Judge tosses lawsuit over drone deaths of Americans

[Recursion]

38. This is why I opposed the 2001 AUMF as written

There is a long precedent (back to the Whiskey Rebellion, the Quasi-War, and the Barbary Wars) that US citizens in a zone of combat deemed to be materially aiding the enemy are liable for military targeting. The 2001 AUMF (which Obama has repeatedly called on Congress to scale back) sets literally no geographical or temporal limits on the scope of military action. People got pissed at Obama for saying "the law would let me attack US citizens in the US, but I won't" -- the fact is he's completely right: the 2001 AUMF does pretty clearly allow that, which is why we need to get rid of it.

What's your argument against the judge's logic, anyways? She said "absent legislation from Congress, under the AUMF there is no legal relief". What law do you think gives legal relief?

You quoted the 5th Amendment, but I'm not sure why. Al-Awlaki was not convicted of a crime by the US, and IIRC not even charged (he was, however, convicted in absentia in Yemen). He's not been held for a crime or even charged with a crime; he was targeted like any other Al Qaeda operative. Just like the US citizens who were sailors on the pirate ships in the Barbary Wars (there were at least a dozen) were targeted under the hostis humani generis principle (which goes back long enough that its name is in Latin). I think you're ignoring the force of the legal precedent here if you expect a judge just to say "this is a bad law so I'm going to overturn it". It is a bad law, but you haven't yet given a reason why the judge should ignore it.