."

Ha! So far it's had a pretty good history, and 4 American citizens have been killed from it.

- Anwar al-Awlaki - Abdulrahman al-Awlaki - Samir Khan - Jude Kenan Mohammad

Their due process, as enumerated in the constitution was conclusively violated; and only one (Anwar) was targeted due to involvement in Al-Qaeda.

[qqtt]

I encourage you to read the linked decision I referenced which references this exact case:

https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2012cv1...

The judge ruled there was no violation of their constitutional rights, explicitly because Congress was involved in authorizing military action against the wider threat and specifically in this case Congress was in the approval process for authorizing individual targets.

There was no violation of checks and balances here. That is not to say other uses of the so-called "disposition matrix" might be challenged in the future, but at least in the cases of these individuals, the courts have ruled that no rights were violated.