The Surveillance State

Washington Post (h/t John Cole):

In the space of three years, the administration has built an extensive apparatus for using drones to carry out targeted killings of suspected terrorists and stealth surveillance of other adversaries. The apparatus involves dozens of secret facilities, including two operational hubs on the East Coast, virtual Air Force­ ­cockpits in the Southwest and clandestine bases in at least six countries on two continents.
Other commanders in chief have presided over wars with far higher casualty counts. But no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals.
The rapid expansion of the drone program has blurred long-standing boundaries between the CIA and the military. Lethal operations are increasingly assembled a la carte, piecing together personnel and equipment in ways that allow the White House to toggle between separate legal authorities that govern the use of lethal force.
In Yemen, for instance, the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command pursue the same adversary with nearly identical aircraft. But they alternate taking the lead on strikes to exploit their separate authorities, and they maintain separate kill lists that overlap but don’t match. CIA and military strikes this fall killed three U.S. citizens, two of whom were suspected al-Qaeda operatives.

While it is easy to say that these were bad people who got what's coming, there are significant bad things about this assassination strategy.  First off, it is too easy to wage war when real Americans aren't fighting and dying.  Secondly, we don't see the innocent civilians killed by mistake.  Finally, when U.S. citizens are being assassinated around the world without a trial, where are the boundaries preventing assassinations here?  Obama has way too willingly trampled civil liberties.  Unfortunatelty, outside of gold bug Ron Paul, you can hear crickets as opposition on the Republican side.