Vol. 74/No. 32      August 23, 2010

The White House says it can.

On July 16, while lawyers were preparing a legal challenge to the Barack Obama administration’s public order authorizing the killing of Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen born in New Mexico, the U.S. Treasury Department declared that he is a “specially designated global terrorist.”

Under Treasury Department rules, attorneys who planned to file a lawsuit on al-Awlaki’s behalf would be subject to criminal prosecution—unless they were granted a license from the Treasury Department.

The International Emergency and Economic Powers Act, signed into law in 1977 by President James Carter, put this in place. Following the attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001, President George W. Bush used the act to declare a national emergency.

Al-Awlaki was now officially a “specially designated global terrorist,” under regulations from the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC)—part of the Treasury Department. This meant it was illegal for attorneys to file the legal motions they were preparing to challenge his designation as a terrorist and his addition to the list of people to be killed.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights took up the case at the request of Awlaki’s father. They filed suit August 3 against the Treasury Department and OFAC, asking that the court overturn the regulations. Their brief says the rules violate the First and Fifth amendments to the Constitution, which guarantee the right to freedom of speech, to petition the government for redress of grievances, and to due process of law.

The next day the Treasury Department granted the groups a license allowing them to take on Awlaki’s case.

The decision to put Awlaki on the list of people targeted for assassination by the CIA and the U.S. military was made at the highest government levels. Washington claims Awlaki is affiliated to al-Qaeda and says he corresponded with Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, last November. Al-Awlaki is believed to be living in Yemen.

Washington has often ordered assassinations of its opponents around the world, but it is rare for it to openly declare a U.S. citizen is among its targets.

Like its predecessors, the Obama administration continues to push other measures to restrict the constitutional rights of working people. The Washington Post reported July 29 that the White House wants to give the government wider powers to demand e-mail records from Internet companies.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act currently allows the FBI, the Pentagon, and other government agencies to demand personal data, including records of phone calls, bank records, and library activity, without a court order through a “national security letter.” Recipients of the letters are subject to criminal prosecution if they reveal their contents. According to the Post, 192,500 national security letters were issued between 2003 and 2006 alone.

The law currently says that Internet companies must turn over the name, address, length of service, and billing records of their customers, but not “transactional records” such as e-mail addresses.

Marc Zwillinger, an attorney for some Internet companies, said that changing the law would significantly increase information turned over for government surveillance. “A Facebook friend request—is that like a phone call or an e-mail? Is that something they would sweep in under an NSL [national security letter]?” he told the Post.
 
 
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