This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 6, 2013. I'm Caleb Brown.

A new memo details how the White House interprets its powers relating to killing Americans with drone strikes

without any judicial process whatsoever. Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute's comments.

This is Rosa Brooks from Georgetown University.

She writes, if you were worried about whether it was okay for the U.S. government to secretly

kill an American citizen overseas, you can relax.

The Justice Department says killings are hunky-dory as long as some, quote, informed high-level

official decides that citizens pose a, quote, informed high-level official decides that citizens pose a quote,

eminent threat and capture would be quote, unfeasible. You and I have talked about

this before related to what Eric Holder said in a speech that he gave, but this provides a much

more detailed legal rationale.

What is the argument presented in this document?

Well, the first thing to note is that this document right at the outset says that it is not attempting

to determine the necessary legal conditions for drone strikes targeting American citizens.

So it's laying out guidelines, but it also acknowledges at the outset that perhaps this is not necessary,

that there might be other guidelines weaker standards even

uh... although it's hard to imagine

uh... what what those could possibly be

uh... the problem here is

that it gives uh gives a document that gives the appearance of limitations on the

president's power to target Americans for assassination but then defines the terms that it uses in a way that

makes those limits meaningless. So it says that a citizen can be targeted

...