White House approves bill banning drone strikes against Americans

White House has reportedly passed a defence bill banning drone strikes against US citizens, a measure that might gain the approval of the libertarians.

The move came after Junior Senator Rand Paul held a filibuster urging the US President Barack Obama's administration to explain why it had carried out the drone strikes which enabled the US military to target citizens with Hellfire missiles from an unmanned aerial vehicle, the Huffington Post reports.

According to the report, although Attorney General Eric Holder said that the administration does not have an authority to launch such strikes, some Congress members wanted to legalize the drone strikes issue and ensured that a ban authored by US representative for Georgia's Congressional district Paul Broun, was implemented into the National Defense Authorization Act among a block of amendments.

The amendment said that the 'Department of Defense may not use a drone to kill a citizen of the United States except in the case when a person is actively engaged in combat against the United States.

However, Holder noted that that the bill might not be enough to protect U.S. citizens from government's overreach and claimed that he will work to ensure that Americans' rights are protected.

Broun expressed his concern that the administration has been using the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) passed after the 9/11 attacks to allow the government to pursue Al-Qaeda and its allies and to invade Afghanistan.

Broun added that AUMF calls for federal government's overreaches including warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, extra-judicial killing operation, detention of terror suspects and killing targets with drones.