Rand Paul On Drones Targeting U.S. Citizens

Impact

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) went on CNN on Wednesday to speak out against President Obama's policy of targeting for assassination U.S. citizens abroad that it says have joined Al-Qaeda or "associated forces." Earlier in the day Paul gave a foreign policy speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation outlining his vision for U.S. foreign policy. In that speech, he asserted that the U.S. is at war with "radical Islam."

On CNN, Paul took issue with the administration's drone program, which had unprecedented light shed on it after NBC News published a leaked white paper from the justice department explaining its legal justifications. 

"I don't think that killing someone without any judicial oversight is an appropriate activity for the president."

Before the September 11, 2001 attacks, this maxim was as obvious to anyone as his own existence. And yet this statement, which is firmly supported by the Constitution and more than 200 years of American jurisprudence, has now become debatable and indeed, even controversial.