fell down a rabbit hole. of course she didn't. she is not real. the white queen and her caustic judgments, they're not really a threat to us. but there is a question -- has america the beautiful become alice's wonderland? we can hear the queen saying no, no, but her response is sentence first, verdict afterwards. well, that's absurd. how could we sentence someone without determining first whether they are guilty or innocent? only in alice's wonderland would you sentence someone before you try them. would you sentence someone to death before you accuse them. do we really live in alice's wonderland? is there no one willing to stand up and say to the president for goodness sakes, you can't sentence people before you try them. you can't sentence people before you have determined whether they are guilty.

there has been discussion in our country about whether even the courts can sometimes make mistakes. some states have gotten rid of the death penalty because they have made mistakes and through their d.n.a. testing found that they sometimes convicted the wrong person. can you imagine with all the checks and balances of our court system, which i think is the best in the entire world, with attorneys on both sides, h.j. you can afford -- whether you can afford one or not, there is argument back and forth and you have these procedural protections and you can appeal, and sometimes you can still get it wrong. if we can get it wrong in the best system in the world, do you think one politician might get it wrong? but you will a never know because nobody is told who is going to be killed. it is a secret list. so how do you protest? how do you say, i'm innocent? how do you say, yes, i e-mail with my cousin who lives in the middle east, and i didn't know he was involved in that? do you not get a chance to explain yourself in a court of law before you get a hellfire

missile dropped on your head? so it just amazes me that people are so willing and eager to throw out the bill of rights and just say, oh, that's fine. you know, terrorists are a big threat to us. and, you know, i am a so fearful that they will attack me that i'm willing to give up my rights, i'm willing to give up on the bill of rights? i think we give up too easily. now, the president has responded and he said he hasn't killed anybody yet in america. and he says he doesn't intend to kill anyone in america, but he might. i frankly just don't think that's good enough. the president's oath of office says that i will -- not that "i might" or not that "i intend to" -- the president says "i will" protect, preserve, and defend the constitution. he doesn't say, i'll do it when

it's practical or i'll do it unless it's unfeasible, unless it's unpleasant and people argue with me and i have to go through congress and i can't get anything done, then i will obey the constitution. it's a out there. it is a rule. he doesn't get to choose. recently it appears that he believes that he does have some superpower, some power that sort of exceeds the other branches of government. recently he told the body of the senate that he decides when we're in recess. he decides when we're working. the court rebuked him and the court told him that it's unconstitutional and they reversed his decision and do you know the people that he appointed through a recess that he made up -- do you know what they're doing right now? they're still at their post. they're still working in

defiance of the court. so this will have to go to the supreme court. i guess it takes another year or so to go up there. but he's been told that what he did is illegal. i guess what disappoints me most about this, though, is that you know the president, when he ran for office, was someone who actually i had a great deal of respect for among the issues of civil liberties. i work with many on the other side of the aisle because frankly many on the left and some on the right actually we truly do believe in civil liberties and protecting the individual. and i think the president was one of those when he was in the senate. the president when he ran for office often talked about that america -- it isn't american to torture people. i agreed with him. he said it isn't american to give up on the right to privacy, to say that you don't need a warrant to tap someone's phone. and i agreed with him. and i respected that about him. but i can't for the life of me understand how he goes from that kind of belief where he believes

so much in the constitutional protections to your phone, but he's not willing to stand up for the constitutional protection to your life? it just doesn't make any sense at all. and if he does, why won't he say it? i have my own sort of theory on this, and this applies both to republicans and democrats. my theory is that it's sort of a conshay tai john, it's -- it's sort of a contagion, i.t. sort of an effect you get when occupying the oval office. i'm a good person so more power to me would be a good thing. but lord acton said that power corrupts and absolute power sculpts absolutely. there is a danger when someone has so much power that he think more power and more power and more power, i will do good with that power. even if that is a good person,

someday someone occupying that office may not be a good person. someday you may get someone in the oval office who say, what about those people? they look different than us? they have different color skin, they have a different color ideology that in. what about those people? the danger is, also that we've already defined some of the people who we think might be terrorists. the bureau of justice came out with a list of characteristickistics and they said, if you see this, report on it. see it, tell someone. they want you to inform on your neighbor so you have to know which one of my neighbors is a terrorist. so they gave you some descriptions of people to be worried b they said people missing fingers. people with colored stains on their clothes. people who have weatherized ammunition, people who have multiple guns, people who like to use cash. you know, if that's the criteria or the criterion for who is a

terrorist, you know, i'd be a little bit worried that that -- if you're one of those people, you might have a drain a tack new your -- a drain attack you in your bed tonight. this has gone on in more than one place. the fusion centers they developed were supposed to be a liaison. in these fusion centers in missouri, they also came up with some characteristic s of people who might be terrorists. they sent it out as a memo to all the police officers. if you are one of these people, people are pro-life, people who are for secure borders, people who support third-party candidates, and the big irony of all is people who bloj belong to belong to the constitution party. so if you believe t in the constitution, you might be a terrorist. they say it was a mistakes and they eventually apologized and now they try not to have their

memos become public, i think. but the point is, if this is what we're getting to, this is the criterion for who is a terrorist, you would think -- you really would think that you'd be worried about giving your president the authority to kill americans on american soil without any kind of due process. so i find it quite alarming. i think the answer that he could have given is pretty simple. i think there's a possibility that his answer that he may even agree with some of the things that we're saying here today. but why won't he give it? i think president, republican and democrat, don't give the answer because they're afraid of constricting their authority at awesome they believe in some sort of inherent power that's not listed anywhere. but they think they have got it and they don't want to give up any of it. they jealously guard their power. so they have this power and they don't want to give it up. and so that's why they won't answer us with a straight answer.

so you get things that i can -- the only word i can think of is "gobbledygook." you get this craziness that comes from attorneys that makes no sense. so when he was asked what is an imminent threat, these people that were going to kill with drones have to be an imminent threat. but his attorneys say that "imminent" doesn't have to mean "immediate." probably half of those drone attacks are people not engaged in any kind of combat. that's a different debate. you can argue right or wrong whether we should be killing these people not involved in combat because there is evidence that they are trying to hurt us and atalks. a-- and atalks. but it is a pretty low standard. for goodness sakes, could there be any question that in america we're going to accept a standard so low, a standard that basically says that if we think

you might someday be engaged in hostilities we can kill you. we have to be careful because the criteria for the drone strike program overseas really is something that i think most americans wouldn't accept for their fellow citizens. oversayoverseas, one of the moss citizens they killed wassal wack cawas alwl oovment ki he spiced with our enemies i think he could have been tried for treason. i think if i were on the jury, from what i read, i would have voted for his guilt and defnlg . the thing is, some kind of process might be helpful. his son, though, 16 years old, was killed two weeks later in a separate drone strike and he was on nobody's list that i know of. they won't respond. but i think the response by the

president's spokesman is reprehensible and really should be called out. it is sort of this flippant response that i think shows absolutely no regard for individual rights or for americans. he said, well, the kid should have chosen a more responsible father. think about that. is that the standard that you wish your government to operate on in america? we got a lot of criminals in our country. we got a lot of bad people. if you are happen to be the son -- if you happen to be the son of a bad person, is that enough to kill you? the other thing is that people killed overseas that are not the target, they don't call them civilians because they say anybody between the age of 16 and 50 that's a male is a potential combatant. are we going to use that same standard here in our country? are we going to use the standard in our country that if you just happen to be a male and you

happen to be standing near somebody that we've judged to be a problem, that you're going to go ahead and, oh, i guess that's not even collateral damage. that person was probably a bad person because he was standing close to this person? i think there are different standards for war than there are for within our country. and it's not always going to be perfect, and there is legitimate debate over what the rules should be in a war, where a war is overseas, exactly what happens. and i think good, honest people can disagree on some of that, but what i worry about are the people who say that america is a battlefield. because when they say america is a battlefield, they say that they want the laws of war to apply here. which the reverse of that is basically, if you reverse the laws of war, they're talking about martial law is what they're talking about. law that's acceptable under extreme circumstances. i don't think what we have in our country right now is a

circumstance where you i would accept martial law. but we've already instituted some of the thanks you'll see in other countries under martial law enforcement in egypt they have indefinite detention. that's their emergency decree that occurred back in the 1950's. and it went on and on -- maybe about 1950's, 1970's. so they were very happy about having martial law. indefinite detention. well, you got it last year. the president's response again was inadequate. how did the response -- what did the president say to having indefinite detention in our country? he said, well, i don't intending to use it. with you know, i'd rather have a president who has the chutzpah to not sign the legislation and send it back and say, take it out or i won't sign it. i would have a lot of respect for someone like that. mr. president, without yielding the floor, illiterate b, i woulo

entertain a question from the senator from texas. mr. cornyn:man, i wanted to come to the moore to pose a few questions to my colleague from kentucky. first to say that i admire his fortitude and his willingness to ask appropriate and reasonable questions of the administration on a matter of grave importance. this is no less important than our constitutional government itself. it does not give sole power to the administration to make decisions but recognizes that the congress is a coequal branch of government, and indeed we have important oversight responsibilities of the department of justice, the department of defense, and there isn't anymore delicate and important matter than the limitations placed on the government when it comes to dealing with our own citizens. so i would just -- i'd like to ask the senator from kentucky

whetheres a aware of -- whether he's aware of some of these issues. first of all, shortly after president obama took office, the holder justice department declassified and released detailed previously top-secret legal memos attempting to explain the legal rationale for the enhanced interrogation program that the central intelligence agency used during the bush administration. now, these memos were written by the office of legal counsel at the department of justice, which is frequently called the lawyer for the executive branch, who issues those authoritative memos. but president obama, air rake holder, presumably, decided they would release those previously classified memos that explain the legal rationale for the enhanced interrogation program. and i would further ask the senator if he recalls that when

the obama administration made these legal memos, highly classified legal memos public documents, does he remember that the attorney general made some specific comments. he said -- quote -- "we're disclosing these memos consistent with our commitment to the rule of law." yet today the same justice department refuses to release to members of congress, including this senator, the senator from kentucky, and other members who have oversight responsibilities the very same legal rationale, in this case for the drone strikes that the senator from kentucky is talking about. so i wanted to ask, first of all, the senator from kentucky whether he's -- he believes i've accurately recited the facts but then to ask him whether he sees a double standard here on the part of the obama-holder justice department, where on one hand

they release these legal memos from the office of legal counsel, and in this case instead of releasing the legal rationale for the authority to make drone strikes, they issued what's in essence a white paper, or press release, that was leaked to the news media. so i -- i would ask the senator from kentucky to respond. mr. paul: mr. president, the question from the senator from texas is a very good one and there something seem to be a double standard going on here. there seems to be one standard for, you know, wiretapping of phones or interrogation but seems to be much less of a standard for actually killing. and it seems to be hypocritical and you -- you would wonder why. with regard to releasing the -- the memos on how they come about their process, some of that was leaked. it's always curious to me, it seems almost as if the leaks come on purpose, as if they were intentional, the leaks happen right before a nomination process. i don't know the truth of that but i do think that not only

should we get the memos but we -- if there's going to be a drone strike program in america, perhaps we should actually be writing the rules and sending them to the president and that would be our job, not to listen to him on when he's going to do drone strikes in america but actually to spelling out and having an open discussion. because in america, i don't think that should be a secret how we're going to -- you know, how we're going to go about this in america. so i see no reason not only to get the drone memos and i think it would be more consistent not only with their earlier position, but i think what we should do is really be a part of the process of determining how we go forward with, if we're going to have drone strikes in america, what the rules would be. mr. cornyn: mr. president, would the senator yield for another question? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i would just ask further of the senator from kentucky, i believe the questioe president has the powerauorize a drone strike against a u.s. stoicitizen on u.s. soil and wit

trial is a very clearly stated question and one to which i believe the senator and the rest of members of congress are entitled to a very clear answer. i was in the senate judiciary committee hearing with the attorney general this morning when we attempted to ask him on a number of occasions what his answer would be to this question and yet he equivocated, he was ambiguous. he seemed to be ambiguous when a clearance would serve him just as well, as the point the senator from kentucky has made. but i question i have for the senator is that wouldn't it in all likelihood, the legal rationale or justification issued by the office of legal counsel at the department of justice likely include a discussion which illuminate and elucidate the answer to the senator's question? in other words, i would assume, without having seen that

classified memo, that it would go through a rather lengthy analysis of the hypothetical situations under which these drone strikes might be used and would in all likelihood i think shed some light on and clarify the answer to the senator's question. wouldn't that be a reasonable way to answer what is a very straightforward and reasonable question? mr. paul: mr. president, one of the things that actually even piecing together what i've heard of some of his testimony, he did finally admit to some things that i think are consistent with what i'm saying. they haven't put it in writing previously. i would think that he could almost take his testimony today where he almost at some point seems to agree that it would be unconstitutional to kill noncombatants, people not actively engaged in combat. if he would say that, i think he would answer my question basically. because i've never been talking about people engaged in lethal

force. there's always, you know, you really don't get much due process you're engaged in lethal force, lethal force is used against you. so you would think if he would just answer that simple question, similar to what he actually started in the testimony, but they won't give us a succinct answer, or any answer really, and so that's the answer we've been trying to get all along. mr. cornyn: if the senator would yield for one last question. the presiding officer: the senator from -- the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: to the senator's point, last point, i'm reading from a letter -- a letter dated march the 4th from the attorney general to senator pa paul, where he says -- and i quote -- "the question you have posed is entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one would hope that no president will ever have to confront." but he goes on to say, in response to senator paul's question, "it is entirely" -- or "it is possible, i suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate

under the constitution and applicable laws of the united states for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the united states." in other words, to the senator's point, on one hand he said it would be a hypothetical question, unlikely to occur and one we hope no president would ever have to confront, and then on the other hand he said, it is possible to imagine a scenario under which it would happen. so appearing to say -- to be -- well, cast further lack of clarity on something that should be a straightforward "yes" or "no." mr. paul: mr. president, the interesting thing about saying it's hypothetical and it wouldn't happen, i could buy that except for the fact that our foreign drone strike progr program, a significant amount of the drone strikes are on people not actively engaged in combat. so whether that's right or wrong's another question, but since we already have an example of a significant amount of those not engaged in active combat,

it's hard for him to say that this is a rare or unusual, hypothetical thing that could never happen because it seems like it's a big part of the drone program overseas. mr. cornyn: i would -- i said that was my last question, mr. president. i'd ask the senator to yield for this will be my last question. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: it strikes me, mr. president, that there is a clear double standard here. the senator's asked a reasonable question to which he has not gotten a clearance -- a clear answer and one that's clearly within the purview of the united states senate in our oversight capacity for the department of justice and as a coequal branch of government. but on one hand, the obama-holder justice department not just released a white paper but released previously classified legal memos from the office of legal counsel on the enhanced interrogation program, saying that it was consistent

with their commitment to the rule of law. and today, in response to an imminently reasonable request, is giving the senator from kentucky what can adequately -- i think appropriately be called the heisman or stiff-arm and denying him access to that. so i just wanted to come to the floor and -- and make that point and ask those questions and say again i admire the senator's fortitude and willingness to stand up and -- and challenge the administration on this -- on this issue. it would be easy to satisfy the senator's request. he's made that very clear. he is not intending to block a vote on this nomination but he is intending to get the information that he has requested and he's entitled to it. mr. paul: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: the questions and points the senator from texas have made are -- are very good points and it also shows you

that we're really not that far apart on trying to finds an answer to this because really there is no ultimate ability of me to stop this nomination. i am already getting tired and i don't know how long i'll be able to do this so i can't ultimately stop the nomination. but what i can do is try to draw attention to this and try to get an answer. that would be something if we could get an answer from the president, and i think we'd all sleep better and feel more comfortable if he would say explicitly that noncombatants in america won't be killed with drones. the reason it has to be answered is because our foreign drone strike program does kill noncombatants. they may argue that they're conspiring or they may someday be combatants, but if that's the same sander we're going to use in the united states, -- same standard we're going to use in the united states, it's a far different country than i know about. ours is a country where dissent,

vocal dissent, even vehement, vociferous dissent as far as whether our country should go to war, whether our country should raise taxes, lower taxes, we've always allowed a great deal of dissent in our country. but some of the people who we have said we're targeting have been dissenters, probably traitors, too, but they've also been people who've been vocalizing more than they've been shooting anybody. now, it's not to say you can't be a traitor even if you don't shoot anybody, but if you're going to be accused of treason or being a traitor in the united states, i -- i would think you'd get your day in court probably. it's particularly troublesome since some of the descriptions of who might be a terrorist are such that, you know, i'd be a little bit concerned about the slippery slope to who is and who isn't a tear rissment terrorist. and i just can't in imagine believe we would do that without an open accusation, without a

trial by jury, without a verdi verdict. so i think it is important that this discussion go on. and i'm not really ultimately setting the goal that i can stop this nomination. i'm here today to draw attention to a constitutional principle, to try to get the administration to admit publicly that they will not kill americans who are not involved in combat. but it really doesn't have so much to do with brennan or with his nomination. it has to do with a constitutional principle. and ultimately brennan will be approved. he will be the head of the c.i.a. this will be a blip in his nomination process. but i hope people will see it more as an argument for how important our rights are, that really no one, no branch of government, no individual politician should be above that law, should be able to dictate and say what they think the law is.

now, we had some of this even under a republican president. i was critical of president bush for saying that he had the ability to interpret the law, he had the ability to put signing statements, which were extensive sometimes, which gave his interpretation of what the law was or what he thought the law was. so i've been critical of both sides thinking they have more power than they have. our founding fathers were brilliant in the sense that when they separated the powers and had these coequal powers of government, these branches of government, they were somewhat pitted against each other. and by having equal power and being able to judge the power of the other branch, no one branch could accumulate too much power. but in our country, it's been going the other way for a long time. it hasn't been just democrat presidents or just republican presidents. it's, frankly, been both. for maybe a hundred years or so, power's been gravitating and gravitating and gravitating and going to the presidency.

not just the presidency. when people talk about the bureaucracy, these are people who are within the executive branch, millions of them. when we passed obamacare, it was 2,000-some-odd pages. there have been 9,000 pages of regulations written since. obamacare had 1,800 references to the secretary of health shall decide at a later date. we gave up that power. we gave up power that should have been ours, that should have been written into the legislation. we gave up that power. and as a consequence, we gave it to the executive branch. we gave it to people who, many of them who we call bureaucrats, are unelected. so we gave away power. it is a struggle and it should be a perpetual struggle. but we shouldn't give in on that struggle and give up that power. so right now there was mention that the president should reveal to us drone memos on how he's making the decisions.

we've had some leaks about that but i would go one step further. not only should the president let congress know what he's doing, maybe we should tell him what to do. maybe the -- maybe the congress should be setting the rules for how we do drone strikes. maybe the congress should be protecting the american people from their government. that sounds, oh, that's terrible protecting you from your government. the constitution wang written to restrain your behavior. it was written to restrain your government's behavior. a lot of people get confused when we talk about religion and the first amendment, but if you read the first amendment, it says, congress shall make no law." it doesn't say nothing about your religious preferences. it is not limit your involvement in government. it is not supposed to limit so much religious soft in government. we have a prayer in the senate every morning. you can't have it in your public

school. but we have a prayer every morning. we have the 10 commandments around here, but you can't have it in your local school. i think we kind of got confused on things. it was really about government getting involved in your religion. we didn't want to establish a church. we thought it was bad tie idea o have an official church because then the government would be telling the church what to do. but it's really all about the documents that we have protecting you from an overbearing government. your government was give an few defined powers, enumerated powers. there are 17-19, depends on whaw you want to count them. they're few and defined. but your liberties are many, basically unlimited and undefined. when you read the ninth and tenth amendment, it says that those rights not explicitly given to government are left to the states and the people. they're yours, not to be

dispairaged. these are important debates we're having. when month skew talked about the separation of powers and the different checks and balances, he said, there can be no liberty when you combine the executive and the legislative. likewise, i would add to that there can be no liberty when you combine the executive and the judiciary. so if you allow the president to tell you that he can have drone strikes on americans on american soil, you are allowin allowing e not only the executive, you are allowing thim him to be the judiciary. if he takes it secret, nobody can object. i remember one time i was complaining to another senator about these things called suspicious activity reports. your bank is required to file them on you. in fact if you do a large transfer -- a wire transfer and you pay your visa through your bank over the phone, you can being part of a suspicious activity report.

if you turn cash into the bank or get cash out of the bank over a certain arrangement you can get a suspicious activity report. but i was concerned about this because there had been 8 million of them filed since 9/11. the senator's response was, he's never had anybody complain about it. the reason you don't complain is they're secret. they don't tell you they're doing this. so if you get on the killly, it is a little hard to complain. so we might have a kill list on american citizens and nobody might complain because it's secret. you don't know you're on the list. so i think it is important that we have a big debate, discussion over this. that we let the president know he doesn't get to write all these rules on killing american citizens. the constitution still are aplies in our country. the reason this is a big debate is that when you are a in a war, the constitution doesn't always apply on the battlefield in another country. there is a debate over whether the constitution is here or whether it extends beyond the

beard. but a practical matter is we can't enforce the constitution beyond our border. you have sort of consented to your constitution. you sort of consent to your government by voting. we have that arrangement in our country. it doesn't really happen in mexico or europe or afghanistan. it certainly doesn't happen in the middle of hostilities. but's that's the real daifnlg that's the proivelt that's the -- you rub. this whole thing is about the use of authorizational force that was passed after 9/11 to go to war in afghanistan. if you had voted on that -- your leaders did -- but had you voted on that i'm going to war in afghanistan to get the people who attacked us on 9/11. i was all for it i still am. i think that was something wended to do. we couldn't let people atalks sms but i don't think you would have thought when you voted for that that you were vietnaming for a worldwide -- that you were voting for a worldwide end that

included america as part of the battlefield. that's a real problem here. the administration, john brennan who wants to be head of the c.i.a., acre holder, head of the attorney general, they all believe -- and many here believe this also -- that there's no geographic limit to the war. it's not in afghanistan, they saivment it's everywhere. but they say "everywhere" includes here. if you don't think you can apply due process in the middle of a war, what happens if they say the war is here? that means you don't get any protection. so you are accused of a crime, that's it. i can't imagine that that's what we want as americans. i just can't imagine that we would believe are that --e -- or acquiesce or allow the president to say that he's going to make the decisions for us, that basically he would kill noncombatants in america.

i frankly think eventually he will admit -- it would be nice if he would admit tonight that he's not going to do it. if anybody has got a phone, give him a call, we'd like to know, we'd like to know an answer. i think it would be a ppropriate. when the attorney general came this morning to the judiciary committee to answer questions, he was asked this question, can you kill noncombatants if they're sitting and having tea somewhere in america? he kind of we believed and wobbled and went around the issue. finally, they said, is it constitutional or not? do you think you can do this? instead of saying, well, we might not, we don't intend to. and it sobbed sounds like he fiy admits in the end that it is unconstitutional. why can't we get them to issue a statement? why can't we get them to say explicitly we're not going to do this? i see no reason -- it would take them five minutes

to job this down on a piece of paper. if they don't intend to dough it, why not tell us? when your government went tell you that tear a no they're not o something, they're saying, yes, we have the power. if they will not say no, i will not kill americans who are not involved in combat here at home, if they cannot tell you that, they are saying yes, they will kill americans in the involved in combat. it is a simple question. conor friedersdorf writes for the atlantic and he writes, "does president obama think that he has the power to kill american citizens on u.s. soil? if he accuses a guy in the arizona desert or rural montana of being an al qaeda terrorist, is it even kosher to send a drone over to blow him up, as was done to people overseas? is it never owe okay to drone

strike an american citizen to death in america?" it's an easy question. answering it wouldn't jeopardize national security in any way. so why do americans -- why does the obama administration keep officials dodging? when the president was asked this question at google last week, he said, well, we might have different rules inside the country than outside the country. well, that's sort of assumes that he thinks he can kill americans here and he might have different rules, more protections, but he's not going to tell you. he says it's secret. i for one am not very confidented. when the president say, i haven't killed any americans yet, and i don't intend to kill any americans, but i might, that discharge really confident me so much. thea's i don't think that's strong enough language.

the presidential oath of office says, i will preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. it doesn't say, i intend to. it doesn't say, i intend to preserve if it's convenient -- i intend to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution if it is convenient. in this his memo he says he's only going to kill people if it is infusible. it sound a little bit like it is tough, it is inconvenient. so i'm going to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution as long as it's feasible. just doesn't really inspire me. friedersdorf goes on to say, with regard to the president's answer at google, that he couldn't give a straight answer. counterterrorism advisor john brennan, whose nomination we're talking about, won't answer either. he finally did answer but only under duress.

and his answer was actually appropriate. the c.i.a. can't do this in america. the court begs the question because the c.i.a. is not in charge of the drone program, the department of defense is. we need an answer from the department of defense. and we get an answer from eric hold their says they haven't done it yet. they don't intend to do it, but they might. and doesn't say specifically that they won't. these answers have been out there for a while, and we've been through this and around this and asked for questions, and i think so much of this -- you know, these are simple questions. these are questions that i can't imagine why we can't get an explicit answer unless the answer is no. unless the answer is they don't want limitations on their power, unless the answer is that they don't want to be constrained by the constitution, unless their answer is that the bill of rights doesn't apply to them

when they think it doesn't apply to them. and see, that's the real danger. eric holder was asked about this and asked about the fifth amendment of he was asked, does it apply? he said, well, it applies when we think it applies. what does that mean? i know it is a debatable question overseas, american citizens, this and that, but i don't think it is a debatable question in our country. does the fifth amendment apply? i don't know how you can argue the fifth amendment does apply. i don't know how you can argue that we have an compel shock to the bill of roots when we want to. but this is the same president that did argue ghats to determine when the senate is in recess because he didn't get a few of his appointees last year, he argued that the senate was in recess and said he could appoint anybody he wanted and he did. it went to court and the court rebuked him. the court says you don't get to decide all the rules for

government. the senate decides when they're in recess. you decide when you're in recess. but you don't get to decide the rules for the snaflt they struck him down and has he obeyed the ruling? hayes listened to what the court did? hayes been chastised and rebuked by the court? the people that he appointed illegally are still doge doing that job. all of their decisions are probably ink valid. so for the last two years or year and a half, however long these recess appointments have been out there, all of these decisions -- it is gimmick going to be a huge mess. they've made all these decisions and it is going to be uncertain whether the decisions are imping to be valid. all of this happens because for some reason he thinks he has power that he doesn't actually have. i think there are some analogies to what we're talking about here. one of the things that the rules he said he would adhere to as

far as the drone strikes overseas was that there has to be an imminence to the threat. but then his team of lawyers follow up and conclude, well, it has to be imminent but it doesn't have to be immediate. i think only a gaggle of government lawyers could come together and say that imminent doesn't mean immediate p expenser ackerman wrote in "wired" about this and the title of this is "how obama transferred and old military concept so he can drone americans." imminent used to mean something in military means, monly that an adversary had gunk preparations for assault. in order to justify his drone atraiks tax deduction, president obama redon't fined the concept of imminence to exclude any actual adversary atafnlgt it is important to get that and to register that. he has defined a potential

imminent attack to mean that it excludes any actual adversary attack. so you're under imminent attack but there is no attack. i mean, it is a bizarre logic, but it is done to widen what they can, to grant them more pausch. power. ackerman says, "this is at the heart of the justice department's newly leaked white paper." these are these drone memos. "iit was first reported by nbc news, explaining why a broader concept of imminence trumps tradditional constitutional protections. american citizens enjoy from being killed by their government without due process. it's an especially striking claim when considering that the actual number of american citizens who are senior operational leaders of al qaeda is a vanishingly small number. as much as obama talks about

rejecting the concept of perpetual war, he's providing and institutionalizing a blueprint for it. this is what we're talking about. don't think that if you give the president the power to kill americans that it is a temporary power. the use of authorization of force, they say, has no gee graphic limit and no temporal limit. there is no end to the war. there is no end to the lessening or abrogation or giving up of your rights. if you give up your rights now, don't expect to get them back. ackerman goes on. imminence has always been a tricky concept. it used to depend on object -- on servable battlefield

preparations like tanks on a front, fueling of fighter jet squadrons. even under those circumstances, there was little consensus internationally about various wars that we have had in the past. president george w. bush contended that the u.s. had to invade iraq not because the government new saddam hussein was about to launch an attack on america but because it didn't. because it was unknown, because we fear things we don't know, we don't know so we conclude yes and we -- we preemptively attack. bush contended that the uncertainty about saddam's weapons of mass destruction augmented by 9/11 warnings of shadowy terrorist groups plotting undetectable attacks redefined imminence. so when i say this is not a partisan battle, i'm true to my word. president bush started this, president obama is expanding this. the real irony, though, is

president obama ran as the antibush candidate. -- anti-bush candidate. he ran as the guy with the real moral umbrage at what president bush was doing and in the end he's taking presidential power to a new level beyond what president bush could have ever imagined. so bush contended that they could invade because they were uncertain about what saddam could do. he redefined imminence to mean the absence of dispositive proof, refuting the existence of an unconventional weapons program. absence -- imminence is the absence of proof that you don't have something. so you have to prove a negative. you have to prove you don't have something or you are an imminent

threat. that would be sort of like saying to mexico prove to us you don't have a nuclear weapon or we're going to bomb mexico city. it's a bizarre notion of imminence. so mexico is now an imminent threat to the united states because they are unwilling to prove they don't have a nuclear weapon. you can see the convoluted logic that occurs here. when u.s. troops invaded, they learned that saddam did not possess what bush or condoleezza rice famously termed smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. the undated justice department white paper summary of a number of still classified legal analysis redefines imminence once again. al qaeda leaders are continually planning attacks, the updated white paper says, and so a preemptive attack does not require the united states to have clear evidence that a specific attack on u.s. persons

in interest in the immediate future. well, realize what this means. first of all, nobody has got an al qaeda card. you know, i think we say every terrorist in the world is in al qaeda because then they have got to prove otherwise. so nobody has got an al qaeda card. everybody is in al qaeda. so we say that unless you can prove that you're not attacking us because we know the history of al qaeda is to continue to attack us, we can preemptively attack you. but now we're talking about bringing that kind of gobbledygook, jumbled logic to the united states, are these going to be the standards by which we kill americans? ackerman goes on, for an adversary attack to be imminent and a preemptive u.s. response justified, u.s. officials need only incorporate considerations of the relevant window of

opportunity, the possibility of reducing collateral damage and the likelihood of heading off future disastrous attacks on america. so if we say al qaeda is always attacking us and we say you're part of al qaeda, then we can kill you, but the thing is that that's an accusation. if you are a u.s. citizen and you live in san francisco or houston or seattle and someone says you are a member of al qaeda, shouldn't you get a chance to defend yourself? shouldn't you get to go to court? shouldn't you get a rawr? are these not -- a lawyer? are these not things that we would want in our country? ackerman goes on. he says there is a subtlety at work in the justice department framework. it takes imminence out of the context of something an enemy does and places it in the context of a policymaker's

epistemic limitations. we are not looking to see if someone has a rocket launcher on their shoulder. we are saying because we think that these people don't like us and will continue to attack us that we can preemptively kill them. realize that this kind of logic is being used overseas, and that's debatable, but now they are going to bring this logic to america. so when you read stuff like this that imminence is out of the equation and in its place we're going to put a policymaker's epistemic limitations or estimations, that's how we're going to decide who is going to be killed in america? all we know is what we have in the foreign drone program. we have no evidence yet because no one has told us that -- they just told us they haven't killed anyone yet, they don't intend to but they might, but they haven't told us what the rules are that they are going to use in this context, what rules are going to

be used in america. if you're going to kill noncombatants, people eating dinner in america, there have to be some rules. does the constitution apply? but when eric holder was asked about the fifth amendment, he says the fifth amendment applies when they think it applies. he says the exiive is very -- the executive branch branch is very careful and they are very conscious of the fifth amendment and they do try to apply the fifth amendment when they can. it's a different story if you're talking about a war overseas and you're talking about people who live in our country. you don't get the option of determining when the fifth amendment applies. ackerman goes on to say if there is a reasonable debate over what imminence means in the era of terrorism and what standards ought to be accepted for defining it as an international norm, this framework where they talk about that they are thinking about what the terrorist is doing rather than

what the terrorist is doing basically preempts the whole idea of determining or trying to discuss or figure out what imminence really means. ackerman goes on, all that matters to justify a drone attack is for the u.s. to recognize that it can't be all knowing, so interestingly, it's not intelligence that drives the attack. it's you saying i don't know but i am worried that these people do attack us continuously, so by me not knowing their plans, that is a justification for an attack. realize that could be the standard in the united states. it's the logical equivalent of the c.i.a.'s signature strike which target anonymous military aides -- military able males in areas where terrorists operate. this should be the thing that

should just scare the you know what out of you. if we are killing people overseas who we don't know their name because we think they are in a caravan going from a place where we think there are bad people to another place where there are bad people, that's a fairly loose standard. so let's say there are people going from a constitution party meeting to a libertarian party meeting. both these groups don't like big government. they hate big government. they are opposed to government. they are nonviolent as far as i know but they were on the fusion list for potential terrorists. are we going to kill people in a caravan going from one meeting to the next? are we going to have to name the person we kill in the united states? you say that's absurd. we would never do that. what about whose phone we tapped. do we have to name that person? used to be the requirement. it's gotten less so over time. we have gotten to the point where the fourth amendment

protections to name the person, place and what you want to look at have become looser over time. so i think it's a legitimate question. if you're going to target americans on american soil, are you going to name them first? are you going to tell us who is on the list? the list overseas is secret, so the question is is the list going to be secret in the united states? how do you get your due process if you don't know you're on the list? it's a little bit late after the drone attack to say hey, it wasn't me, i really didn't mean what i said in that email. i shouldn't have made that comment online. some liberals have had a double standard on this and haven't been very good. some have been more hans than the president in their criticism of being hypocritical. the president seemed concerned at one time about warrants for wiretaps. he seemed to be concerned about americans and torture.

he seems to have lost a little bit of that when we talk about whether or not to sill americans on american soil. eugene robinson who i consider to be a liberal pundit, writes in the san antonio review news. it's called judicial review needed for drone hit citizens. it begins this way. if george w. bush had told us that the war on terror gave him the right to execute an american citizen overseas with a missile fired from a drone aircraft without due process or judicial review, i would have gone ballistic. these are eugene robinson's words. if he had heard this about george bush, he would have gone ballistic. and to his credit, he says it makes no difference that the president making this chilling claim is barack obama. what's wrong is wrong.

robinson goes on to say the moral and ethical questions posed by the advent of drone warfare are painfully complex. we had better start working out some answers because, as an administration spokesman told me recently, drone attacks are the new normal. in the ongoing strug against terrorist groups such as al qaeda, these attacks have become normal. they have become commonplace. they have become the rule rather than the exception. but at least eugene robinson is someone who is consistent in his application of criticism. he says he would have gone ballistic had george w. bush done exactly what president obama is doing, and his response is it makes no difference that the president making this chilling claim is barack obama. what's wrong is wrong.

the question of when we get due process, whether or not it applies to you here or overseas is a big question, but under our concept of government, it's not a question that should be left up to one branch of government. you know, should one branch of government get to decide that you don't get due process? that the fifth amendment doesn't decide you. this is an incredibly important question. john brennan and the nomination today pale in comparison to that question. does the president alone unilaterally get to decide whether the fifth amendment applies to you, or can he say that he is going to secretly

accuse you of a crime and yet the fifth amendment doesn't apply to you? now, this is worrisome because the attorney general has been asked about the applicability of the fifth amendment to the drone program. he said the fifth amendment applies when they think it applies. he says they try to give some kind of process. it's not due process. due process involves a jury and a judge and a public trial and an accusation. by process, they mean they get together and look at a powerpoint presentation, they go through some flash cards and they decide who they're going to kill. that is the process. now, they may say oh, you're demeaning the process by treating it flippantly, but whether they are serious or not about the process, is that the process you want for someone in america? do you want in america for the process for you being accused of a crime to be a powerpoint

presentation by one branch of government, maybe in a political party you're part of, maybe in a political party you're not a part of? there are things in politics that are partisan. i don't think i would want americans to be subject to any partisanship with determining whether you get the fifth amendment, whether you get a jury trial. i can't imagine anybody would. i don't care whether it's a republican or democrat. i don't want a politician deciding my innocence or guilt. i mean, it's as simple as that. the president should say unequivocally, we're not going to kill noncombatants, we're not going to do powerpoint presentations in the oval office on tuesdays, you know, we're not going to have terrorist tuesdays for americans. he should say that. i mean, i don't think it's that hard. it's an easy question to the president. mr. president, are you going to have terrorist tuesdays for

americans? are you going to put flash point -- flash cards of americans up and pass them around the table in the oval office with pictures of americans on them and decide who's going to die and who's going to live. are you going to publicly charge people or are you going to secretly charge people? are you going to have any kind of trial or any kind of representation, does anybody get a chance to say, hey, it wasn't me, i didn't do it? does anybody get a chance to represent or have representati representation? this is an article that we found interesting also by noah shoctman. this was also printed in "wired." it's called "u.s. drones can now

kill joe schmoe militants in yemen." this is not quite about the domestic issue so much and a little more about the foreign issue, but there is a linkage between the foreign drone attacks and what will become the domestic drone attacks. why? because that's the only drone attacks we know and we've not been told that there will be american plan for killing americans and a foreign plan for killing americans or foreigners overseas. we haven't been told that. we haven't been told anything. we've been told to go sit in a corner, including the senate, including the congress, sit down and be quiet. they've got a process, they've got a powerpoint presentation, they've got flash cards. i don't think that's -- i don't think that's adequate. noah shoctman writes in "wired," he says, "in september, american-born militant anwar al -awalaki was killed in a u.s.

drone strike in yemen. in the seven months then, the al qaeda affiliate there has grown in power, influence and lethality. the american solution? authorize more drone attacks." kind of brik brings me back to t quote from the c.i.a. agent. he said drone attacks are like a lawn mower. when you quit mowing the lawn, the terrorists come back. they sometimes maybe more numerous. the question is, you have to always say, can you kill them all? you know, can you kill every terrorist in the world? or for every terrorist you kill, maybe three or four pop up, maybe ten pop up. what happens to the families of people who happen to be the ones we made mistakes on or happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? i know the president, his spokesman, found it cute to say, oh, they should have chosen better parents. they should have chosen a more responsible parents. i don't find tha that endearingr cute. i find that really reprehensible

to say that's the standard. you have to ask sc the question, is that going to be the standard in the united states? are we going to kill people because they're related to bad people? and to flippantly say, should have chosen better parents after we kill a 16-year-old? schachtman goes on to write, "the american solution authorized more drone attacks and not just against well-known extremists like a last-awiaki, but against faceless, nameless low-level terrorists as well. a relentless campaign of unmanned airstrikes has significantly weakened al qaeda's central leadership. in pakistan and in afghanistan. you know, i'm not saying that we shouldn't use drones. i'm not saying that they're not a valuable weapon that's helped us to decimate our enemies. i'm just saying that it's different in a war zone and in our country. and if the president can't

acknowledge that being in battle somewhere is different than walking down the street in washington or baltimore or philadelphia, if he can't acknowledge that there's a disipdistinct difference, it's d me how we can let him get away with that. militants that were chosen for these drone strikes or for robotic elimination were based solely on their intelligence signatures, their behavior, as captured by wiretaps, overhead surveillance and local informants. so the people that are to be killed in these drone strikes -- and this is largely in -- in the tribal areas in pakistan -- we don't know their names. we're targeting people whom we do not know their names, we cannot really know much about them if we don't know their names. we're targeting themselves by

their signatures, where they go, who they visit. well, probably inevitably the milk man's got to go to the terrorist camp, too, or the doctor as well. so probably some -- maybe they're complicit but some people who may not be quite the people we think we're after are in the caravan going from city to city. maybe you're in the local food distribution business and you make good money selling it. but the question is, is whether or not that's the kind of standard you'd like to have in america, whether or not a signature strike would be acceptable in america. these are questions that ought to be asked and the president ought to answer. these people are being targeted by their signature. their behavior is captured by wiretaps, yoaf head surveillance and local inform -- overhead surveillance and local informants.

schactman goes on to say, "a similar approach might not work in this case, however. in yemen," where we have a lot of drone strikes, he says, "every yemeni is armed." it's going to be kind of hard to tell who's friend and foe and they're all armed and they're all fighting and they're all mad at each other. so how do they differentiate between suspected militants and armed yemenis that are on our side? schachtman goes to say, "what's more, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, the yemeni affiliate of the terror collective, is joined at the hip with an insurgency largely focused on toppling the local government." another official informed "the washington post." so there's a very real risk that america is being perceived as taking sides in a civil war in yemen. the yemeni drone campaign, actually two separate efforts run by the c.i.a. and the

military's joint special operations command, will still be more tightly restricted than the pakistani drone war at its peak. potential targets need to be seen or heard doing something that indicates that they are plotting against the west. or are high up the militant hierarchy. you don't necessarily need to know the guy's name, you don't have to have a ten-sheet dossier on him. but you have to know the activities of this person, what he's been engaged in, said one official. gregory johnson, a yemen specialist at princeton, believes that these signature strikes, or something an awful lot like them, have actually been going on for quite awhile in yemen. he goes on to say that he thinks awiaki's son was killed just a

month after his dad in a signature strike. he says that he thinks there's been 13 such attacks in yemen in 2012. now, when you talk to people around here, they'll just say, oh, there are no signature strikes. what are you supposed to believe? a lot of people are saying they have evidence and have heard there are signature strikes. those in -- in power, who have the secrets, say, "oh, we're not." it's hard to know what to believe. i think one thing that is easy to understand, though, is that i can't imagine we would allow such a standard in the united states, where we don't name who we're killing and that we kill people involved in a caravan. i would think it should be pretty easy for the president to say, there will be no signature strikes in america. schactman goes on to say that "many of these strikes have hit

lower-level militants, not top terror names. this authorization only makes targeted killings legally and bureaucratically kosher. despite the increased pace of strikes, though, 13 attacks are more than there were in all of 2011 on al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. in fact, white house counterterrorism advisor john brennan last week called it the terror group's most active operational franchise. all of which leads mikah zinco at the council for foreign relations to wonder, where this drone campaign is going. by any commonsense definition, these vast targeted killings should be characterized as america's third war since 9/11. unlike iraq and afghanistan, where government agencies acted according to articulated strategies, congressional

hearings and press conferences provided some oversight and time lines explicitly stated when the u.s. combat role would end. the third war is o orwellian in its lack of cogent strategy, transparency and end date. since these attacks are cover covert -- since these attacks are covert, the administration will offer no public defense. but it begs c.i.a. director petraeus' haunting question at the onset of the iraq war. petraeus asked: tell me how this ends. that's a question i have for the president: how does the war end? how do we win? how do we declare victory and when will the war end?

mr. paul: the problem is, is that we have come up with a scheme that basically has no limitations, no geographic limitations on where the war's fought. it's hard to defeat an enemy if the entire war is the battlefield. that is a problem with determining victory. it's a problem with ultimately coming home is -- the other problem with having no geographic limitations to this is saying that war is here, you know, that war is in america and that the battlefield here at home is -- is one that we're going to have rules or the laws of war are going to apply in your everyday life. the center for constitutional rights has taken a position and

has been concerned and this was before we were talking about drone strikes in america. the center for constitutional rights has been concerned even about american citizens overse overseas. on september 30, they put out this release. they said, "today, in response to the news that a missile attack by an american drone attack has killed -- has killed u.s. citizen anwar awlaki, the center for constitutional rights, which had previously brought a challenge in federal court, to the legality of the authorization to target awlaki in yemen, released the following statement." this is from the center for constitutional rights. "the assassination of awlaki by

american drone attacks is the latest of many affronts to domestic and international law. the targeted assassination program that started under bush and was expanded under obama essentially grants the executive the power to kill any u.s. citizen deemed to be a threat -- deemed to be a threat without any judicial oversight or any of the rights afforded by the constitution. if we allow such gross overreaches of power to contin continue, we are setting the stage for increasing erosions of civil liberties and the rule of law." now, what they've said there, i'm not -- is not completely noncontroversial and i really might even take some issue with the fact that they're saying the constitution applies everywhere.

some argue that it applies to u.s. citizens whether they're here at home, and i think there's some debate to that. i think that the only place that we can guarantee that the constitution applies is in our country. the only border that we ultimately control is in our country. the only courts that we ultimately control are here. however, the entity doing the killing is the american military killing a citizen overseas. so i personally have been of the belief that what we should do is try people for treason. it's one of the four crimes in the constitution that is actually labeled, displayed and given to the federal courts. there's actually specifics on what is actually treason. i personally don't think it would be that hard to try people for treason. i think you could start at the very top court and not have appeal after appeal. i think there was evidence that awlaki could have been tried in

a federal court and convicted of treason and then targeted. people say, well, why would you want to give any protection to people who have denounced their citizenship and who hate america and are conspiring with the enemy? and i guess what i -- the way i would respond is that, you know, i don't like murders and rapists hereto. rapists either. i don't like violent people who commit crime in our country but because we prize or system so much, because we want to make sure that we arrest, convict, and possibly execute the right person, we have trials. so we think it is pretty important that we have trials and so i see that when people say these are bad people, yes, these are bad people. many of them deserve what they get. the problem is, if we give i am on the process of how we do it, if we give up on the constitution or we say that kind of standard is going to be brought back to the homeland or we say america is a battlefield, there is a real problem.

there is a problem to doing that because i think if we do that the standard becomes so loose that we really won't have what we really expect as americans. the center for constitution writes goes on with this comment by partis. kebrei, they were denied information on drone strikes. "in dismissing our complaint, the district court noted that there were nonetheless disturbing questions raised by the authority being asserted by the united states. there certainly are disturbing questions that need to be asked again and answered by the u.s. government about the circumstances in killing and legal standard that governed i

it." in october of 2012, there was an article by greg miller in "the washington post." it was entitled, "plan for hunting terrorists signals u.s. intends to keep adding maims to kill list." the editor notes that this project was based on interviews with dozens of current and former national security officials, intelligencagists and others -- analysts and others who have examined and were examining the u.s. counterterrorism policies and the practice of targeted killings. this is the first of three stories that appear. over the past two years, the

obama administration has been secretly vealing new blueprint for pursuing terrorists. the next generation targeting list called the disposition matrix. the matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects, a raid against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments, and clandestine operations. u.s. officials said that the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the disposition of suspects beyond the reach of american drones. although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create

this matrix reflects a reality setting in among the nation's counterterrorism ranks. the united states conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years. among senior obama administration officials, there's a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. given the way al qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials say no clear end is in sight. we can't possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us, a senior administration official said. it is a necessary part of what we do, we're not going to wind up in ten years in a world of everybody holding hands, though, and singing "we love america." this time line suggests that the united states has reached only the midpoint in what was once known as the global war on terror. targeting lists that were

regarding as finite emergency measures after the attacks of september 11 are now fixture in the national security apparatus. the rosters expand and contract with the pace of drone strikes but never go to zero. meanwhile, a significant milestone looms. the number of militants and civilians killed in the drone campaign over ten years will soon exceed 3,000 by certain estimates. we're heard an estimate recently by a nem of the senate who said 4,00 have been killed. -- 4,700 have been killed. the obama administration has touted its significances against the terrorist network including the death of osama bin laden. as signature achievements that argue for the president's reelection. the straes has taken steps towards greater transparency formally acknowledging for the first time the united states' use of armed drones.

less visible is the extent to which obama has institutionalized the highly targeted practice of targeted killing. transforming ad hoc elements in a counterterrorism infrastructure capable of sustaining a seemingly permanent war. spokesmen for the white house, the national counterterrorism center, the c.i.a., and other agencies declined to comment on this matrix. privately, though, officials acknowledge that the development of the matrix is part of a series of moves in washington and overseas to embed counterterrorism tools into u.s. policy for the long haul. white house counterterrorism advisor john brennan is seeking to codify the administration approach to generating capture and kill lists as part of a

broader effort. c.i.a. director david petraeus is pushing for an expansion of the agency's fleet of armed drones. the proposal, which would need white house approval, reflects the agency's transformation into 00 paramilitary force and makes clear that it is not intended to dismantle its drone program and return to pre-september 11 on gathering intelligence. the u.s. joint special operations command which carried out the raid that killed bin laden has moved command dough teams into suspected terrorist hotbeds in africa. a rugged u.s. outpost in djibouti has been transformed into a lawrvelging pad for counterterrorism operations

across the horn of africa and into the middle east. the joint special operations command has also established a secret targeting center across the potomac river from washington. the current and former u.s. officials said the elite command's target being cells have traditionally been locked near the front lines of its missions, including iraq and afghanistan. but the joint committee has now created a national capital region task force that is a 15-minute commute from the white house so it can be more directly involved in deliberations about the al qaeda list. the developments were described by current and former officials from the white house as well as intelligence and counterterrorism agencies. most spoke on the condition of anonymity balls of the sensitivity of the subject. these counterterrorism components have been affixed to a legal foundation for targeted killing of the obama administration has discussed more openly over the past year.

in a series of speeches, administration officials have cited legal base seize including the congressional operation authorization to use military force. this gets really -- to really the crux of the matter. is that the authorization for all of these activities around the world and then ultimately here at home all come from the use of authorization of force when we went to war against afghanistan, after 9/11. the problem is, how do we finally conclude war? is perpetual war okay with everybody? how would we conclude the war in afghanistan? the president said he's bringing troops home. it is actually another thing i admire from the president. i think it's u.a.e. a time to come home. i think we've accomplished our battle. i think we'v we've accomplishedr plan. the thing is, if we're going to end the war, why would we not

end the war? i think it means we end that war and we go somewhere else. there is a question whether we can continually afford perpetual war. it is a question whether it is advisable, it is a question of whether or not you go so many places that maybe in the end you're maybe doing more harm than good. the thing about the wars is as they go on is we have to figure out a way to try to end the war. we have to figure out a way to try to limit the war. our goal shouldn't be to expand war, to proportions that have no limit toss say that there are no geographic limits on war i don't think is something that we should be -- should be an admirable thing. i think that's a mistake in policy to that i think that we can say we're going to have perpetual war with no geographical limits, with no temporal limits. it is hard to end a war anymore, though. used to be easy.

in the old days you won war and you came home. the problem is that we can't even end the iraq war. the iraq war has been over for a couple of years now, at least a couple of years. i tried to introduce a resolution to end the iraq war, to deauthorize the washings and it was voted down. i think i got less than 15 votes. how do you end war? the problem is that people take these resolutions and they stretch them and they pull them and they contort them to mean things that really they were never intended to mean. i don't think that being involved in a protracted war in yellen oyemen or somali or any e other places was intended when we went to war in afghanistan. i just don't think that was the intention.

now, critics contend that the justifications for the drone war have become more ten wa more tee campaign has extended farther and farther beyond the strikes on new york and washington. critic note that the administration still doesn't confirm the c.i.a.'s involvement or the identities of those who were killed. certain strikes are now under legal challenge including the killing last year of the son of awlaki. counterterrorism experts have said, though, that the reliance on these targeted killings is self-perpetuating.

yielding undeniable short-term results that may obscure the long-term costs. i think that's a good way of putting it, because when you think about it, obviously they're killing some bad people. this is war. there's been some short-term good. the question is, does the short-term good outweigh the long term cost, not only just in dollars but the long-term cost of whether or not we're encouraging a next generation of terrorists? this is a quote from bruce riedel, a former c.i.a. analyst. he says, "the problems with the drones is it's like your lawn mower. you got to mow the lawn all the tievment the minute you stop motion tmotion tomowing, the gro grow back. maybe there is an infinite number of terrorists. maybe the drone strikes aren't the ultimate answer. there is a billion muslims in the world, maybe there needs to

be some component of this this athat isn't just the killing fields. i'm not saying that ming of these people aren't allied against us and would atalks and they don't deserve todictment i'm just not sure that it is the ultimate earns the ultimate way. i'm also concerned that many of the people who are the strongest proponents of this are also the ones that want to bring the war to america and say that america is part of this perpetual battlefield. the united states now operates multiple drone programs, including acknowledged u.s. military patrols over conflicted zones in afghanistan and libya and classified c.i.a. surveillance trite flights over. strikes against al qaeda are carried out under secret lethal programs involving the c.i.a. and jsoc. the matrix was developed by the nctc to augment those

organizations separate with overlapping kill lists. the result is a singly evolving database in which biographies, known associates, and affiliated organizations are all cataloged. so are strategies for taking targets down. including extradition requests and drone patrols. obama's decision to shutter the c.i.a.'s secret prisoners ended a program that had become a source of international scorn but it also complicated the pursuit of terrorists. unless a suspect substantial on the sight of a drone, the united states had to scramble to figure out what to do. we had a disposition proficiency said a former u.s. counterterrorism official. the database is meant to map out contingencies, create an operational menu that spells out each ages role in case a suspect

surfaces in an unexpected spot. if he's in saudi arabia picked up by the saudis, if traveling overseas phos al-shabaab, we can pick him up by ship. if in yemen, kill or have the yesyemenis pick him up. there's been some discussion what to do with these people. it is a complicated situation. but i think the take-home message from all of this is what we're stuck in is a very messy sort of decision making, a type of decision making that i don't think is appropriate for the homeland. is appropriate for the united states. i think the idea that in the united states that this is to be a battlefield and that you don't need an attorney, you don't need a court, you don't get due process is really repugnant to the american people and should

be. i think it's something that we have given up on too easily if we let the president dictate the terms of this. if the president is unwilling to say clearly and unequivocally that he is not going to kill noncombatants in america, i don't think we should tolerate that. i think there should be a huge outcry and the president should come forward and explain his position. this discussion tonight really isn't so much about john brennan. it isn't about his nomination so much as it's about whether or not we believe that in america there are some rights that are so special that we're not willing to give up on these. so as we move forward into this debate, it's not really about who gets nominated to be the head of the c.i.a. it's about principles that are bigger than the people. it's about something bigger and larger than the people involved. it's about constitutional

principles that really we shouldn't give up on. i think we should all judge as inadequate the president's response when he says he hasn't killed americans in america yet, he doesn't intend to, but that he might. i don't think that that is a response that we should tolerate . and so as we move forward in this debate, we need to understand and we need to fight for something that is classical ly american, something that we are proud of and something that our soldiers fight for, and that is our rights, our individual rights, our right to be seen as an american, to be tried in a court by our peers, and i think if we were to give up on that, it's a

huge mistake. one of the things we have to ask is what kind of standard will there be? if there is going to be a program in america, what kind of standard, you know? if we're going to kill americans in america, what kind of standard will there be? if the standard is to be sympathy, you can imagine the craziness of this. mr. president, i would at this time yield for a question without yielding the floor to my colleague from kansas. mr. moran: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: mr. president, thank you. through the chair, i -- through the president, i would like to ask the senator from kentucky a couple of questions. i have been listening to the -- to the conversation to the debate, to the discussion here on the senate floor throughout the afternoon, and i am -- i would ask the senator from

kentucky these questions -- is it not true that the constitution of the united states is a document designed to protect the freedoms and liberties of americans? often, the constitution, i believe, i would ask again the senator from kentucky, is the document while sometimes perceived to be a grant of authority is not really the main purpose of the united states constitution to make sure that the american people enjoy certain liberties and freedoms that the founding fathers who wrote that document believe were important for american citizens, and whether or not that's true, i will let the gentleman from kentucky tell me, but if that is the case, if it is constitutional to intentionally kill an american citizen in the united states without due

process of law, then what is not constitutional under the united states constitution? if the conclusion is reached as the administration -- at least is unwilling to say is not the case, if the conclusion is reached that it is within the powers of the constitution for the executive to allow for the killing of an american citizen in the united states, then what is left in our constitution that would prohibit other behavior? if you can go this far, what liberties remain for americans? mr. paul: ultimately, the question is who gets to decide? does the president get to decide unilaterally that he is going to do this, and how would you challenge it? you know, if you're dead, you have a tough time challenging basically his authority to do this. but no, i can't imagine any way

that you can usurp and go beyond the constitutional requirements in the united states. i see no way he can do that, and i can't imagine that he would even assert such a thing. but it still boggles the mind that he won't explicitly say that he will not do this. mr. moran: request the president to ask a question of the senator from kentucky. again in the absence of the assurance or the statement from the administration, from the president of the united states or his attorney general, the appropriate venue of the senator from kentucky is not the appropriate venue for us to insist upon that -- that answer. is it not appropriate for this to be the venue on which, the united states senate, made clear that it is unconstitutional in our view for the death of united states senator -- united states senate -- a united states

citizen in the united states by military action, this is the opportune moment because of the pending confirmation of the nomination of the head of the central intelligence agency. and so while today's order of business really is an administrative appointment, is this issue not so important that we need to utilize this moment, this time in the united states senate to make certain that that question is answered in a way that makes clear not only for today and for the current occupant of the c.i.a. and its administration, but for all future americans, all future c.i.a.'s, all future military leaders that it is clear that in the united states american citizens cannot be killed without due process of law. mr. paul: mr. president, i think it's a good point. i think it's also a point to be made that that would be also one resolution to this impasse would

be to have a resolution come forward from the senate saying exactly that, that our understanding is -- and this has been something that senator cruz and i have discussed -- is that whether or not we should limit the president's power by legislation or by resolution, basically saying that repelling an imminent threat is something the president can do but killing noncombatants is not something that's allowed under the constitution. i think the courts would rule that way should the courts ever have to rule on this, but it would be much simpler and more healthy for the country if the president would simply come out publicly and say that. mr. moran: finally, i would ask the senator from kentucky, while this opportunity to discuss this issue on the senate floor has occurred today, it certainly is an opportunity for the american people to understand a significant basic constitutional right may be at stake, and while

the senator from kentucky has led this discussion, i would ask him has he now received as a result of bringing this attention to this issue any additional reassurances from the attorney general or the president of the united states that the administration agrees that there is no constitutional right to end the life of an american citizen using a drone flying over the lands of the united states and attacking a united states citizen? mr. paul: mr. president, since we began this today, i have had no communication from the white house or the attorney general. the only thing we have gotten indirectly was that the attorney general was before the judiciary committee today and that he did seem to backtrack or acknowledge a little bit under withering cross-examination -- he was not very forthcoming in saying that what we would like to hear is that they will not kill noncombatants in america, but i

think that's still a possibility from them, and i think his answers weren't inconsistent with that, but you would think it would be a little bit easier and they would make it easier on everyone, and you would think they would want to reassure the public that they have no intention -- not just they have no intention but that they won't kill americans. mr. moran: again, mr. president, to the senator from kentucky, while there is a significant important issue before the united states senate today and that is the confirmation of the director of the central intelligence agency, i would ask the senator from kentucky is this -- is not the more important issue, the less pedestrian issue that we face here on the senate floor and in the united states of america one that has been with us throughout our history? one that was with us when the constitution was written and one that is with us every day thereafter, and that is what are the meanings of the words contained in the united states constitution and what do they

mean for everyday citizens that they know that their own government is constrained by a document created now more than 200 years ago? is that not the most important question that faces our country, it's citizens on a daily, ongoing basis? mr. paul: i think american citizens get that, but not only that, i come from a state that has two large military bases. when our soldiers go off, when i talk to them, they talk of fighting for our bill of rights, they talk of fighting for our constitution. they don't think they are going off to conquer any people. they -- they truly believe and they honestly appraise that they are fighting for our bill of rights. so that's why i see this as somewhat of an insult to our soldiers to say that -- and to insinuate somehow that the bill of rights just isn't so important, that our fear is going to guide us away or take us away from something so fundamental and so important. but i think americans do realize that the protections of having a

jury trial are incredibly important and that assessing guilt is not always easy when you're accused of a crime. i think that americans do know that it's really important to try to get it right when someone is accused of a crime, and so i think the american people are with us in wanting to find these answers, and you're right that this isn't ultimately about the nomination. this is about a question that's bigger i think than any individual, and it's about something that our country was founded upon, and that's basically the individual rights. mr. moran: mr. president, i thank the senator from kentucky for responding to my questions. mr. paul: mr. president, we have had a good and healthy debate today. i think we have hit upon a few points. we may have even hit a couple of points more than once. i think that it's a -- when we think about and put in

perspective so many of the battles that we have up here are battles that i think the american public sometimes is disgusted with. they see a lot of things that we do as petty and partisan, and sometimes i see disagreements up here who i think are completely partisan and completely petty on both sides, but i think this issue is different in the sense that this isn't about this particular individual and their nomination. i have actually voted for the president's first three nominations to his cabinet, so i haven't taken a partisan position that the president can't nominate his -- his political appointees. i have looked carefully at the nominees. i have asked for more information. i have true i had to extend debate on some of the nominees. but in the end i voted for three out of three and many of the judges that the president has put forward. not because i necessarily agree with their politics. i don't agree with much of the president's politics. in fact one of the few things i

did agree with the president on was the idea of civil liberties, was the idea that you don't tap someone's phone without a wire -- warrant a warrant, that you don't torture americans and rulely that you don't kill americans without due process. these are things that really i thought the president and i agreed on. so i'm not so sure exactly, you know, where we stand with that. and i actually kind of think that probably he still does agree with me, or i still agree with him. but the question is, why can't he publicly go ahead and announce that he's not going to kill noncombatants icombatants? mr. paul: the resolution that

we've talked about. and this resolution says, "to express the sense of the senate against the use of drones to execute american citizens on american soil." "expressing the sense of the senate against the use of drones to execute american citizens on american soil." "resolved that it is the sense of the senate that the use of drones to execute or target american citizens on american soil who pose no imminent threat clearly violates the constitutional due process of rights. the american people deserve a clear, concise and unequivocal public statement from the president of the united states that contains detailed legal reasoning, including but not limited to the balance between national security and due process, limits of executive power, and distinction between the treatment of citizens and noncitizens within and outside the borders of the united stat states. the use of lethal force against american citizens and the use of drones in the application of the

lethal force within the united states territory." at this time, i would ask unanimous consent -- mr. paul: there's another article that i think is of

interest and this is another article by spencer akerman in "wired." this talks about once again the signature strikes and the idea that basically we're killing people whose names we don't kn know. the title of this was "c.i.a. drones kill large groups without knowing who they are." the expansion of the sigh's undeclared drone war into the tribal areas of pakistan required a big expansion of who can be marked for death. once the standard for targeted killings was top-level leaders in al qaeda or one of its allies, that's long gone, especially as the number of people targeted have grown. this is the new standard, according to a blockbuster piece in the "wall street journal." men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups

but whose identities aren't always known may be targeted. the c.i.a. is now killing people without knowing who they are on suspicion of association with terrorist groups. the article does not define the standards but the standards are said to be suspicion and association. while this is overseas, it kind of gets to the point we've been talking about, is what is the standard that will be used in america? if we are to have drone strikes in america, what is the standard that we will use? is it a standard that says that you have to be suspicious or that you have to be associated? strikes targeting those people, usually groups of such people, are what we call signature

strikes. the bulk of c.i.a.'s drone strikes are signature strikes now, which is a remarkable thing. so what we're talking about -- and that's one of the reasons why we're concerned here, because if the president claims that he can do strikes in america and the bulk of the current strikes overseas are signature strikes, wouldn't it be worrisome that we could kill people in america without even knowing their name? the bulk of the c.i.a. strikes now are signature strikes, it was written in the "wall street journal" in an article by adam entoise and ciaban gorman and julian barnes. and the bulk really means the bulk. the "journal" reports that the growth in clusters of people targeted by the c.i.a. has required the agency to tell its pakistani counterparts about mass attacks. so we're talking about pretty significant attacks here. they're only notifying them when they're going to kill more than 20 at a time.

determining who is a target is not a question of intelligence collection. the cameras on the c.i.a. fleet of predators and reapers work just fine. it's a question of intelligence analysis, interpreting the imagery collected from the drones from the spies and spotters below to understand who's a terrorist and who, say, drops off the terrorist's laundry. admittedly, in a war with a shadowy enemy, it can be difficult to distinguish between the two. so the question is: is this the kind of standard we will use in the united states? will we use a standard where people don't have to be named? we don't know. the president has indicated that his drone strikes in america will have different rules than his drone strikes outside of america but we've heard no rules on what those drone strikes will be. so we have drone strikes inside and outside. they're going to have different rules. but we already know that a large

percentage of the drone strikes overseas were not naming the person. is that going to be the standard? we also know that we have targeted people for sympathizing with the enemy. we talked about that before. in this 1960's, we had many people who sympathized with north vietnam. many people will remember jane fonda swivelling herself around in a north vietnamese artilleries and thinking gleefully that she was just right at home with the north vietnamese. now, while i'm not a great fan of jane fonda, i'm really not so interested in putting her on a drone kill list either. we've had many people who have dissented in our country. we've had people in our country who have been against the afghan war, against the iraq war. i was opposed to the iraq war. there have been people who are against the government on occasion. what are the criteria for who will be killed? does the fifth amendment apply? will the list be secret or not secret? can you kill noncombatants?

and people say, well, the president would never kill noncombatants. the problem is, is that's who we're killing overseas. now, we are alleging that they may be conspiring someday to be combatants or they might have been yesterday, but are we going to take that same kind of standard and use it in america? are we going to have a standard that if you're, you know, on your ipad typing e-mails in a cafe, that you can be targeted for a drone strike? these are -- these are not questions that are inconsequential. these are questions that should be known and these are questions that should be public. these are questions that should be discussed in congress. these are questions -- in fact, we shouldn't be asking him for drone memos. we should be giving him drone memos. we shouldn't be asking him how he's going to run the drone program. we should be telling him how he's to run the drone program. that is our authority. we've abdicated our authority. we have -- we don't do what we're supposed to. we are supposed to be the checks and balances, but we've let the

president make these decisions because we have largely abdicated our responsibility. in this spencer akerman story from "wired," he talks about and goes on to say, "fundamentally, though, it's a question of policy. whether it's acceptable for the c.i.a. to kill someone without truly knowing if he's the bombsmith or the laundry guy. the journal reports that the c.i.a.'s willingness to strike without such knowledge, sanctioned in full by president barack obama, is causing problems for the state department and the military. as we've written this week, the high volume of drone attacks in pakistani tribal areas contributes to pakistani intransigence on another issue of huge importance to the u.s. convincing pakistan to deliver the insurgent groups it sponsors to peace talks aimed at ending

the afghan war. the drones don't cause that intransigence. pakistani leaders, after all, cooperate with the drones and exploit popular anti-american sentiment to shake down washington. the strike -- the strikes become cards for pakistan to play, however cynically." and i think that's quite true of pakistan, they play both sides to the middle and they play -- they pay -- they play both sides to get more money from us. i think they have been complicit in the drone attacks and then they complain about them publicly. they have two faces: one -- one to their people and one privately to us. but the question is slon: is: he gotten more involved in pakistan other than al qaeda leaders and have we gotten more involved in pakistan that involves more of people who want to be free of their central government?

ultimately we as a country need to figure out how to end war. we've had the war in afghanistan for 12 years now. the war basically has authorized a worldwide war. not only am i worried about the perpetual nature of the war, am i worried -- i'm also worried about the geographic, that there's no geographic limitations to the war. but i'm particularly concerned and what today has all been about is that i'm worried that they say that the united states is the battlefield now. my side, their side, the president. everybody thinks that america's the battlefield. the problem is, they also think you don't get due process on a battlefield. and largely they're correct. when you're overseas on a battlefield, it's hard to have due process. we're not going to ask for miranda rights before we shoot people in battle. but america is different. so one of the most important things i hope that will come from today is that people will say and people will listen, how

do we end the war in iraq? how do we end the war in afghanistan? i tried to get a vote -- i did get a vote, i tried to end the iraq war two years after it ended by taking away the authorization of use of force and i still couldn't get that voted on. it's even more important not to end the war in iraq but ultimately to end the war in afghanistan. because the war in afghanistan, the use of authorization of force, is used to create a worldwide war without limitations. to create a war that some say the battlefield is here at home. this battlefield being here at home means you don't get due process at home. there have been members of the senate stand up and say, when they ask you for a lawyer, you tell them to shut up. is that the kind of due process we want in our country? is that what we're moving towards? so the questions we're asking here are important questions.

and these questions are: does the bill of rights apply? can they have exceptions to the bill of rights? mr. paul: one of the articles from "national review" recently was by kevin williamson. we got into this a little bit earlier. and i thought it was an important article because it talked about, you know, what our concern is, is about what standard we will use, what will be the standard for how we kill americans. in america.

and he talks a little bit about how his belief is that awlaki was targeted mainly as a propagandaists. and the interesting thing about awlaki is before he was targeted, we actually invited him to the pentagon. we considered him to be a moderate islamist for awhile. we invited him to the pentagon. i think he actually gave and did prayers in the capitol at one point. so the question is: if we made a mistake the first time about whether he was our friend -- and i think we did -- could you make a mistake on the other end? the question is, is if the government's to decide who are sympathizers and people who are politicians with no checks and balances are to decide who is a sympathizer, is there a danger really that people who have political dissent could be included in this?

mr. paul: the way williamson describes awlaki was he was first and foremost an al qaeda propagandist. he was a preach and a blogger who first began to provoke u.s. authorities through the online bile that earned him the title the bin laden of the internet. was he an active participant in planning acts of terrorism against the u.s.? the f.b.i. did not think so, at least in the wake of 9/11 attacks. the bureau interviewed him four times and concluded that he was not involved. the defense department famously invited him to dine at the pentagon as part of the islamicic outreach efforts, and in 2002, he was conducting prayers in the u.s. capitol. throughout the following years, awlaki became a sort of al qaeda gadfly, dangerous principally because he was fluent in english and therefore a more effective

prop gappeddist. it was not -- propagandist. it was not until the first obamas that awlaki was promoted by u.s. authorities from propagandist to operations man. you may remember the context. the obama administration had been planning to try 9/11 conspirators in new york city when the country was thrown into a panic by the machinations of the would-be under pants bomber. the obama administration in an interesting about-face, whereas it had been planning to try cha lead sheikh mohammed and his co-conspirators there, definitively turning our national back on gitmo, turned around and made the decision that it couldn't do it in new york. awlaki was a part of this. he was a propagandist and part of this. they said that mutab actually

sought out awlaki in yemen and awlaki had blessed his bomb plot and had even introduced him to a bomb maker. this according to the obama administration is what justified treating awlaki as a man at arms, earning him a place on the secret national hit list. williamson asked this question, though. he says if sympathizing with our enemies and propagandizing on their behalf is equivalent to making war on the country, then the johnson and nixon administrations should have bombed every elite college in america in the early 1960's. and as satisfied -- these were his words, not mine -- and as satisfying as putting jane fonda on a kill list might have been, i don't think our understanding of the law would have approved such a thing even though she did give communist aid to the aggressor in vietnam. students in ann arbor, michigan, were actively and openly raising funds for the vietcong

throughout the war. would it have been proper to put them on kill lists? i don't know. williams says i don't think so. there is a difference between sympathizing with our enemies and taking up arms against the country. they aren't the same thing. so we have to ask ourselves what is the standard? could political dissent be part of the standard for drone strikes? and you say well, that's ridiculous. we have listed people already on web sites and said that they were a risk for terrorism for their political beliefs. the fusion center in missouri listed people who were pro-life origin, listed people who believed in strong borders of immigration. they listed people who were supporters of third-party candidates, the constitution party or the libertarian party. these people were listed and a mailing sent out to all the police in the state to beware of these people, beware of people who have bumper stickers on

their cars supporting these people. that to me sounds dangerously close to having a standard where the standard is sympathy, not for your enemies but sympathy for unpopular ideas or ideas that aren't popular with the government. that concerns me, and it concerns me whether or not we could have in our country a standard that's less than the constitution. the constitution is the standard i just can't imagine that we would want to give up on this standard or that any president could assert that the standard would not be the constitution.

there was an article in "human rights first." this is an article that was published in december, 2012. it begins with this -- this prefacing statement. the united states is establishing precedence that other nations may follow, and not all of them will be nations that share our interests or the premiums we put on protecting human life. including innocent citizens. this was a statement by john brennan. i think it's a statement that actually carries some weight and should be thought through. the reason why i say that this filibuster is not so much about brennan as it's about a constitutional principle. the obama administration has dramatically escalated targeted killing by drones as a central

feature of counterterrorism response. over the past two years, -- mr. paul: mr. president, at this time i have a unanimous consent request, and i'd like to read it into the record. with this unanimous consent request, i would emphasize that this would be ending the debate and allowing a vote on brennan, and so part of this unanimous consent request would be the establishment of a vote on this

resolution as well as setting a vote up on the confirmation of john brennan to be c.i.a. director. the resolution states -- "resolved that it is the sense of the senate that the use of drones to execute or to target american citizens on american soil who pose no imminent threat clearly violates the constitutional due process rights of citizens." that's the most important clause of that, and i think it's important for the american people to know that apparently the other side is going to object, so it's important to know that the majority party here in the senate, the party of the president, is going to object to this statement being voted on. they can still vote against it if they wish, but they are going to object, i understand, to having a vote on this statement.

"the use of drones to execute a target, american citizens on american soil, who pose no imminent threat clearly violates the constitutional due process rights of citizens." so what we're talking about is a resolution that says, what we have been trying to get the president to say is you can't kill noncombatants. you can't kill people in a cafe in seattle. that's what we're asking. it is blatantly unconstitutional to kill noncombatants. i can't understand why we couldn't get a resolution, particularly because i'm willing to with this resolution move forward and let the vote occur on brennan. the second part of the resolution is the american people deserve a clear, concise and unequivocal public statement from the president of the united states that contains detailed legal reasoning, including but not limited to the balance

between national security and due process, limits of executive power and distinction between treatments of citizens and noncitizens within and outside the borders of the united states, the use of lethal force against american citizens, and the use of drones in the application of lethal force within the united states territory. so basically, the second part of the resolution asks basically that we do our job. that we do our job and ask the president to let us know what is going on with the program. so if there is an objection to this, it would be an objection to, one, killing citizens who are noncombatants, and two, to giving us a report on what the program will actually entail. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that at the time to be determined by the two leaders tomorrow, the senate vote on this resolution as i just read it and with the addition to it that they then turn to the brennan nomination or are allowed to proceed to a

vote. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. durbin: mr. president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i would say to my friend from kentucky, i am chair of the constitution, civil rights and human rights subcommittee of the senate judicial committee. we are scheduling a hearing on the issue of drones because i believe the issue raises important questions, legal and constitutional questions, and i invite my colleague to join us in that hearing if he would like to testify. i think this is something we should look at and look closely. that's why this hearing is being scheduled. i believe at this moment it is premature to schedule a vote on this issue until we thoroughly look at the constitutional aspects of all of the questions that you raise today which are important, and because of that, i have no alternative but to object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. paul: mr. president, i'm disappointed that the democrats

choose not to vote on this. you know, while the answer around here for a lot of things is we'll have a hearing at some later date to be determined, the problem is that this is a nonbinding resolution. this is a resolution just stating we believe in the constitution and hey, mr. president, send us some information on, you know, what your plans are for how this is going to work. it doesn't change the law. in fact, i wish we could do more than that. we have an actual law that will be introduced where we will actually try to change the law. this is a symbolic gesture. and a way to allow us to move forward, and i'm disappointed that we can't.

mr. paul: this was an article that was publish in "human rights first" back in december of 2012. like i said, it has an opening statement by john brennan that i think is actually well thought out and recognizes some of the advantages and disadvantages of drone strikes. he starts out by saying -- this is from brennan -- "the united states is establishing precedents that other nations may follow and not all of them will be nations that share our interests." think about what essaying there. other people are going to get drones. we have already lost a drone in iran. how long do you think it is before iran has drones? how long do you think it is before hezbollah has drones or hamas has drones? so i think there is a certain amount of thought that ought to go into a drone-killing program, particularly when the people that are being killed by the drones will have their own drones, i think within short order. the obama administration has

dramatically escalated targeted killing by drones as a central feature of its counterterrorism response. over the past two years, the administration has begun to speak more openly about the targeted killing program, including in public remarks by several senior officials. while we welcome and appreciate these disclosures, they nevertheless provided only limited information. experts in other governments have continued to raise serious concerns about this. the precedent that the u.s. targeted killing policy is setting for the rest of the world, including countries that have achoired or are in the process of acquiring drones. yet have long failed to adhere to the rule of law and protect human rights. so we like to believe that we actually have rules in place and we wouldn't misuse drones. imagine what it's going to be like, though, when countries get drones who have none of the rules, none of the checks and balances.

the impact of the drone program on other u.s. counterterrorism efforts, including whether u.s. allies and other security partners have reduced intelligence sharing and other forms of counterterrorism cooperation because of the operational and legal concerns expressed by these countries. the impact of drone operations on other aspects of u.s. counterterrorism strategy, especially diplomatic and foreign assistance efforts designed to counter extremism promotes stability and provide economic aid. the number of civilian casualties, including a lack of clarity on who the united states considers a civilian in these situations. of note and of consideration also is whether the legal framework for the program that has been publicly asserted so far by the administration comports with international legal requirements.

the totality of these concerns heightened by the lack of public information surrounding the program require the administration to better explain the program and its legal basis and to carefully review the policy in light of the global precedent it is setting and serious questions about the effectiveness of the program on the full range of u.s. counterterrorism efforts. while it is expected that elements of the u.s. government's strategy for targeted killing will be classified, it is in the national interest that the government be more transparent about policy considerations governing its use as well as its legal justification. and that the program be subject to regular oversight. furthermore, it is in the u.s. national security interest to ensure that the rules of engagement are clear and that the program minimizes any unintended negative consequences.

how the u.s. operates and publicly explains its targeted killing programs will have a far-reaching -- will have far-reaching consequences. the manufacture and sale of unmanned aerial vehicles is an increasing global industry and drone technology is not prohibitively complicated. i'll give you an idea that there's a marketplace for dron drones. last year i introduced a bill to require a warrant before you can use a domestic drone to spy on citizens. and before i introduced it or anybody knew outside my office, we already had calls and lobbying coming from drone manufacturers. so this is a big business. some 70 countries already possess u.a.v.'s, or drones, including russia, syria, and libya, and others are in the process of acquiring them. as white house counterterrorism chief john brennan stated, "the united states is establishing precedence that other nations

may follow and not all of them will be nations that share our interests or the premium we put on protecting human life, including innocent civilians." by declaring that it is an armed conflict with al qaeda's associated forces, which is a term that has not been define defined -- and i think this is an important point, because everybody's always talking abo about, don't worry, you're fine, you're not a terrorist, we're only going out after terrorists. the problem is, is that, like i said, the government has defined terrorism in this country to mean things that may not include terrorists. paying cash, you know, having weatherized ammunition, you know, there's a lot of different things that they've used as definition. but so we say that we're going after al qaeda, people who work with them or associated forces. what exactly that means, i don't know, particularly because even al qaeda is a little bit hard to define because they don't have

membership cards, some of them probably don't use the label at all. i doubt many of them have any communication with any kind of central headquarters or central group called al qaeda. but by declaring that it is an armed conflict with al qaeda's associated forces without articulating limits to that armed conflict, the united states is inviting other countries to similarly declare armed conflicts against groups they consider to be security threats for purposes of assuming lethal targeting authority. moreover, by announcing that all members of such groups are legally targetable, the united states is establishing exceedingly broad predent for those who can be targeted. even if it is not to utilize the full scope of this claimed authority, as an alternative to armed conflict based targeting, u.s. officials have claimed that

targeted billings -- targeted killings are justified as self-defense. responding to an imminent threat. the problem is, is that, you know, we defined imminent to be not immediate, so having a murky definition of what imminent is allowed us to really run into problems. it's also not clear that the current broad targeted killing policy serves u.s. long-term strategic interests in combating international terrorism. although it has been reported that some high-level operational leaders of al qaeda have been killed in drone attacks, studies show that the vast majority are not high-level terrorist leaders. national security analyst and former u.s. military officials increasingly argue that such tactical gains are outweighed by the substantial cost of the targeted killing program, including growing anti-american sentiment and recruiting support for al qaeda.

the broad targeted killing program has already strained u.s. relations with allies and, therefore, has impeded the flow of critical intelligence about terrorist operations. the problem is, when we talk about this, particularly, you know, one of the most important things to our intelligence is actually human intelligence. we -- we get information from people who are our friends, who live in those countries, blend into the population, are part of their population. but, you know, we've gone on and some of this we have destroyed in the sense that one of the people who helped us to get bin laden was a doctor in pakistan by the name of dr. shakil afridi. if you don't stand by the people who give you intelligence and give you information, you won't get more. but when he did help us, somehow his name was leaked. i don't know where the leak came from but his name was leaked and

then he was arrested by the pakistanis and he's now in prison for the rest of his life. so i've asked several times, both to the previous secretary of state as well as to the current secretary of state, and i asked the current secretary of state point blank and directly, will you use the leverage -- will you use the leverage of foreign aid to say we're not going to give you foreign aid if you don't release this doctor who gave us information? and it's -- it's a little bit ironic that we won't do it, particularly since at one point in time we actually had a $25 million reward i think for any information that led to help to getting -- to getting bin laden. so it's kind of disappointing that we haven't really held out and supported our human intelligence and people like dr. afridi, who helped us get probably the most notorious terrorist of the last century.

the u.s. government doesn't report the number of deaths from drone strikes. independent groups have estimated, though, that they have claimed several thousand lives so far. estimates and public comments by some senators have said as much as 4,700. now, what we don't know about the 4,700 but what would be an important statistic, i think, or maybe a troubling statistic, would be how many of the 4,700 were killed in combat, actually holding weapons, fighting, going to a battle accident coming froa battle? and how many of the drone strikes were actually on people that weren't involved in combat? and i think if we were -- if that number were released, i think if that number were made public, it would concern you even more because you may well find out that a lot of the people -- and we've seen some of the strikes on television. people in their cars, people walking around without weapons, people eating dinner, people at

home in their house. now, i'm not saying these are good people necessarily. i'm just saying that the drone strike program that we have in place currently seems to have a fairly low threshold for who they kill. and the question would be -- the question would be, you know -- the question would be whether or not you're going to use that standard if you have a domestic drone strike program in the united states. and so i think really we're getting to the point and that is one of the most important questions as we look at the foreign drone program is understanding what are the parameters that allow us to kill people in foreign countries and are those parameters going to be used here? well, for the most part, over the last decade, they haven't admitted we have a drone strike program but now they admit t. the president doesn't want to answer any questions about it, doesn't say he won't use it here, just that he's not

intending to use it here, and then says well, probably there would be different rules inside the u.s. than outside the u.s. the problem is, and this is where the senate ought to get involved instead of punting this to another time, the senate ought to get involved and what the senate ought to do is say, we're not going to wait for the president to send us a memo. we're going to send him a memo. we're going to tell him what the rules are drone strikes are. we're going to tell him that the constitution does apply to americans, particularly americans in the united states, and that there are no exceptions. you know, i -- i find it inexcusable that the attorney general says, well, the fifth -- the -- the fifth amendment, we will, you know, use it as needed, basically. we'll use it when we choose. and -- and the problem with that is, is that i don't think the executive branch should get to pick and choose. mr. paul: mr. president, without yielding the floor, i'm going to allow a question from my

colleague from texas. mr. cruz: i thank the senator from kentucky and -- and i want to ask the following question. if the senator from kentucky is aware of the reaction the american people have had to his extraordinary efforts today? and given that the senate rules do not allow for the use of cellular phones on the floor of the senate, i feel quite confident that the senator from kentucky is not aware of the twitterverse that has been exploding. so what i wanted to do for the senator from kentucky is give some small sampling of the reaction on twitter so that he might understand how the american people are responding to his courageous leadership. to senator paul's doing something that the last four years has happened far too little in this chamber, which is standing up and fighting for liberty. so i will read a series of

tweets. "so proud of rand paul standing up for what's right. stand with rand." "rand paul, a reason to be proud of your elected representatives again. keep going, rand." proud of senator rand paul and all who have joined him in this effort. stand today with senator rand paul." "so happy with rand paul right now. someone finally using the system to aid, not usurp our rights." "rand paul filibusters brennan nomination. over four hours now. glad someone in the senate has some spine." that was tweeted awhile ago. "rand paul is my hero today, a man with backbone." "today rand paul is my hero." "kentucky senator rand paul is a true constitutional hero in his filibuster against c.i.a. no,

ma'a --nominee." i can honestly say i am proud to currently live in rand paul's state of kentucky." "so proud of rand paul, he's bringing it. he's not going to let our constitution get trashed. a breath of fresh air." "pray for this fight for rand." "i'm so beyond proud of rand paul and the way he is standing up for each and every american citizen right now by filibustering the senate." "i am very proud of senator rand paul. this is an important moment when one person had the courage to yell 'stop.' stand with rand." "so proud of rand paul. we need more like him. stand with rand." "rand paul is now in hour seven of his filibuster.

he is standing up for our rights -- thank you. stand with rand." "it's frightening that obama seeks to have an ever-growing amount of power. drone strikes are frightening. stand with rand." "dear g.o.p.: the base is crying out for more of you to stand with rand. if you want the base, get it together." "stand with rand. we need you now more than ever. this president has usurped power. we can't say anything bad against him." "stand with rand. so long as rand speaks, we'll be tuned in." "ununconstitutiona"it is unconso target and kill americans on american soil with a drone. stand with rand." a retweet from senator rand paul -- i will commend the

senator from kentucky for being so flexible that he was able to tweet while standing on the floor of the senate" -- and a retweet from senator rand paul's tweet, "i will not sit quietly and let president obama shred the constitution, with the hashtags, "filiblizzard" and "stand with rand." here is a more mixed one but nonetheless demonstrating the respect the senator from kentucky is earning across the aisle." i may not always agree with rand paul, but he has my respect. he's very willing to do what he feels is right." "stand with rand. scwtion scwtion from congressman justin amash -- "why won't president obama simply state that it's unconstitutional and illegal for government to kill americans in u.s. without due process? stand with rand.

stand with rand because we deserve to know if american citizens should fear murder from our government. everyone should be aware of this important moment in american history. stand with rand. proud to call rand paul my senator. stand with rand. it is unconstitutional to target and kill americans on american soil with a drone. stand with rand. the federal government does not have the power to kill its citizens whenever it wants. there is something called due process. stand with rand. fight for our constitutional rights and liberties. stand with rand. stand with rand. i have gained a lot of respect for senator paul today. this is not a right or left issue. it is a civil liberties issue.

thank you, rand paul, and others who are taking a stand for patriotic americans. a great day for liberty when senator rand paul and a handful of others stood up for liberty. stand with rand. and it is ironic that a nobel peace prize winner won't guarantee that he won't use drones against americans. stand with rand. now, i will note to the senator from kentucky and ask his reaction to these. this is but a small sampling of the reaction in twitter, indeed in my office. i think the technical term for what the twitterverse is doing right now is called blowing up. and i would suggest to the senator from kentucky and then ask his reaction, i would suggest that this is a reflection of the fact that the

american people are frustrateed. they are frustrated that they feel too few elected officials in washington stand for our rights, are willing to rock the boat, are willing to stand up and say the constitution matters and it matters whether it's popular or not. it matters whether my party's in power or another party is in power. the constitution matters, our rights matter, and so many americans i think are frustrated that they view elected officials as looking desperate to stay in power, desperate to be re-elected, desperate to do everything except fight for the constitution and fight for our liberties, and i think this outpouring that the senator from kentucky is seeing is a reflection of that great frustration, and i join with the sentiments of these and many others on twitter. and so i ask the senator from kentucky if he was aware of this reaction and what his thoughts

are to the many thousands more who i haven't been able to read their tweets and their words of encouragement as the senator from kentucky, more than anyone, is standing with rand? mr. paul: well, mr. president, i'd like to thank the senator from texas for coming to the floor and cheering me up. i was getting kind of tired. i appreciate you bringing news from the outside world. as you know, we're not allowed to have electronics on the floor so i don't really have much knowledge of the electronic outside world, but actually it's probably a good thing for every american eventually not to see their phone or their computer for about eight hours. but i think it -- you know, the thing is that people think that we shouldn't -- you know, people are always saying don't fight and don't -- get along and stuff. i think people do want that, but i think at the same time they want that and they want you to stand up and stand for something

and believe in something, and it doesn't have to mean that we do it in an acrimonious way. even the senator from illinois and i usually have civilized words together. there's a smile. and the thing about it is that there are principles that we ought to stand for, and i think the most important principle here, though, is that really, this is a tug of war between the executive branch and the legislative branch. there may be some partisanship that we can't all get together in the senate to say to the president that we think his power should be restrained, but i think at the same time there are some on the other side who are saying that, and really that's what this should be about. it's about how much power can the president have? can the president have the power to decide to kill americans on american soil, but not only that can the president have the power to decide when the bill of rights applies? you know, can you be targeted

because you have been alleged to have committed some crime and your bill of rights is stripped away. even if you are here in the united states. i think it's a pretty easy question, and maybe someone from the media would ask the president tonight, i don't know if he is still up or not, but ask the president a question. ask him do you plan on killing americans that are not in combat? do you plan on killing americans who not in a combat position, people who you might be accusing of some kind of crime but that aren't actually engaged in combat. i would think it would be a simple answer. in fact, i'm willing to go home if we can get an answer from the president that says people not engaged in combat won't be on any target list. i mean, it's a pretty simple question to ask and a pretty reasonable question to ask. after much -- much jockeying and debate with the senator from texas asking the attorney general this question, we

finally did get to where it seems like he was coming towards -- you know, not trying to but being forced to say that it's not constitutional to kill noncombatants. i mean, it should be an easy question. and so we'll take a telegram, we'll even take a tweet if the attorney general would tweet us, we can have that relayed to the floor and let him know -- let us know that basically they acknowledge that their power is not unlimited. and i don't think this is really an overstatement of the cause. this has been written up. glenn greenwald has written this up, conor friedersdorf has written this up, talking about the fact that if you have a war that has no end, if you have a war that has no geographic limit and then if you have strikes that have no constitutional bounds, basically what you have is an unlimited imperial presidency, and this isn't a partisan issue. a lot of this began under george

bush, has been continued, expanded, doubled and quint attack on u.s. persons ld and -- and quintupled and made ten times worse under the current president. nobody has maintained even under george bush that they can kill americans at home. i -- i can't imagine that the president when he comes forward and says that he hasn't killed americans yet and that he doesn't intend to do it but he might, that somehow we're supposed to be placated by that, somehow that's supposed object enough. this isn't the first time we have seen this, the first time we have seaboard a -- seen a reversal in fortunes here, a reversal of what i think he stood for as a candidate. i have said many times, about ten times today i admire the president. i admired the president when he was a senator on many issues. i admired the president when he ran for office. but the president who ran for office and said we're not going to tap phones without a warrant,

the president who ran for office and said we're not going to torture people now says we're going to kill people with no due process. i find that incredibly hypocritical and incredibly ironic. i see no reason why he can't come forward and say that he -- you know, that we don't get to pick and choose when the fifth amendment applies. we don't get to pick and choose when people can be accused of a crime and get no adjudication and be killed by a drone. so i just can't imagine that he can't answer these questions. it's just not enough to say that i don't intend to do so. last year when we passed the national defense authorization bill, there was included in that the ability to indefinitely detain an individual, an american citizen. in fact, i asked another senator on my side, i said does that mean you can send an american to guantanamo bay? he said yes, if they're dangerous. well, that would be fine if we all agree who is dangerous and who has committed a crime, but that would be an accusation and

that would have to be adjudicated somehow, and if you don't get a trial, how do you determine your innocence or guilt or whether you are being sent to guantanamo bay? the president, like so many times, said oh, i don't support indefinite detention, and i would veto that. no, no, i won't veto that this time, but i would veto that if i were still candidate barack obama, but i'm president barack obama, i'm not going to veto that. and so instead he says i have no intention of detaining anyone. well, here's the problem. i mean, it's not good enough. the law is for everybody. it's not for saying oh, i'm a good president. i'm very -- i went to harvard. i'm not going to detain anybody. it's not enough. the law is what the law is. if the law allows you to be detained as an american citizen, what about the next guy that's not so high-minded, the next guy that decides he is going to detain political opponents or

ethnic groups or people he doesn't -- that he has dislike for? what happens when that happens? it's not enough to say i don't intend to do something. and i would think the leader of the free world, the leader of -- you know, i think one of the most important nations if not the most important nation or civilization we have had in historic times. i have high hopes and high estimations of who we are as a people. it's not enough to say i don't intend to break the constitution. you know, you either believe in the constitution or you don't. i think illustrative of sort of this opinion was when i interviewed or asked questions to senator kerry when he was being nominated, and i asked him these questions about, you know, can you go to war without a declaration of war? and his answer was oh, of course i will support the constitution, except for when i won't support the constitution, when it's inconvenient.

i mean, it's sometimes hard to go to war. it's messy and there is all this voting stuff and people don't want to vote to go to war. they don't want to raise taxes. it's just hard to get the votes for war. so when it's inconvenient, i won't. and that's the problem. he asked me or sort of insinuated that i was an absolutist. well, i don't know how to halfway believe that congress should declare war. you know, i don't know how to halfway believe in the fifth amendment. you know, this isn't one that we're even debating exactly what it means, what the establishment clause of the first amendment means. there's really not a lot of debate over what due process is when you're accused of a crime, you know, when you're accused of something, you're indicted. when you're accused, you get a trial, you get due process. nobody is really debating what that means. and yet, the attorney general for this president has said that the fifth amendment will be applied when they can. now, to be fair, i think he's

referring to foreign strikes. he's talking about foreign strikes. to tell you the truth, it is kind of muddled whether the constitution applies to people in foreign lands or in foreign zones, but that's the whole point of this thing. the point is is that this is america. we're not talking about a battlefield, and we're not talking about people using legal force. if you're in america, if you're outside the capitol and you have got a grenade launcher, you will be killed without due process. you don't get due process. you don't get an attorney. you don't get miranda rights. nobody thinks that you do. but if you're sitting in a cafe and somebody thinks you emailed your cousin in the middle east and they think you're conspiring with them, you -- you -- you should be charged. you should be imprisoned if they can make the charges stick, but they shouldn't just drop a hellfire missile on your cafe experience. we -- we have to realize and the

president above all people, someone who taught constitutional law, should realize that his opinion is not so important. even as the president, it is not so important. for him to say that he doesn't intend to kill people, you know, i would defy a constitutional lawyer and our country to say that that's important. i mean, the law is what it is, and he is going to give us a legal interpretation of the law and not what his intent is. to say he hasn't killed anybody yet, to say he has no intention of killing anybody but he might is just not really a legal standard that i choose to live by. it concerns me. it concerns me that we have documents in the united states that are produced by the government that indicate people who might be a terrorist. the bureau of justice came out with one last year and it said people who are missing fingers, people who have colored stains on their clothes, people who have more than seven days of

food might be terrorists. now, ironically, another government web site says if you live on the coast, you should have seven days of food because there might be a health care reform. you might need to have that food. but another web site says if you do, you might be crazy and a lunatic and a survivalist and you might be somebody we might need to target with a drone. if you see somebody like this, you're supposed to report them. if you hear of people who have guns in their house or lots of weatherized ammunition or ready-to-eat meals, they could be on the target list. if that's who we are targeting to be terrorists, i certainly want a trial. you know, i just -- wouldn't think that it would be enough to be accused. now, people say, oh, well, this is just members of al qaeda. but they -- they don't have a membership card. you know? i don't know that we've ever looked at anybody because they're dead, they're blown up with a missile. so no one's looking at their al qaeda membership card.

but the thing is, is in the united states, saying someone is associated with al qaeda or someone's associated with terrorism, we've had experience with government offices and officials talking about people who might be terrorists. the fusion centers in missouri said that people who are pro-life might be terrorists. they said that people who are for secure borders might be terrorists. they said that people who vote for the constitution party or the libertarian party might be terrorists. so if you believe in signature strikes, i guess if you see the traffic going to the libertarian party convention, that -- you could probably just hit a caravan and get a whole bunch of them at once. now, say -- people say oh, that's absurd. the president's not advocating that. well, he's advocating a drone strike program in america. all we have to compare it with is the drone strike program overseas. now, he sort of said, when forced to -- he didn't want to talk about it, but when forced to, he says, the rules will

probably be slightly different inside the u.s. than they will be outside the u.s. which begs the question that i guess he believes he does have the right to have a drone strike program in the u.s. he's just going to have slightly different rules. well, how about an important question for him, he needs to give me a call. is one of the rules of the inside-the-u.s.-drone strike program going to be that you obey the constitution? that you get a trial by jury of your peers? is that going to be in the rules inside of america as opposed to outside of america? it's disturbing that it's been so hard to get any information on this. i wouldn't have gotten any information at all, i don't think, had not we got some support from the other side. the senator from oregon stood up in the committee. in fact, he asked the question before i did. i was fascinated when i saw him ask the question by the answer. senator wyden stood up in the intelligence committee and he said, can you do a drone strike on americans on american soil?

here's john brennan's response, i kid you not. "well, we need to optimize transparency and we need to optimize secrecy." that was his answer. well -- well, here's the follow-up answer. what does that mean? does that mean you can kill americans on american soil? what -- you know, what are you trying to say or what are you trying not to say? to bee brennan's credit, finalle answered the question, only when there was a threat of him not getting out of committee, and that was thanks to bipartisan support, republicans and democrats, threatening to hold him up. he finally got out. but on the day we threatened to hold him up or they threatened to hold him up, he finally responded. i'd sent him questions a month and a half previously and i finally got an answer when there was a threat to his nomination coming out of committee. which isn't really the way it should work. here's a guy, the president's bragging about how transparent the guy is and he believes in transparency, he's such a high-minded fellow, but he won't

give you any answers unless you force him to. same with the president. so we finally get an answer. and john brennan says, well, the c.i.a. can't kill people in the united states. it's against the law. well, yeah, we knew that. thanks. thanks for admitting you're going to obey the law. we really feel blessed that you've said you will -- you will now obey the law. but it's sad that it took a month and a half and under severe duress of admitted they will obey the law and the c.i.a. won't kill you in america. the problem is it's kind of a tricky answer because they're not the ones running the drone program. the defense department is. so you can be assured the c.i.a.'s not going to kill ya but the defense department mig might. so still, the answer is, we haven't killed anybody yet, we don't intend to, but we might. so that's what you're to be satisfied with. so we got the answer from the attorney general and his was a little more detailed and actually had some good things in it. but basically concluded by

saying they could conceive of a -- of a place where you could get attacked or where the u.s., you know, might attack americans. but the examples they came up with were not really what we're asking about. so it's sort of like answering a question but answering the question that wasn't asked. they said, well, if planes are flying at the twin towers and if pearl harbor's happening again and, you know, we could see a use for drone strikes. it's like, yeah, me too. if we're being attacked and there's a war or even if there's a person with a grenade launcher, you have the ability to respond to that. no one's questioning that. the reason this question comes up is that a significant portion of the drone strikes overseas are occurring on people who are not involved in combat. now, there's allegations that they're bad people and they may be in combat or may have been in combat but they're not currently in combat. so the question: are we going to

use the foreign drone strike model in the united states? are we going to kill noncombatants in the united states? are we going to kill people who we suspect? which sort of gets to the other question. you know, when you talk about, you know, what rules and procedures you expect in your country, you know, do you expect that the police would come and arrest you and put you in jail for the rest of your life because they suspect something? is suspicion enough? well, obviously not. we believe that that's the -- the beginning of it. usually involves probable cause, involves a judge to get information. i have a message here from -- not from the white house, a message saying the white house hasn't returned our phone calls. if anybody knows anybody at the white house and wants to call them, we are looking for an answer from the white house. we've called justice also. i think the answer says something about the sequester. maybe they're going to call me when the sequester is over.

so i really think that one of the -- the courtesies that they ought to think about is particularly if what they're hearing is something that they don't object to, why not end the debate by going ahead and letting us know? why not go ahead and let us know that they agree that they're not going to be killing noncombatants? you'd think that would be a -- a pretty easy answer for them. but i think in negotiations with any kind of executive branch, this one or others, that when you -- when you get a nonanswer or a nonresponsive answer or you get a refusal to answer, i think that's when you need to be concerned that the answer really is not the answer they want to be public. it's an answer that perhaps the fifth amendment will be optional depending on who's judging the circumstances.

we look forward and look at some of the information that's been gathered over time on this. one of the interesting articles that we had collected on this was an article in the "los angeles times" entitled "police employ predator drone spy planes on the homefront." this is an article by brian bennett. reporting from washington, armed with a search warrant, nelson county sheriff, kelly jankey, went looking for six missing cows on the brasset farm in the early evening of june 23.

three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said. jankey new the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern north dakota. fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state highway patrol. a regional s.w.a.t. team and a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other countries. he also called in a predator-b drone. as the unmanned aircraft circled two miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated censors under the nose helped pinpoint three suspects and showed they were unarmed. police rushed in and made the first known arrest of u.s. citizens with help from a predator drone. the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare. but that was just the start. local police say they have used two unarmed predators based at grand forks air force base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since june. the f.b.i. and drug enforcement

agents have used predator drones for other domestic investigations. we don't use drones on every call-out, says bill mackey, head of the police s.w.a.t. team in grand forks. if we have something in town like an apartment complex, we don't call them. the drones belong to u.s. customs and border protection, which operates eight predators on the country's northern and southwestern borders, to search for illegal immigrants and smugglers. the previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state, and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate. congress first authorized customs and border protection to buy unarmed drones in 20035 -- in 2005. officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to congress that cite interior law enforcement support as part of their mission. in an interview, michael c. costelneck, a retired air force general who heads the office

that supervises the drones, said predators are flown in many areas around the country not only for federal operators but also for state and local law enforcement. and emergency responders in times of crisis. former remit active jan represee harmon, who sat on the house homeland security committee at the time and served as chairwoman from 2007 until this year, said no one ever discussed using predators to help local police serve warrants or do other basic work. using predators for routine law enforcement without public debate or clear legal authority is a mistake, harmon said. there's no question that this could become something that people will regret, said harmon, who resigned from the house in february and now heads the woodrow wilson international center for scholars, a washington think-tank. the point is really that it isn't so much the technology. i'm not opposed to drones being

used even domestically. it's really about the individual freedom. it's about the process. it's about how they're used. so, for example, just like in national defense, if you're robbing a liquor store and it's safer to get you down with a drone, that's fine. if you're armed and robbing and threatening people in the liquor store and people as you come out with a weapon, i don't mind if you get shot with a drone or a rifle from a policeman. it is what it is. as one of my friends who is a physician said when people would come in wounded from robbing someone, he -- he liked to say, well, i guess that's an occupational hazard if you break into homes. but the thing is, is it really isn't the -- the force that we're talking about. it's whether or not the process is right. so you can use lethal force when -- when lethal force is threatened. the question about drones really is whether they're being used with warrants, you know, if you're spying on someone or doing surveillance on someone.

and so one of the bills we introduced last year was a bill to -- to require warrants for drone surveillance. this is a -- a hot topic and i think will probably event ually get up to the supreme court -- eventually get up to the supreme court. i don't believe it has yet. there were cases that were talking about g.p.s. tagging of cars and the supreme court ruled you can't do that without a warrant. my suspicion is they'll rule in favor of warrants on drones, too. although there's some dispute over what they call open spaces. and i think that with open spaces, we -- we need to be concerned that just because you're not inside your house doesn't mean that you don't still deserve some privacy on your own land. so it's not so much that the drone is necessarily our enemy but it just allows government to do so much more that we need to be very careful about the safeguards, the safeguards of the constitution and requiring whether or not these safeguards are met as far as protecting our

liberty. in 2008 and 2010, this is with the same article from the ""l.a. times,"" harmon helped beat back efforts by homeland security officials to use imagery from military satellites to help domestic investigations. congress blocked the proposal on grounds it would violate the posse comitatus act. the posse comitatus act is pretty important and it's been part of our discussion today, and we're not the first person to raise this. the military is not authorized to operate in the united states. you say, well, why not? well, the reason is, is they operate under different rules of engagement than your police do. in afghanistan or iraq or in any kind of war theatre, you don't have warrants, you don't have miranda rights, you don't get due process in war. but at home, you do. that's why it's important that we get folks to acknowledge that this is not a