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The justification of targeted killings by the United States government is “a travesty” according to U.S. law, an analyst said.

U.S. senators are reportedly considering an idea to create a secret “assassination court” that would be charged with deciding if “suspects” can be assassinated by U.S. drone strikes.

“There is no way of justifying these killings and in fact they are assassinations,” Rick Rozoff, manager of the organization Stop The NATO International, told Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Saturday.

“This is what’s called targeted killing, but it’s not targeted. It’s mass killing,” he added.

There are estimates that since 2004 when the CIA started the drone warfare, between 4,500 and 5,000 people have been assassinated in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya and Iraq, Rozoff said.

The notion of a secretive court deciding who gets killed by robots looming overhead anywhere on the planet strikes some as somewhat morbid.

Observers charge that the change would just be some “nominal court oversight” to the targeted killings, which at present is entirely in the hands of the executive branch.