The Real Drone Question

Today, Kentucky's own Senator Rand Paul started a marathon talking session in the Senate against the nomination of John Brennan for CIA chief. Brennan's an ass and Paul's a bigger one, but what's important is the reason Paul is doing it: to force President Obama to explain just what power he thinks he has to assassinate American citizens on American soil using drones.

Kevin Drum tries to get to the issue:

But that still leaves open the question most of us really want answered. The problem is that it's hard to phrase it precisely. What we want to know is whether the president can specifically target a particular American citizen (or group of citizens) for assassination on American soil even when there's not some kind of hot, real-time incitement (such as an invasion or a standoff). The issue of drones is immaterial here. What we're interested in is a situation where, say, the president gets information that some sort of bad guy is holed up in a cave in Idaho. Can he order up lethal force? Or is he required to go after him in a way that at least theoretically allows the possibility of surrender?

We still don't know the answer to that question, and even if I haven't phrased it quite correctly, I'm pretty sure it's the question most of us want answered.

No, Kevin: that's not the question.  The question is whether the constitution gives American citizens the power to stop President Rubio from ordering up a secret drone strike on a nest of peaceful but politically annoying anti-embargo protesters.

 

And whether we'll have a country left when he does.

 

Digby:

This is not a tough question, it really isn't. If the president has the power to order the assassination of people on American soil the constitution does not say what we've always thought it said. The country is awash in militarized law enforcement with every known technology. There is little reason to worry that they couldn't get an arrest warrant for a real threat. The idea that the president should have the power to override these guarantees basically says that they no longer acknowledge one of the fundamental rationales for the constitution.

"[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

That's not really working out is it?