The
N.Y. Times editorial page yesterday joined the growing chorus of folks in D.C. calling for Congress to create a new, executive branch court to review executive targeting decisions.
“Having the executive being the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner, all in one, is very contrary to the traditions and the laws of this country,” Senator Angus King Jr. of Maine said at the Brennan hearing. “If you’re planning a strike over a matter of days, weeks or months, there is an opportunity to at least go to some outside-of-the-executive-branch body, like the FISA Court, in a confidential and top-secret way, make the case that this American citizen is an enemy combatant.”
Mr. Brennan said the idea was worthy of discussion, adding that the Obama administration had “wrestled with this.” Two other senators, Dianne Feinstein of California, the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, and Ron Wyden of Oregon, also expressed interest. Even Robert Gates, a former C.I.A. director who was defense secretary under President George W. Bush and President Obama, said on CNN that such a judicial panel “would give the American people confidence” that a proper case had been made against an American citizen.
The speed with which this idea has gained currency in Washington has, I fear, less to do with its merits and more to do with the intense attractiveness of the notion that there might be a neat procedural solution to a messy substantive problem. Alas, I don’t think it works that way. Here’s my thinking.
