Today, The Intercepts coverage gives us a clue. Among a bevy of new revelations and a cache of classified documents published this morning, we learned that the presidents authorization to target an individual with lethal force, based on a continuing, imminent threat to the United States, has in the past lasted for 60 days. (Perhaps thats what thenAttorney General Eric Holder meant when he said, in a March 2012 speech given at Northwestern University School of Law, that the government views imminence as incorporat[ing] considerations of the relevant window of opportunity to act against suspected terrorists.)
The example cited by The Intercept took place prior to the presidents imposition of the PPG, so the new report primarily sheds light on how the government was interpreting its obligations before issuing the new policy. But in announcing the PPG, the president made clear that at least some of the restrictions were already in place. If imminence was one of them, The Intercepts story would inform how the government applies its policy today, as well.
The new documents also call into question other aspects and applications of the governments policy. The president has justified the use of drones by asserting that they are more precise than manned aircraft. But The Intercept reports that the governments ability to track potential targets in places like Yemen and Somalia is poor and limited, often based on hazy and incomplete signals intelligence, or SIGINT. (One researcher likened the visual surveillance drones provide to watching the world below through a soda straw.) And while the presidents policy purports to restrict strikes to occasions on which the government has a near certainty that no bystanders will be killed, the website published government data suggesting that, in a five-month period during one U.S. operation in Afghanistan, more than 90 percent of the individuals killed were not the targets of the strikes.
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