Yesterday, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit over the United States's use of predator drones to kill American citizens far from any recognized battlefield. You can read a copy of the complaint, which names the Secretary of Defense, the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, and the head of the CIA as defendants, here.
In this month's issue of Esquire magazine, Tom Junod examines the predator drone program in as much detail as possible (given the government's reluctance to discuss any non-self-serving details), in an article entitled "The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama." Junod follows up on the piece with a discussion of the ACLU's new lawsuit in an Esquire blog post, which quotes ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer explaining the rationale for the suit: "We believe that if you accept that the government has the authority to kill its own citizens without acknowledging its actions, you have set up an authority that will one day be abused. Once you create this power, this power will sit around available to every single future president." It is worth a read.
