Jane Mayer, a political journalist based in Washington, D.C., is a staff writer for The New Yorker, where she covers politics for the weekly magazine. In the October 26 issue, Mayer examines the ethics and controversies surrounding the CIA's covert drone program, in which remotely controlled, unmanned planes target terror suspects in Pakistan and elsewhere.

Mayer writes that unlike the military's publicly acknowledged drone program in Afghanistan and Iraq — both official war zones — the CIA's campaign doesn't operate in support of U.S. troops on the ground. Instead it's a secret program, run partly by private contractors, that amounts to "targeted international killings by the state," in the words of one human-rights lawyer. Because of its covert status, there's "no visible system of accountability in place," Mayer writes, and a sharp increase in the number of reported drone strikes has raised questions about whether the moral costs and the political consequences have been adequately considered.

Before joining The New Yorker, Mayer worked at the Wall Street Journal, where she served as the publication's first female White House correspondent. She is also the author of the best-selling 2008 book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.

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