Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn’t think much of her colleague Rand Paul’s all-night filibuster of CIA nominee John Brennan, or at least some of Paul’s arguments. Lest we ascribe this to ideology, the California Democrat and the Kentucky libertarian Republican united last year in an unsuccessful battle to strip the indefinite detention provisions from the defense bill.
In an old-fashioned filibuster where he held the floor (and his bladder) for about 13 hours, Rand argued that the Obama administration has held open its authority to kill American citizens in the United States via a drone or other such military attack. He suggested that one could be sitting at a cafe, walking down a road or sleeping at home and be taken out by a drone.
At one point in his 13-hour speech, Paul said, “Are you going to drop a drone, a Hellfire missile on Jane Fonda?” Paul was joined several times in his filibuster by GOP Senators, including Marco Rubio of Florida, and also a Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon.
Rand raised the question because Attorney General Eric Holder had told him in a letter that in extraordinary circumstances, “it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”
Holder defined “extraordinary circumstances” as the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington or the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Holder said the administration “has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so,” and said regular law enforcement offers “the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat.”
Feinstein in a floor speech supporting Brennan Thursday said the administration directly addressed “the Senator from Kentucky” and his fears that someone “in their house, eating at a cafe or walking down a road” can be subject to a drone strike.
“This will never happen in the United States of America, this is not permitted in the United States of America,” Feinstein said. The government has many other means to thwart terrorists under the law using the police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warrants and other means by which “to ferret out individuals,” she said.
“Drones will never be used in the United States of America, not if I have anything to do with it,” Feinstein said.
She said the “only case in which the use of lethal force against an American in the United States” could be used would be in “extraordinary circumstances” such as Pearl Harbor or 9/11, when, she noted, “three airliners were hijacked and driven into three large buildings,” suggesting a drone or other such attack at that time might have been warranted.
On Thursday, Paul said Holder had reassured him sufficiently, that the Bill of Rights is safe. The Senate voted to confirm Brennan. Rand said he had received a new letter from Holder to Paul that said: “It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil? The answer to that question is no.”
Here’s the Jane Fonda clip, originally thanks to C-Span:
Here’s the entire C-Span video of the filibuster: