So, Who Can We Kill?

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While Brennan's playbook might seem like an effort to rein in the drone war, it also indicates that the high-tech-killing scheme is here to stay. The playbook "suggests not that [the drone war] is ending but that it's being regularized and bureaucratized," says Jack Goldsmith, a former Bush Administration Justice Department lawyer now at Harvard Law School.

That doesn't mean there won't be changes. Prominent members of Congress, including Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, have discussed the possibility of setting up a "drone court," modeled on the judicial panel that approves wiretaps of domestic-terrorism suspects, that would ensure that no single person has the authority to authorize killings without some oversight. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican and George W. Bush appointee, is among those promoting the idea. "I just think some check on the ability of the President to do this has merit as we look to the longer-term future," Gates told CNN last month.

Having judges approve killing requests would hardly be a cure-all, however. National-security officials worry about looping a judge into military operations often based on fast-changing facts on the ground (and both the military and the State Department have lawyers, like Johnson, who already closely vet such requests).

Obama could also seek--or Congress could hand him--a renewed AUMF more clearly stating the mission, and enemy, in the antiterrorism war for the post-Afghanistan era. But that, too, could be fraught, involving an unpredictable process that, as someone familiar with the thinking of Administration officials puts it, "quickly becomes emotional and politicized. The extreme right and the extreme left have now converged on these issues, and they will team up." Others worry about just the opposite--that hawks like John McCain might seize control of the process and grant the President even broader new terrorist-hunting powers. "Proposing a new AUMF carries very significant risks," says Matthew Waxman, a former Bush Administration national-security official now at Columbia Law School, adding, "There would also be major risks to using force against other terrorist groups without a clear legislative basis."

How Obama feels about all this remains unclear, though we may know more soon. Attorney General Eric Holder recently told Senators that Obama will speak publicly on targeted-killing operations. A White House spokesperson declined to offer details but pointed to the President's State of the Union address, in which he vowed to work with Congress "to ensure ... that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances" and to make "our efforts ... even more transparent to the American people and to the world."

Mend It or End It?

Time.com

So, Who Can We Kill?

A bipartisan revolt from the right and left puts Obama and his drone war on the defensive