The White House Finally Answers Rand Paul

Victory for Senator Paul. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney quoted from the letter that Holder sent to Paul today. “Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on an American soil,” Holder wrote, per Carney. “The answer is no.”

Carney added that, “if the United States were under attack, there were an imminent threat,” the president has the authority to protect the country from that assault. (Washington Examiner)

How has President Obama’s position evolved since his answer to the question in February? And doesn’t this beg the question, “If drones are so repugnant on American soil, why are they permissible for noncombatants overseas?” Some follow up questions need to follow…

Who is a noncombatant? What constitutes engaging in hostile activities to the White House? Does this still leave the “we declare you a combatant” excuse? More clarity needed. (Some good questions from Reason.)

Well first of all — I think, there has never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil. And, you know, we respect and have a whole bunch of safeguards in terms of how we conduct counterterrorism operations outside of the United States.

The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside the United States, in part because our capacity, for example, to capture a terrorist in the United States are very different than in the foothills or mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But, what I think is absolutely true is that it is not sufficient for citizens to just take my word for it (What word? Yes or No?) that we’re doing the right thing. I am the head of the executive branch. And what we’ve done so far is to try to work with Congress on oversight issues. But part of what I’m going to have to work with Congress on is to make sure that whatever it is that we’re providing Congress, that we have mechanisms to also make sure that the public understands what’s going on, what the constraints are, what the legal parameters are, and that’s something that I take very seriously.

I am not somebody who believes that the President has the authority to do whatever he wants, or whatever she wants, whenever they want just under the guise of counterterrorism. There have to be legal checks and balances on it. – President Barack Obama 2/19/13