ABSTRACT
Revealing the centrality of temporal constraints on addressing threats with drone killing, President Obama’s former top counterterrorism advisor first explained in 2011, “the question [of targeting] turns principally on how you define ‘imminence.’” 1 A Department of Justice White Paper providing details on this significant question was leaked to the press in February 2013. The authors of the memo concluded that “an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on US persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” 2 Thus the current administration has plainly widened this term beyond its traditional meaning by discarding the “immediacy” standard.
