J-SOC Answers To The Presedential Office Only

The president has given J-SOC the rare authority to select individuals for its kill list — and then to kill, rather than capture, them. Critics charge that this individual man-hunting mission amounts to assassination, a practice prohibited by U.S. law.

J-SOC’s list is not usually coordinated with the CIA, which maintains a similar but shorter roster of names. J-SOC answers to the Presedential Office only. 

When Obama came into office, he cottoned to the organization immediately. (It didn’t hurt that his CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, has a son who, as a naval reservist, had deployed with J-SOC.) Soon Obama was using J-SOC even more than his predecessor. In 2010, for example, he secretly directed J-SOC troops to Yemen to kill the leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.