GOP Senators Reject Idea of Court to Oversee Drone Activity

Senate Republicans Tuesday reacted strongly against a proposal made last week by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein to create a court to oversee lethal drone missions.

“I think it is a terrible idea,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told The Hill newspaper. A new court would represent “the biggest intrusion . . . in the history of [this] country” on the president’s authority as commander in chief, he said.

“We don’t allow [the judicial branch] to control the commander-in-chief’s decision to send people into battle. Courts are not trained for this. They are not in the targeting business. Who the enemy is composed of and who represents a threat is a military decision, not a criminal decision.”

Sen. John McCain of Arizona said handing control of the program over to the military from the CIA would be the best solution. “You just need to move it to the Department of Defense,” he told reporters. “We are talking about using equipment to kill people.”