The Obama administration is using the CIA and the secretive Joint Special Operations Command to carry out a vast killing program in which thousands of people, including many hundreds of civilian bystanders, have reportedly died. Essential details about the program remain secret, including what legal criteria and process are used to put people on CIA and military kill lists, how much evidence is required, and who has been killed.
This expansive killing program violates the Constitution and international law, which place strict limits on the use of lethal force both outside of armed conflict, and in it. The President should restore the Constitution and the rule of law to the use of lethal force by signing an executive order that directs the government to: end any reliance on self-defense authority and the 2001 congressional authorization for use of force in Afghanistan for the killing of persons away from any recognized battlefield; comply with the law and refrain from the use of lethal force, except in the narrow circumstances permitted under the Constitution and international law, when it is a last resort to address a specific, concrete and imminent threat of deadly harm, and measures are taken to prevent harm to civilian bystanders.
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