Should lawyers be required to obtain a government-granted license before being allowed to represent an American terror suspect? It’s a U.S. Treasury Department regulation, an unconstitutional one to my mind, and one that’s being challenged. But this latest civil liberties skirmish is indicative of a larger point, that President Barack Obama is putting less and less daylight between his policies and those of his predecessor.
The issue comes up because the Obama administration has decided to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric and American citizen who is believed to be in Yemen. Al-Awlaki’s father objects to the targeting of his son, claiming his child is not a terrorist. He contacted the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, enlisting those groups to challenge the use of lethal force against an American civilian who is far from a combat zone and who hasn’t been given a chance to rebut the allegations against him. But under Treasury Dept. rules, human rights lawyers can’t provide free legal help to a designated terrorist without first getting a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.