( CNN ) -- Yes , I said it , and I will say it again : On Wednesday night , Sen. Rand Paul was a hero for civil liberties . I love and respect President Obama , and I was honored to work for the Obama White House . That said , the executive branch of the United States government today has an extraordinary level of power . Progressives like Rep. Keith Ellison and conservatives like Paul can all agree it has a disturbing license to wage a never-ending , ill-defined , even un-defined `` war on terror , '' including the use of drones . I applaud Rand Paul for standing up and calling attention to an important and vexing set of questions . Now , let me say to my conservative friends : Do not get too excited . I still believe Paul is as much a villain on civil rights as he was a hero this week on civil liberties . The Rev . Martin Luther King Jr. 's successful strategy was to force the federal government to intercede not just with states , but also private businesses that denied equal treatment . Paul would have robbed King 's strategy of its teeth , because he does not believe the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution grants the federal government the right to protect individuals from racial discrimination in the marketplace . In fact , he once said businesses should be able to turn people away based on the color of their skin . Also , please do not get me started on his votes against the Violence Against Women Act . Nor on his opposition to a woman 's right to make private medical decisions . Nor on his desire to cut Social Security and Medicare , while preserving tax loopholes for the wealthiest people ever born . But we can not be so balkanized as a nation that we refuse to say `` well done , '' when someone does right , even if we disagree on everything else . We are bigger than that . The idea of using military drones inside U.S. borders should trigger concern and scrutiny from all points on the political spectrum . To my progressive friends : The argument should not be whether we trust THIS president not to abuse that kind of authority . The next president might . If a GOP president refused to rule out killing U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without due process , we progressives would be marching down the street . We must be vigilant and consistent . There is a risk that any White House will develop delusions about its own power . The amount of information that top officials get is so overwhelming , and the level of responsibility so crushing , that there is always the temptation to think , `` We know more than the public . '' It is a shame that it was Rand Paul , not progressives and liberals in the Senate , who led this filibuster . Not only that , we can admire that Paul used the filibuster the way it should be used . He did not simply stick a Post-it note on a door somewhere and leave town , solely to gum up the government . Too many Republicans have done that during this president 's time in office . He said that this is an important issue , and we should be talking about it more -- repeatedly , for 13 hours . That 's not a stunt . That 's the way the filibuster is supposed to work . If you want to see a stunt , pay more attention to the excessive abuse of the filibuster over the last four years . Fortunately , Attorney General Eric Holder sent Paul a commendable letter ruling out strikes on noncombatant Americans on U.S. soil . But at the end of the day , I still do not believe the American public has a clear understanding of the extent and limits of the drone program . For example , what about Americans overseas -- and what about the hundreds of innocent civilian lives lost to terrifying drone strikes around the world ? Getting rid of unilateral kill lists will not elevate our moral position if we continue to be responsible for innocent deaths . In addition to the lives lost , we inflict tremendous trauma on children who witness these attacks , and unmeasurable psychological damage on parents who never know if this day will be their last . Decent and fair-minded Americans should focus not only on drones that target Americans , but also on drone strikes that shock our conscience . We need to have a national conversation , and that is what Paul started on Wednesday . No matter what you think of his other views , we can all agree that this conversation can not end here . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Van Jones .
Rand Paul : Paul deserves credit for his filibuster on drone policy issues . Jones says Van Jones spoke out against excessive executive power and for civil liberties . He says the U.S. senator is completely wrong on civil rights , abortion , entitlements . Van Jones : Progressives can salute Paul 's filibuster even as they disagree with his other views .