Now you've done it. Better hope Rand Paul doesn't see that or he'll have another earth shattering hypothetical constitutional crisis question that's worthy of a filibuster.
But I think you'd agree this whole thing is much ado about nothing. The reason drones are being used to take out terrorists overseas is that we don't have the means to capture those terrorists and bring them to justice. We don't have FBI agents or police on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere in Sudan or Pakistan. And in many cases if we tried to go through the process of using the local authorities, the terrorist would be long gone, very possibly tipped off by those same authorities. Still, we have clearly used the capture route, when possible. We've captured a whole host of terrorists and brought them to justice when it was possible.
Any terrorists in the USA, domestic or foreign, have been dealt with via the legal system. Not one has been taken out by say a sharp shooter, shot on sight, etc. I can't even think of one that was killed while being apprehended, or anything of the sort. And a very good reason we want them alive is that clearly it's far better to then interrogate them and get valuable information. Everyone knows this, except apparently for Rand Paul....
I agree, yet we didn't do it. But now, because it's Obama, the loons want to think the rules have suddenly changed. If any president had info that someone like McVeigh was in the process of working on another attack, to kill more people, and we had a drone and no other assets in the area, it was likely he could get away, you can damn well bet they'd use the drone to take him out, enemy combatant or not.
If you want to get your shorts all up in a knot over issues like this, there are far more relevant ones that are actually occuring. For example, when the police in CA had Dorner cornered in a house, there is videotape evidence of the police discussing early on setting the house on fire. Ultimately they apparently did that by launching tear gas cansisters into the house. Tear gas canisters that are known to frequently result in fires. You could make the case that it was unjustified. I mean it's hard for me to believe that a tear gas canister can't be made today that won't set a house on fire, right? Isn't that taking the suspects life needlessly when he could be brought to justice?
Or just a couple weeks ago, there was a story in the news about a police dept potentially using unnecessary lethal force. They had a depressed guy that was threatening to kill himself with a gun and someone called the police. He never pointed the guy at anyone, including the police. After a standoff with the police, he announced he was leaving. As he tried to walk off, the cops shot and killed him. The justification was that they didn't know what he would later do and he might be a threat to others..... Now that is real and sure seems to me like a far more serious issue than conjuring up images of Obama firing drone missles into cafes in US cities.