National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 1

OVERSIGHT FOR EFFECTIVENESS: A COUNTERTERRORISM

PERSPECTIVE ON THE TARGETED KILLINGS “WHITE PAPER”

Joshua Foust is a researcher based in Washington DC, a former senior intelligence analyst for

the U.S. military, and author of a national security column for PBS. His website is

http://www.joshuafoust.com/.

IN FEBRUARY 2013, a Department of Justice White Paper was leaked, making publicly

available for the first time a summary of two legal memos setting out the legal details of the

administration’s justification for targeted killing of American citizens.

The paper’s scope is explicitly limited to decisions targeting U.S. citizens who meet three

criteria:

1. An informed, high-level official of the U.S. government has determined that the targeted

individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States;

2. Capture is infeasible, and the United States continues to monitor whether capture

becomes feasible; and

3. The operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war

principles.

Despite these limitations on scope, the White Paper implicitly raises broader questions about the

structure, policies, legal framework and ultimate effectiveness of the targeted killing program as

a whole. These questions are often discussed in the context of legality and constitutionality, this

paper looks at them from the point of view of counterterrorism effectiveness.

If the targeted killing program is structured

so that it is not as effective as it should be,

and its legal foundation is presented in such

a way that political opposition becomes

overwhelming, then supporters of remote

warfare and targeted killing should be at

least as concerned as opponents with the

issues analyzed in this policy brief.

By Joshua Foust

February 2013

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 2

Below are five key concerns raised by this

Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) White

Paper, and how those questions will affect

the long-term outlook and viability of the

targeted killing program. It is important to

note that they demand response from both

the executive and legislative branches. The

effectiveness, legal and ethical challenges

are complex, and a successful response will

be as well.

Public ability to assess the program

is essential to the effectiveness of a

broader counterterrorism strategy.

Counterterrorism professionals need

the ability to capture, detain,

interrogate and try as well as target

and kill.

Public confidence about

accountability is also a key

component of long-term support for

drone programs.

Counterterrorism professionals need

clarity about legal authorities and

their own responsibilities, duties,

limits and protections.

Broad legitimacy of the program will

also require greater clarity about the

authority under which strikes are

conducted and where the United

States is “at war.”

Public Assessment of Effectiveness is Key

for… Effectiveness

An underlying assumption of the White

Paper is that some aspects of the terrorist

threat can only be managed by targeted

strikes. The White Paper explicitly invokes

as a justification for the program “the

extraordinary seriousness of the threat posed

by senior operational al Qa’ida members and

the loss of life that would result were there

operations successful” (p. 1).

But the U.S. counterterrorism community

internally, and its observers externally, in

the U.S. and overseas, need to be able to

gauge the effectiveness of targeted strikes:

internally, to best allocate increasingly

scarce resources; domestically, to assure

American citizens that their government is

using the best data-driven policies available

to protect them; and globally, to protect the

foundational legitimacy of U.S. security

policy, and make a convincing argument to

global publics that they benefit as well.

In the narrowest sense, the effectiveness of

drone strikes is obvious: the individual

successfully targeted will not plan any more

attacks.

But from a broad perspective, the publicly

available data from which drone strikes’

effectiveness can be judged is extremely

poor. Neither the White Paper, nor other

administration responses to queries about

the results of strikes and how they are

measured, suggests that data available to

planners and lawyers inside government is

much better.

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 3

The difficulty of verifying or disputing data

about any given strike; the lack of clear

standards and agreement in or outside

government on what constitutes

effectiveness; and the focus of public

discussion on civilian casualty rates, which

while a critical legal and moral issue may

not correlate directly with effectiveness, all

have limited analysts’ ability to draw

scholarly conclusions about the value of

drone strikes.

Three databases are usually referenced in

drone studies: the New America Foundation

(NAF) i and the Bureau of Investigative

Journalism (TBIJ)ii are cited the most often,

and the Long War Journal (LWJ)iii

is cited

less frequently. All three have serious flaws.

The NAF and TBIJ databases rely on media

reports to plot the frequency and location of

drone strikes. The statistics they report are

not directly collected at the scene, nor are

their data verifiable, despite claims to the

contrary:iv

there are no public records to

crosscheck any drone strike or the resulting

fatalities.

Researchers have suggested measuring the

effectiveness of drone strikes indirectly,

either by tallying the numbers of attempted

and successful terror attacks over time or by

looking at the reported size and strength of

the extremist group targeted.

In a working paper, RAND political scientist

Patrick B. Johnston and UCLA postdoctoral

fellow Anoop K. Sarbahi analyze a large

dataset from drone strikes in Pakistan.v They

correlate reported acts of militancy with

reported drone strikes using standard

statistical methodology. The researchers find

that an increase in the number of drone

strikes strongly correlates with a decrease in

the frequency and lethality of terrorist

attacks, specifically those conducted by

means of improvised explosive devices

(IEDs) or suicide. The analysis and results

are controlled for “local effects and pre-

existing trends in militant attacks.” The

scholars conclude that drone strikes are

strongly associated with decreases in

militant violence.

It would appear that drone strikes have

worked to lower the threat from some

Pakistani terror groups, in the limited

context of the legally and politically separate

Federally Administered Tribal Areas of

Pakistan, the only area where drones fire

their weapons.

At the same time, across Pakistan drone

strikes have been effectively leveraged by

elites to generate deep anti-Americanism.

Pakistanis develop profoundly negative

opinions of the strikes the more their media

and political elites criticize them.vi

Such

opposition is, in part, due to how little

information about success with drone strikes

is relayed to the Pakistani public. Initial

survey work among Pakistani youth

suggests that highlighting successful strikes

against known terrorists generates support

for drone strikes.

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 4

Indeed, the attitude Pakistanis tend to have

toward drone strikes is somewhat fluid and

dependent on how strikes are presented.vii

Estimates of civilian deaths vary wildly.

One Pakistani researcher in 2009 estimated

that over 98% of deaths from drones strikes

in Pakistan were civilians.viii

Meanwhile the

U.S. government’s reported policy of

counting all military-age males as

combatants results in extremely low civilian

casualty claims from Washington.

Brookings’ Madiha Nfzal argues that these

large discrepancies fuel anti-Americanism

among the educated, elite middle-class

Pakistanis who “the U.S. counts on to serve

as a counterweight to the radical segments

of Pakistani society.”ix

They also, of course,

make up the ruling class whose

acquiescence makes the drone strikes

possible – suggesting that greater

transparency and documentation will be

essential not just to public support for the

program, but to the very continuation of the

program.

This dichotomy –the mostly-unknown

successes of the program and well-known

elite counter-messaging – suggests that

keeping data about drones in Pakistan secret

is actually making the program

unsustainable in the long run.

The White Paper was drafted to address not

Pakistan but Yemen, specifically to address

targeting Anwar al Awlaki, a U.S. citizen

who joined al Qaeda in the Arabian

Peninsula (AQAP). In Yemen, analysts have

even less data to work with than in Pakistan.

One indirect way to measure effectiveness is

to look at the reported size of AQAP over

time.

At the end of 2009 Yemeni officials

estimated that there were 300 or so AQAP

fighters in Yemen.x By early 2012, U.S.

officials, including John Brennan, estimated

AQAP had grown to nearly 1,000

members.xi

Since that estimation, the

Yemeni government undertook a massive

“clearing” operation through the southern

towns AQAP had occupied, leaving the

terrorist movement scattered throughout the

barren countryside.xii

Drone strikes have

killed an unknown number of AQAP

operatives, including three named as

“operators” by Brennan: Ammar al-Wa’ili,

Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan. xiii

Since then, no U.S. official has publicly

estimated AQAP’s size or strength. Critics

of the drone strikes still appeal to the largest

number to suggest the drone campaign has

been ineffective.xiv

Here again, the lack of

information available to US or global

publics threatens to undermine the key

argument the White Paper uses to justify

targeted strikes: not only is the threat grave,

but it requires immediate violent action.

This is perhaps even more crucial outside

the U.S. than at home; populations living

under the threat of strikes must believe that

the U.S. operations are working to secure

them from threats, in order to isolate al

Qaeda and its affiliates from the very

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 5

population they rely on for support. As the

U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy states:

We will put forward a

positive vision of

engagement with foreign

publics and support for

universal rights that

demonstrates that the United

States aims to build while al-

Qa‘ida would only destroy.xv

Kill or Capture? Clarify Options

Available to Counter-Terrorism

Professionals

The White Paper says that targeted strikes

are an option when capture is “infeasible.”

…[C]apture would not be feasible if

it could not be physically effectuated

during the relevant window of

opportunity or if the relevant country

were to decline to consent to a

capture operation. Other factors

such as undue risk to U.S. personnel

conducting a potential capture

operation also could be relevant.

Feasibility would be a highly fact-

specific and potentially time-

sensitive inquiry [pg. 8].

Because of the particular constitutional

concerns surrounding the targeting of

American citizens, the White Paper

contextualizes this difficulty-of-capture

argument into a broader discussion of the

imminency of threats. The White Paper

explicitly states that “An 'imminent' threat of

violent attack against the United States does

not require … clear evidence that a specific

attack on U.S. persons and interests will take

place in the immediate future.”

Such a broad definition of immediacy

expands considerably the number of

instances where capture will be “infeasible.”

It is also not a new concept within U.S. law.

Senior government officials have made

similar arguments with regard to terrorist

threats going back at least to 1984 remarks

by then-Secretary of State George Schultz

and a 1989 speech by then-State Department

Legal Adviser Abraham Sofaer.xvi

Regardless, it is clear the incentives of the

war on terrorism favor killing over

capturing. Neither the governments of

Pakistan nor Yemen have granted the U.S.

permission to carry out unilateral capture

missions, nor has either government

demonstrated great interest in capturing the

individuals currently targeted by drone

strikes. Breaking such an impasse might be

impossible; the diplomacy involved would

be intricate, extremely time consuming, and

likely to fail.xvii

The White Paper notes that “undue risk to

U.S. personnel” also limits the feasibility of

capturing terrorist suspects. Mary Beth

Leonard, the U.S. ambassador to Mali,

suspended manned surveillance flights over

Mali in 2012 over fears that the flight crews

could be endangered should they crash and

be captured by militants.xviii

The size and

likely casualties, military and civilian, of

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 6

forces which could carry out capture

missions are all significant issues.

But part of the kill-vs-capture problem

begins at home. When U.S. sailors captured

Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali

militant, in international waters, members of

Congress objected to his being transferred to

a civilian court in the U.S. for trial.xix

Terrorism experts and practitioners have

spoken explicitly about how this

Congressional backlash, and subsequent

legislative initiatives making it difficult or

impossible to hold suspects on US soil, try

them in US courts, and release them if that is

deemed in US interests, creates an

additional, powerful incentive not to capture

suspected terrorists.xx

The implications for the practice of

counterterrorism of this discussion are

enormous. Counter-terrorism (CT)

professionals will often face the choice of

invoking “imminence” as defined in the

White Paper, or risk seeing a suspect

disappear. Their ability to bring in and

question top operatives privately is very

limited; and their ability to use one of the

U.S.’s greatest perceived assets, the

professionalism, incorruptibility and

effectiveness of its court system, is now

non-existent. Finally, whatever the various

intentions of Congressional and Executive

Branch decision-makers, the risk of the

world – and especially target publics in

affected societies – perceiving that the U.S.

government would rather kill terror suspects

that prove their guilt is significant.

Paradoxically, by granting the targeted

killing program greater freedom to operate,

this set of norms risks covering up other

inflexibilities that will fatally undermine

U.S. ability to uproot whole networks as

well as destroying individual cells or

operatives.

How Accountability Can Lead to

Sustainability

The White Paper argues that the review of

“an informed, high-level official of the U.S.

government” (pg. 1) is sufficient to

determine a U.S. citizen can be targeted for

killing. Yet this assertion raises a series of

questions about executive power and

accountability. The Senate Select

Committee for Intelligence and the House

Permanent Select Committee for

Intelligence both review the strikes to some

degree in monthly meetings. But elected

representatives publicly voice their

frustration in getting much information

about the program from the White House. At

the recent SSCI hearing on John Brennan’s

nomination to be Director of the Central

Intelligence Agency, Senators raised many

questions about how the targeted killing

program can be made accountable.

Chairman Senator Dianne Feinstein

complained that her staffs were excluded

from reading additional memos explaining

how the program works.xxi

The White Paper explicitly applies only to

the case of a U.S. citizen being targeted, and

explicitly says that it does not treat larger

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 7

questions about accountability. Yet these

questions may be critical to support for and

sustainability of the program, abroad and at

home.

The White House has enjoyed strong public

support for its targeted killing program.

Drone strikes, even against American

citizens, have been popular for years, though

that support began to drop in 2012.xxii

A new

poll at the end of 2012 suggested a sharp

drop in support for drone strikes against

U.S. citizens, along with further declining

support for drone strikes overall.xxiii

This

same period of time saw an unprecedented

amount of information about the program

leaked and reported to the public, which

suggests that the more the public hears about

the program the less it likes drone strikes.

Three central issues underlie the discussion

of accountability – both from the point of

view of public legitimacy and for the

counterterrorism professionals who carry out

the policy to know that they are acting

legally.

What is the appropriate legal

authority for strikes?

The different organizations that

operate drones operate under

different sections of U.S. law. The

Central Intelligence Agency operates

under one section of national

security law (Title 50)xxiv

while the

Joint Special Operations Command

operates under another (Title 10).xxv

When both agencies are involved,

operations are sometimes called Title

60 operations. Despite confusion

about both sections of law, they are

mutually reinforcing when

undertaking classified operations.xxvi

Moreover, both sections of the law

require different methods of legal

oversight and congressional or public

accountability for strikes. The

administration should be more

upfront about how it is applying the

law and when different authorities

apply.

What is the appropriate level of

secrecy?

While all drone strikes outside of

traditional warzones like

Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are

classified to various degrees, they are

protected from public disclosure in

different ways. The CIA tends to

engage in what are known covert

strikes,xxvii

meaning that the CIA’s

involvement is supposed to be a

secret (also called “deniable”

strikes). The military, through JSOC,

tends to engage in clandestine

strikes, meaning that the strikes

themselves are supposed to be

hidden from the public (also called

“hidden”). The reality is that neither

type of classification is feasible or

even believable: the strikes

themselves are not hidden in any real

way, and the official denialsxxviii

that

they occur beggar belief.

Declassifying the program is

unlikely, but the way secrecy is

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 8

handled needs to adapt to the

public’s current level of

understanding.

How can innocents be shielded

from abuse of the system?

The White Paper reveals that the

decision to place individuals on a

targeting list, and then to strike

against that individual, are handled

entirely within the executive branch.

Specifically, it says that a “well-

informed, senior official” can make

the determination to strike on his or

her own. The White Paper raises

serious questions about how people

who might be misidentified as being

targetable can either seek redress or

removal from the list. In addition,

should noncombatants be killed in a

strike – and some number have – the

victims have no way to seek

compensation, redress, or justice

from the targeters or officials who

approved the strike.

Accountability poses additional operational

challenges: will strikes be reviewed

beforehand, or after? How does one avoid

needlessly second-guessing strike decisions

while maintaining appropriate oversight? If

the drones program becomes seen by other

countries as basically illegal, then the U.S.

will lose a critical freedom of operation if it

needs to target terrorists in a region as

airspace and access to ground lines of

communication get restricted by host

governments.

Ambiguity and its Effects on

Counterterrorism Professionals

The White Paper does not clarify, and in

some ways further confuses, questions that

have arisen about the legal status of drone

strikes, and the operators, pilots and

planners who conduct and approve them.

Quite apart from questions of legality, which

are not treated here, this ambiguity could

potentially have chilling effect on future

operations.

For example, there is debate over whether

drone operators are legal or illegal

combatants that can affect their legal

standing outside of the U.S.xxix

Illegal or

unlawful combatants engage in armed

conflict outside the laws of war.

The White Paper argues that strikes only

happen within the bounds of the laws of

war. The UN, however, has disputed that

assertion repeatedly for several years.xxx

In

2012, the UN special rapporteur on

counterterrorism and human rights, Ben

Emmerson, launched an investigation into

certain targeted strikes to gauge whether

they really do conform to the laws of armed

conflict.xxxi

If drone operators (or even U.S. officials)

are found to be unlawful combatants, they

might be subject to arrest and trial by other

countries should they leave the U.S. When

an Italian court tried several CIA agents in

absentia for their involvement in a rendition

case, those agents were not only convicted

for their involvement, they also now cannot

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 9

travel to Europe without risking arrest.xxxii

A

similar finding for drone operators might

also leave them essentially trapped within

the U.S., unable to leave for fear of being

arrested to serve prison time for illegal

combat activity.

Also at issue, again, is whether the operators

are military or civilian: they operate under

different sections of law. The civilians

running the CIA’s drone program might be

illegal combatants (though the question has

never been subjected to judicial review). Air

Force JAG officers have suggested that

military drone operators are legal

combatants and thus can be retaliated

against by other legal combatants (like the

uniformed military of an adversary).xxxiii

Left operating in an ambiguous legal

context, personnel participating in targeted

strikes may face additional stresses from

reduced morale and fear of travel; over time

this could also result in extreme risk-

aversion in counterterrorism bureaucracies,

which would severely limit effectiveness.

The Problem of the Authorization for Use

of Military Force

The White Paper identifies its strike

authority as emanating from three sources:

the original Authorization for the Use of

Military Force (AUMF),xxxiv

passed after the

September 11th

2001 attacks; the President’s

duty to defend the nation under Article II of

the Constitution; and the right to self-

defense contained in international

humanitarian law.

It is unclear to legal scholars and Congress,

much less the general public, how these

three different authorizes relate to and affect

each other.

As a consequence the program seems to

exist a vague status of multiple overlapping

authorities. For example, it is unclear if the

White House views its authority to launch

strikes as existing separately from the

AUMF. Senator Ron Wyden has been

asking the White House for at least a year to

clarify whether authority comes from Article

II or the AUMF, and has not received an

answer.xxxv

These overlapping authorities

make it more difficult to resolve the

effectiveness concerns outlined above, and

create additional bureaucratic uncertainty.

Congress, too, has a role to play in settling

these authority questions. The AUMF

Congress passed calls for the president to

use “all necessary and appropriate means” to

prevent such attacks from happening again.

Congress did not limit the authorization by

time or geography, leaving it open-ended

and applicable globally. Such an unbounded

declaration of conflict largely excludes

Congress from authorizing much oversight.

A full discussion of the legality of the

AUMF is outside the scope of this paper, but

there is a growing legal and political

consensus that future counterterrorism

operations will require additional legal

authorization from Congress.

The White Paper claims that, if strikes are

not covered by the AUMF, they fall under

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 10

the President’s Article II responsibilities to

defend the country. Yet Jack Goldsmith, a

Harvard Law Professor and former assistant

attorney general under President Bush, has

argued that the President’s Article II powers

may not be sufficient on their own to justify

attacking groups beyond the original al

Qaeda.xxxvi

This is a critical question of authority,

especially if there is to be an effort to

coalesce authority for the program into a

single, clear, politically sustainable

argument.

Neither the problem posed by terrorist

groups, nor the technology that has enabled

drone strikes, are going away. A program

with such a global scope, and such political

consequences abroad, cannot continue in

secret if the United States hopes to maintain

broad legitimacy for its actions.

i New America Foundation. “The Year of the Drone: An Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-

2013,”

http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones. ii The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. “Covert

War on Terror – the Data,”

http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/proje

cts/drone-data/ . iii

The Long War Journal, “Charting the Data for U.S.

Airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 – 2012,”

http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php . iv The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. “Covert

U.S. Strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somali – our

Methodology,” The Bureau of Investigative

Journalism. August 10, 2011.

http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/10/pa

kistan-drone-strikes-the-methodology2 . v Patrick B. Johnston and Anoop K. Sarbahi. “The

Impact of U.S. Drone Strikes on Terrorism in

Pakistan,” working paper, 3 January 2013,

http://patrickjohnston.info/materials/drones.pdf . vi Karl Kaltenthaler, William Miller, and C. Christine

Fair, “The Drone War: Pakistani Public Attitudes

toward American Drone Strikes in Pakistan,”

Working Paper, April 2012,

http://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/4823799c-34eb-

4b4f-992e-ac4a2261e0c4.pdf . vii

Adeline Delavande and Basit Zafar, “How Deeply

Held Are Anti-American Attitudes Among Pakistani

Youth? Evidence Using Experimental Variation in

Information,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Staff Report No. 558, 01 April 2012,

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2

043148 . viii

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_tt

news%5Btt_news%5D=37165%20 ix

Madiha Nafzal, “Drone Strikes and Anti-

Americanism in Pakistan,” Brookings, 7 February

2013,

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/02

/07-drones-anti-americanism-pakistan-afzal . x Stefano Ambrogi, “Yemen Says May Harbor Up to

300 Qaeda Suspects,” Reuters, 29 December 2009,

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/29/us-

yemen-qaeda-minister-idUSTRE5BS2NR20091229 . xi

Pam Benson, “New terrorist plot to attack plane

foiled,” CNN, 07 May 2012,

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/07/world/meast/yeme

n-qaeda-plot/ . xii

Joshua Foust, “Yes, Sometimes Drones Are

Effective,” The Atlantic, 24 July 2012,

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/201

2/07/yes-sometimes-drones-are-actually-

effective/260260/ . xiii

John O. Brennan, “Ensuring al-Qa'ida's Demise,”

remarks at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced

International Studies, 29 June 2011,

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-

office/2011/06/29/remarks-john-o-brennan-assistant-

president-homeland-security-and-counter. xiv

Geoff Dyer, “Brennan hearing exposes divisions

on drones,” The Financial Times, 08 February 2012,

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0a7da420-7217-11e2-

89fb-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KcPbLoYO . xv

National Strategy for Counterterrorism, June 2011

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/counter

terrorism_strategy.pdf . xvi

Kenneth Anderson, “The U.S. Government

Position on Imminence and Active Self-Defense,”

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 11

Lawfare Blog, 07 February 2013,

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/02/the-us-

government-position-on-imminence-and-active-self-

defense/ . xvii

Joshua Foust, “War on Terror Should Focus on

Captures, Not Killings,” Bloomberg, 14 January

2013, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-

14/war-on-terror-should-focus-on-captures-not-

killings.html . xviii

Anne Gearan and Craig Whitlock, “Panetta

‘confident’ that U.S. will clear legal hurdles to

helping France in Mali,” The Washington Post, 16

January 2013,

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-

16/world/36384541_1_malian-government-spy-

plane-surveillance-drones . xix

Charlie Savage, “U.S. to Prosecute a Somali

Suspect in Civilian Court,” The New York Times, 05

July 2011,

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/world/africa/06

detain.html . xx

Steve Coll, “Dead or Alive?,” New York Review of

Books, 25October 2012

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/oct/2

5/bin-laden-dead-or-alive/?pagination=false xxi

Ryan J. Reilly, “Drones Memo Not Shared With

Senate Staffers: Dianne Feinstein,” Huffington Post,

07 February 2013,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/drones-

memo_n_2639610.html . xxii

Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen, “Poll Finds Broad

Support for Obama’s Counterterrorism Policies,” The

Washington Post, 08 February 2012,

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-

08/politics/35445649_1_drone-program-support-for-

drone-strikes-drone-policy . xxiii

Ashley Killough, “Poll: Americans back drone

attacks, but not on U.S. citizens abroad,” CNN, 07

February 2013,

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/07/poll-

americans-back-drone-attacks-but-not-on-u-s-

citizens-abroad/ . xxiv

U.S. House of Representatives. “50 USC Chapter

4 – Espionage,” U.S. House of Representatives

Downloadable U.S. Code,

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/50C4.txt . xxv

U.S. House of Representatives, “10 USC Title 10

– Armed Forces,” U.S. House of Representatives

Downloadable U.S. Code,

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/10T.txt .

xxvi

Andru Wall, “Demystifying the Title 10-Title 50

Debate: Distinguishing Military Operations,

Intelligence Activities & Covert Action,” Harvard

Law School National Security Journal, Vol. 3, Iss. 1,

2011, http://harvardnsj.org/wp-

content/uploads/2012/01/Vol.-3_Wall1.pdf . xxvii

A discussion of how the CIA envisions itself

handling covert operations can be found in Nicholas

Dujmovic, “U.S. Covert Operations and Cold War

Strategy: Truman, Secret Warfare, and the CIA,

1945-53,” Center for the Study of Intelligence, Vol.

54, No. 1, 2010, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-

for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-

studies/studies/volume-54-number-1/u.s.-covert-

operations-and-cold-war-strategy.html . xxviii

Paul Harris, “ACLU Takes CIA to Court as

Agency Denies Existence of Drone Programme,” The

Guardian, 19 September 2012,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/19/aclu-

us-drone-programme-court . xxix

Gary Solis, “CIA Drone Attacks Produce

America's Own Unlawful Combatants,” Washington

Post, 12 March 2010,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031103653.ht

ml . xxx

UN News Centre, “UN Human Rights Expert

Questions Targeted Killings and Use of Lethal

Force,” 20 October 2011,

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=401

36&Cr=heyns&Cr1#.USkwz-uY5XA . xxxi

Owen Bowcott, “UN to Investigate Civilian

Deaths from U.S. Drone Strikes,” The Guardian, 25

October 2012,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/25/un-

inquiry-us-drone-strikes . xxxii

Naomi O’Leary, “Italy Court Upholds

‘Rendition’ Convictions on ex-CIA Agents,” Reuters,

19 September 2012,

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-

19/news/sns-rt-us-italy-usa-rendition-

verdictbre88i133-20120919_1_rendition-flights-

robert-seldon-lady-abu-omar . xxxiii

Dave Majumdar, “RPA Pilots are Valid Targets,

Experts Say,” Air Force Times, 30 May 2011,

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/05/air-

force-rpa-pilots-are-valid-targets-experts-say-

053011w/ . xxxiv

See the full text here:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-

107publ40/html/PLAW-107publ40.htm .

National Security Network www.nsnetwork.org (202) 289-5999 12

xxxv

Ron Wyden, “Wyden Continues to Press Justice

Department to Explain the Extent of its Authority to

Kill Americans,” 08 February 2012,

http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-

releases/wyden-continues-to-press-justice-

department-to-explain-the-extent-of-its-authority-to-

kill-americans . xxxvi

Jack Goldsmith, “What to Do About Growing

Extra-AUMF Threats?” Advancing a Free Society, 23

January 2013,

http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/the-

briefing/what-to-do-about-growing-extra-aumf-

threats/ .