The government’s decision to kill three U.S. citizens with drone missiles, allegedly disregarding their rights to due process, has been challenged in federal lawsuits against top military and national security officials. The Obama Administration now will need to explain how it engages in such attacks….

President Obama, who reportedly approves all drone targeting, cannot be sued for the deaths since he has absolute immunity from litigation stemming from official actions. The suits are backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights….

Many Americans have reservations about the U.S. government ordering the killing of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, as it has done and continues to do, by unmanned drone aircraft. It is an impersonal means of waging war, highly susceptible to causing collateral damage, often through the inadvertent killing of innocent people in the vicinity of a targeted person….

It is useful that the lawsuits have been brought, and that the administration will be forced to provide a legal justification for its claimed right to execute American citizens without due process of law. Such an explanation should be informative to all Americans.

— Distributed by The Associated Press