mr. chesney and mr. wittes. first of all, mr. esney, does the white paper provide enough information about why the administration believes it has authority to kill u.s. citizens abroad? i'm not talking about anwar al-awlaki. the evidence is pretty solid he's a bad guy and in the end -- he got the anti-we deserve. i would note from a mr. wittes analogy touch of collateral damage, you have to pay attention to there. and in this case his 16 year-old son also a united states citizen and not a senior operational leader of al qaeda was killed in the same tactics i would like you to tell how we can refine making that distinction and protect the rights of law-abiding u.s. citizens. i'm not saying his son is or is not but i think that's a legitimate question when we know that he also faced the same demise. so mr. chesney? >> mr. chairman, as mr. bellinger said, it's quite possible that in some of the documents the committee has not yet been able to see and certainly we haven't seen, that there's a much more expansive exploration as to the

mr. chesney, well,. >> thank you, mr. chairman.nk you distinguished of the committee for the opportunity to be here to testify today. >> just pull a close. >> let me come straight to the point. the constitution does not require judicial process in the narrow circumstances at issue here today for the reasons mr. bellinger just stated and stated in the white paper. however, i believe that limited and carefully calibrated judicial role would be permissible as a constitutional matter and desirable as a matter of policy. so how might this be the case? need to bear in mind that there are two very distinct scenarios that arise when the government uses legal -- lethal force. the classics never comes to mind for most of us when we talk about armed conflict is that a soldier in giunta encounters a situation that requires an instant judgment as to whether someone is in any or their shot should be taken, judicial involvement at this stage would of course be grossly impractical. i think that's relatively common ground. but that's not the end of

mr. chesney's comments.the obama administration's formulation requires that there be a link with al qaeda before you can do any targeting here. is that correct? >> the way it is formulated right now, the policy requires a link to al qaeda? >> it is careful to say that it is making a claim of authority to attack where there is that senior al qaeda link. it is not written in a way they are denying the authority of the way. how broad is that? >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. >> i would like to get back to basics. this may trouble mr. nadler. i will probably agree with him. do not make me nervous. and the big scheme of things, when this came to light, myself and the gentleman from south carolina wrote a letter to eric holder asking for specific constitutional authority and tracking it to the activities of drone strikes against americans overseas. he did not get an answer. we have sent a letter subsequent to that when we got more information on february 8. we still have not received an answer fro