President Obama's speech on counterterrorism on Thursday won rave reviews among some who seemed to see it as a return of the liberal constitutional law professor who ran for president in 2008. But while the tone might have been refreshing, maybe we should wait to see Obama's follow-through?
When justifying his use of drone strikes — in countries we're not at war with, in a war against "networks" with a not-yet-clear end, in a major speech on a limitless war — it helps for President Obama to use the rhetoric of George W. Bush as a foil. At least he's not as bad as that guy, right?
At some point, the government violated the Constitution while conducting electronic surveillance. How and when is masked by the secret court that authorizes such action — the sort of tool Obama offers as a way in which his drone program might be made more transparent. But the existing court shows just how opaque transparency can be.
President Obama just delivered his major policy speech outlining the future of America's military drone program, and the future of the entire war on terror. We have the full text and the key highlights.
President Obama will say he sees a day when the War on Terror comes to an end in a much anticipated speech Thursday afternoon. But when-ish will the War on Terror really end? It's going to be a while — maybe long after Obama has left office.
The U.S. government admitted for the first time Wednesday that it intentionally droned American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, and that it unintentionally droned three other Americans, including al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son. Attorney General Eric Holder admitted it in a letter to Congress, ahead of President Obama's long awaited speech on Thursday, which could finally lay bare the truth about the administration's targeting killing program.
The senator said his position on using drones on Americans hasn't changed, clarifying an interview on Fox Business Network Tuesday that gave the impression he thought droning a robber might be OK.
Since his anti-drone filibuster, the Kentucky senator has been celebrated as the leader of the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. But there are limits to his belief in national security limits.
The U.S. Navy unveiled a laser capable of blasting away enemy drones Monday, and announced that it would likely be deployed on a real live U.S. naval ship some time early next year.
The details of the bloody back-room deal between Pakistani and American officials that led to the U.S. regularly carrying out unmanned strikes in Pakistan have been shrouded in secrecy, until now, and the reports of the first strike are strange to read now, in retrospect. But what does retrospect mean in America's drone war, anyway?
Unmanned attacks in countries like Pakistan have become an increasingly controversial and no less common reality — Pakistani officials reported another one by U.S. missile fire just this weekend. So what do all of the strikes look like broken down by the available data? They look like this.
The use of drones is maybe the most important topic in the realm of national security right now, and no matter how much the powers that be would prefer not to talk about, they can't stop nervous people from asking lots of questions about them. But they can try to make people feel a little less icky about drones and maybe even start to like them a bit.
The pilot of Air France Flight 447 was operating on one hour of sleep before the plane crashed into the Atlantic. In Philadelphia, a man impersonating a pilot made it into a US Airways cockpit. The era of robot pilots can't get here fast enough.
No Americans are currently marked for death on the U.S. government's terrorist strike list, according to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Daniel Klaidman of The Daily Beast reports that the White House will soon take the power to launch lethal drone strikes away from the CIA and make the program the exclusive domain of the Defense Department.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
The September 2011 drone strike that killed American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Kahn has been the focus of intense debate for the last three years. Now, thanks to a new report from The New York Times, we know how the U.S. concluded killing al-Awlaki was justifiable.
The new conventional wisdom is that Sen. Rand Paul's 13-hour filibuster laid bare this week the divisions within the Republican party between the hawkish old guard and the insurgent young guns. The new conventional wisdom is wrong.
Rand Paul declared victory Thursday when his 13-hour filibuster forced Attorney General Eric Holder to answer his question of whether the government can kill by drone an American citizen now engaged in combat on American soil. But that victory was fairly narrow.
Attorney General Eric Holder has answered Sen. Ran Paul's question of whether the government can use a drone to kill an American citizen on American soil if that person is not engaged in combat: "The answer to that question is no."
Sen. Lindsey Graham cares more about Benghazi than John Brennan, but more about drones than Benghazi.
While Rand Paul used a filibuster to draw attention to Obama's drone program, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz saw an opportunity to draw attention to their 2016 brands. This is most obvious in their choice of strange pop-culture references.
During the first seven hours of his filibuster yesterday, Rand Paul used the word "drone" in a military context more than any two-year Congressional term in history — and more than it had been used in the Congressional Record prior to the 112th Congress, combined.
It's easy to make fun of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul riffing on drones and other stuff for hours on the Senate floor on Wednesday, but it's also something to celebrate.
Rand Paul spent Wednesday doing something you don't see often enough in Washington — he made an honest-to-goodness, non-stop filibuster speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, all-out and Mr. Smith-style. And he had a lot to say about drones.
The FAA and FBI are investigating a report from a pilot who reported seeing a small "drone" over New York City. But the conflation, as even the Senate remains shrouded in secrecy, of every unmanned aircraft into the single term "drone" isn't just inaccurate — it's dangerous.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Now that Chuck Hagel's confirmation has gone off without a hitch (for the most part), it's John Brennan's turn to take the spotlight, and it look like those drone memos will be a real roadblock.
Multiple outlets are reporting that the White House will provide to the Senate Intelligence Committee emails in which Obama officials discuss how to describe the attacks. Could the GOP's Benghazi fever finally be over?
A key reason for the Obama administration's reticence on transparency, according to two sources who have read the memos or are aware of their contents, is that the drone documents contain secret protocols with foreign governments, including Pakistan and Yemen, as well as "case-specific" details of strikes.
As the Obama Administration maneuvers to secure John Brennan's appointment to CIA director, they are reportedly offering to give Republicans new information about the attack on Benghazi, in the hopes that Senators will back off on demanding more information about its drone program.
Those with an eye on President Obama's targeted killing program say that the U.S. Justice Department's recently leaked "white paper" justifying drone targets would have allowed for China, if it used America's new legal boundaries with its own killer technology, to execute a wanted kingpin from the sky.
The Defense Department is reportedly inventing a new medal designed to reward soliders who fight battles from the safety of their computer consoles.
In an interview with CBS, Cheney said that the drone program is the only portion of Obama's foreign policy that he agrees with — indeed, that he thinks it's a "good policy."
Eleanor Clift on State of the Union stakes, Andrew Brown on the pope's resignation, Marc Thiessen on Jack Lew's offshore investments, Connie Rice on the LAPD's culture, and Fouad Ajami on drones.
The Internet erupted with some pretty shocking news yesterday: that the police were using drones to find wanted cop-killer Christopher Dorner. If true, it would be another odd turn in this massive manhunt, but despite claims to the contrary, he wouldn't be the first human target on American soil.
Michael Crowley on Congress' drone anxieties, Michael Hastings on waking up to drone realities, Jonathan Last on immigration filling the population gap, Ruy Teixeira on the population non-problem, and Jason Dorrier on job-stealing robots.
You know that top secret drone base in Saudi Arabia everyone's been crowing about lately? If Wired's sources are correct, that's a picture of it to the left. Runways, hangar, sand — it's all there. It's not very secret, either.
Iran is jumping on the drone news bandwagon today, with expertly timed released of it claims is decrypted surveillance footage taken from a downed American drone.
By now, everybody realizes that the military — and what would be John Brennan's CIA — has a bunch of unmanned aerial vehicles that it uses to kill people, and it's sort of shady. But how far does the Obama administration — and, more importantly, administrations to come — plan to take this idea of drone warfare?
The CIA drone program sure feels like a war, and if you look at the reach of the targeted killing — now that everyone seems to be looking at the reach of the targeted killing — well, it's nearly worldwide. Here's a map to catch you up before Brennan's hearing.
In a week that has already seen the Obama administration's targeted killing program rise from clandestine legalise to coffee-table conversation, many unanswered question still remain: How much else does Brennan know? How much does the Senate? And how much will his confirmation hearing divulge by week's end?
Everyone is anxious about the "white paper" that finally begins to detail the Obama administration's opinons on targeted assassination, but what seems to have even more people worried on the morning after — and less than 48 hours from John Brennan's confirmation hearing — is what's missing from that argument.
Human-rights advocates were floored on Monday night when NBC News published the details of a Justice Department memo detailing the protocol for sending drones after United States citizens.
The New York Times reports today that the Pentagon is planning to install drone base in Niger, a move that almost certainly guarantees a long-term U.S. presence in North Africa.
Big victory in the war on terror, folks: A previously unreported air strike in December killed Said al-Shihri, al Qaeda's number two in command. This is third time he's been reported dead.
In his first media appearance since visiting President Obama in Washington, Hamid Karzai announced that the United States had agreed to give his country a fleet of drones.
The details of the U.S. campaign against militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — a centerpiece of the Obama administration's national security approach — remain shrouded in secrecy. Here's a guide to what we know — and what we don't know.
Now that he's teaching at Yale and writing memoirs, Stanley McChrystal is getting brutally honest about the ethically questionable war he helped architect in Afghanistan and environs.
Discovered: Wormy discharge heals wounds by suppressing the immune system; drones will keep tabs on endangered animals; fish strike back against birds; memories back you hungry.
Iran's state news agency reported this morning that they have "hunted" and captured an unarmed surveillance vehicle, but the United States Navy says it hasn't lost any drones.
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