Targeted killing by drone is the new frontier of American warfare. The first strike by a remotely piloted aircraft took place in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and since then, drone warfare has proliferated. To date, there have been more than 400 U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and they are occurring with greater regularity in Syria. By 2019, U.S. drone flights are expected to increase by 50 percent from current levels.

In May 2013, President Barack Obama defended U.S. drone strikes and claimed responsibility for overseeing the program. He further claimed that viable targets were limited to terrorists that posed a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons,” that strikes were executed only when there was “near certainty that the target is present,” “near certainty that noncombatants will not be injured or killed” and “capture is not feasible at the time of the operation.”

New documents leaked to The Intercept show that his claims were at best misleading and at worst false. In fact, the U.S. drone program is imprecise and arbitrary and a grave risk to civilians everywhere. It is also a program over which the president exercises little control.

Although Obama signs off on targets, he generally doesn’t sign off on strikes. He thus cedes execution authority to the military and has little to no knowledge of the potential number of civilians affected by a strike. The documents show that although he sits atop an elaborate chain of command, he has little incentive to question the judgment of those below him. His oversight is merely a rubber stamp.

The leaked documents cast significant doubt on the claim that the U.S. targets only those who pose a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” The documents note that the target must be simply “a threat to U.S. interest or personnel,” an apparent contradiction that the government has not explained. The imminence standard is similarly unlikely to be met in countries like Somalia and Yemen, where U.S. forces have a scant presence on the ground.

The documents further reveal that after the president approves a target, the military has 60 days to execute a strike. However, in the theater of war, much can change in 60 days. A target could surrender arms, abandon hostilities or forge a new alliance, only to be exterminated because he posed an imminent threat months or weeks earlier.

The leaked documents demonstrate that the “near certainty” standard offered by Obama is not likely maintained. The drone program, especially in Yemen and Somalia, relies almost exclusively on signals intelligence to identify and kill targets. Unlike human intelligence, which is gathered from local sources, signals intelligence relies on communication intercepts and phone and computer metadata and is far less reliable. The documents describe the technologies being used as imprecise, and one study even acknowledges a “critical shortfall of capabilities” to accurately identify and eliminate targets.