...minus operational details. As U.S. Legal Adviser, Harold Koh offered the most well-known
defense of drone strikes at the 2010 meeting of the American Society of International Law. Other government interpretations of the domestic and international legal bases for U.S. behavior followed, including speeches by the White House counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, in 2011 and 2012, Jeh Johnson, the General Counsel of the
Defense Department, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. By (partially) lifting the veil of secrecy surrounding these strikes, it became possible to have a broader conversation about...