Obama stares at dangerous drone legacy

For most Americans, drones are something that fly in remote foreign skies to kill terrorists who want to harm the United States.

That is probably why their attitude toward drones differs so much with that of the rest of the world. While one Pew Center poll released last month found 56 percent Americans approving drone strikes in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, another Pew study conducted last year showed a majority of people across the world, including in Spain, Germany, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, China and almost all Muslim countries strongly opposing them. In fact, a Pew survey conducted in Pakistan last year showed that 74 percent Pakistanis considered the US an enemy.

Public resentment and protests against drone attacks, including those from many close US allies, have rarely been covered by the US media. Yet public opinion in the US is likely to change when Americans realize that drones could also be used to kill US nationals on foreign as well as US soil, and invade their privacy by using thermal technology to spy into their houses and monitor their daily lives.

On Wednesday, Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky used a filibuster in an attempt to prevent John Brennan, a key figure behind US drone programs, from becoming the CIA director. Paul spent more than a dozen hours accusing the Barack Obama administration of lacking clarity in its drone policy.

In fact, by saying that the US administration has "no intention" of using drones to target Americans on US soil, Attorney General Eric Holder did not rule out the possibility altogether.

A day later, on Thursday, Holder wrote a note to Paul before a Senate vote on Brennan saying the US president does not have the authority to use an armed drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on US soil.

Paul's outcry is the latest example of a growing concern among Americans over the drone program, which for long has been kept secret. The American Civil Liberties Union sued several government departments last year over their refusal to disclose information on the killing of American citizens in Yemen, including Anwar Awlaki and his 16-year-old son.