Vol. 77/No. 2      January 21, 2013

The Jan. 2 ruling turned down separate requests under the Freedom of Information Act by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times for access to documents detailing Washington’s secret drone assassination program.

The ACLU lawsuit said the Justice Department, Defense Department and CIA were illegally denying requests for information about the legal basis for what the government calls “targeted killings” and the process for selecting the targets. In refusing the requests, the government simply claims disclosure would endanger “national security.”

The suit cited public comments made by President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials about the drone program, arguing that the government could not credibly claim “state secrets privilege” in this case.

The Times had requested opinions written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel on the legality of killing U.S. citizens following reports in 2010 that New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki had been placed on Washington’s kill list.

Obama had declared al-Awlaki a government target for assassination, claiming he was a central leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with links to terrorist actions. But no charges were ever brought against him nor against Samir Khan, another U.S. citizen killed in a September 2011 attack in Yemen.

Al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman was killed in a separate drone strike two weeks later, which Washington said was a “mistake.”

“I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret,” McMahon wrote.

The administration’s open defense of assassinations is at the forefront of the government’s assault on the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that no citizen shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

President Obama has been playing a key role in the selection of assassination targets, signing off on every strike in Yemen and Somalia, as well as many of those in Pakistan. In March last year Attorney General Eric Holder argued that this does not violate the Fifth Amendment because the president’s considered judgment amounts to due process.

The New York Times is among the liberal critics of the administration’s leeway in conducting drone attacks. Its editors have called for a legal framework that would legitimize government assassinations.

Both the Times and ACLU said they will appeal McMahon’s ruling.

In a different suit litigated by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU, families of the three U.S. citizens killed in Yemen are suing top-ranking government officials, including Defense Secretary Panetta, Joint Special Operations Commander Joseph Votel and former CIA Director David Petraeus.

The suit charges the assassinations violated international human rights and the U.S. Constitution.

The government filed a motion to dismiss the case Dec. 14. The judge has yet to issue a ruling.
 
 
Related articles:
Bipartisan vote continues NSA phone, Internet spy program  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home