Rand Paul Seems Okay With Killing Americans With Drones Now [Video]
Senator Rand Paul seems to have made a complete 180 on the controversial issue of the U.S. drone program. Specifically, the Kentucky Senator seems to be okay with using drones on U.S. soil to kill American citizens, so long as they are criminals.
Though Paul very recently engaged in an epic 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor in ideological protest of the Obama administration’s ambiguous authority to use drones on American soil, he seems to have changed his position in light of the Boston Marathon bombing.
During an interview with Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Network Monday, Paul argued that there is a difference between an American citizen “sitting in a café” and an at-large criminal suspect like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“I’ve never argued against any technology being used when you have an imminent threat, an active crime going on,” Paul said. “If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash, I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.”
Paul stressed that using drone technology against wanted criminals and suspected terrorists is different than arbitrarily using it against average American citizens.
“It’s different if they want to come fly over your hot tub or your yard just because they want to do surveillance on everyone and watch your activities,” he said. But, “if there’s killer on the loose in a neighborhood, I’m not against drones being used.”
These new comments from Rand Paul seem to be in direct opposition to those he used to open his Senate filibuster just last month.
“I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”
While I’d like to give Senator Paul the benefit of the doubt here, it’s kind of hard to imagine that he engaged in a marathon 13 hours just to protest the idea of drones being used to watch, target and/or kill just any U.S. citizen willy-nilly. It seemed as though his protest was against any and all U.S. citizens being targeted with drone technology, even those accused or suspected of criminal acts. You’d think if he meant “just innocent people,” he’d have mentioned it.
Anyway. Watch for yourself below, and let us know what you think. Did Rand Paul just pull a reversal on his perspective regarding the use of drone technology?
[Image via: Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons]
