CIA director John Brennan has appointed someone to fill the position of National Clandestine Service (NCS) director. The individual, however, is apparently going to keep his undercover status.

First, a key aspect of this news is the fact that the person appointed is not the woman who had been serving as the acting director of the clandestine service.

United States government officials like now-CIA director John Brennan have asserted individuals must be a “legitimate target under the law” in order to be targeted and killed. However, top secret intelligence reports indicate “drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn’t adhere” to such a standard.

The acting head of the CIA’s clandestine service—the first woman to ever hold the position for any period of time—is being considered for the position. But, as reported, her professional history in the agency includes signing off on the destruction of torture tapes with former CIA Counterterrorism Center head, Jose Rodriguez.

During this time of rebirth and renewal, these religious leaders remind us that we must strongly consider how our government conducts itself on behalf of our nation at home and abroad.

One week before John Brennan assumed office as CIA director, a woman was put in charge of the CIA’s clandestine service. It was the first time in the history of the agency that a female officer was running the agency. But, according to the Washington Post, the officer was one of two CIA officers, who signed off on the destruction of torture tapes in 2005.

The Post reports the woman served in a senior position at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center after the September 11th attacks. She was in the chain of command for the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program (RDI).

The CIA recorded brutal interrogations of prisoners with a video camera in a secret prison in Thailand. Over ninety tapes were ultimately recorded.

Sourced to current and former legal and counterterrorism officials in the United States government, the New York Times published a story on Sunday on the killing of US-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was targeted by a CIA drone without charge or trial on September 30, 2011.

Much of the material in the story from anonymous individuals could be considered sensitive or classified government information. These selective disclosures, which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) condemned in a statement, functioned as propaganda.

The Muslim-American Civil Liberties Coalition (MCLC), Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR) and Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) have released a report, “Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and Its Impact on American Muslims.”

The report outlines how the surveillance has created a “pervasive climate of fear and suspicion. It highlights racial and religious profiling by the police, which has effectively criminalized Muslims and effectively chilled free speech and activism in Muslim communities.

With questions still unanswered on the President’s targeted killing powers, John Brennan was sworn in today as CIA Director. But in a ironically symbolic twist of fate the Constitution used to swear Brennan in did not contain the Bill of Rights.

On first glance, it is a simple question to be laughed at or outright dismissed because someone with a lack of knowledge on the Global War on Terrorism would think it could never happen. That is how a number of people who consider themselves to be “serious” individuals reacted to the question of whether the president could authorize a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil, which Senator Rand Paul forced Attorney General Eric Holder to answer without equivocation. However, when considering all the powers both President George W. Bush and now President Barack Obama have claimed and embraced in the Global War on Terrorism to target, isolate and sometimes even neutralize individuals without probable cause and only on mere suspicion, it seems much less looney to ask with a straight face.

The United States Senate confirmed John Brennan, who served as President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser and was a key architect of the Obama administration’s secret drone policy, to the position of CIA director today. The confirmation came a day after Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) mounted a more-than-twelve-hour filibuster on the Senate floor.