For four hours now, Sen. Rand Paul (R - Ky.) has been filibustering the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director, following through on a threat he'd made earlier this month after Attorney General Eric Holder refused to rule out the use of unmanned drones in targeted assassinations on American soil in "extraordinary circumstances."

"I will speak until I can no longer speak," Paul kicked off, around noon. "I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court."

This is a good thing to filibuster over! And good for Rand Paul to actually filibuster, in person, for hours, not that he needs our approval or anything. He's probably not going to win this one, but he's basically propping up the civil-liberties journalism industry by talking about writers like Conor Friedersdorf and Glenn Greenwald and Charlie Pierce. He's been at it for over four hours, now, and has tapped in Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Jerry Moran (R - Kan.). Around 4 p.m., Democrat Ron Wyden joined in, so it's officially bipartisan. Maybe one of them will come out against drone strikes not on American soil, too, but we'll take what we can get.

You can watch Paul on CSPAN here.