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"The controversial Central Intelligence Agency drone program might have an expiration date. \nThe Obama administration is going strip the CIA of its lethal drone power and hand it over to the Pentagon,  reports the The Daily Beast. \nThe CIA has been carrying out drone strikes against suspected terrorists since 2002, when the flying robots' first victim was reported. The Pentagon, through its secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), has its own drone program. Under the yet-unconfirmed plan, the two programs would be merged. \nBoth the CIA and Pentagon programs have been under intense public scrutiny in the past few weeks after President Barack Obama picked John Brennan, one of the masterminds behind the secretive drone program, to lead the CIA. \nSEE ALSO: Are Drones Watching Your Town?\n\nAt this point, the consequences of such a plan are murky. According to Jack Goldsmith, a professor of national security law at Harvard Law School, the shift will have two main consequences: the CIA will no longer choose who gets killed and it might have to surrender its drones (of which it has 40, according to military reporter Marc Ambinder). \nPresumably, though, the CIA will still assist the Department of Defense in gathering intelligence used in choosing targets.\nThe move may also make the secretive and controversial drone programs more transparent. Goldsmith, however, argues that might not be the case. \n\"Compared to CIA\u2019s lethal drone operations, DoD\u2019s lethal drone operations are not more transparent to the public and are less transparent to Congress,\" he writes. \nAnd that's despite the fact that CIA operations under U.S. law can be \"covert,\" whereas military operations can only be \"clandestine.\" The difference? Covert operations are not only classified, but they are legally deniable \u2014 meaning the CIA can deny the very existence of operations to Congress. Military clandestine operations, however, don't reach that level of secrecy. \nBut, Goldsmith writes, \"it does not follow that DoD will in fact be more transparent, and one result of the shift might be an overall loss in public and congressional transparency.\" And that's because the military has no legal obligation to brief Congress about its war activities. \nAt least in theory, the change might mean that there will be no more strikes without presidential authorization. In some cases, the CIA can choose targets and carry out a strike without direct presidential oversight, whereas Obama or the White House signs off on the drone \"kill list.\"\nIn any case, only time will tell if this is a step to lift the thick shroud of secrecy that has surrounded America's drones program.\nPhoto courtesy of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/03/20/cia-pentagon-drones/>