U.S. Must Explain Targeted Killings of Its Own Citizens [View All]

http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/Abdulrahman%20al-Awlaki

"Today the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking information about the legal and factual basis for the targeted killings of three U.S. citizens in Yemen. Last month, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were killed when unmanned drones operated by the CIA and the U.S. military fired missiles at the car in which they were traveling. Last week, al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was killed in a similar drone strike.

The killing of three American citizens raises serious and troubling questions about whether the U.S. government was acting lawfully when it placed Anwar al-Awlaki's name on a "kill list" and when it ordered the deadly drone strikes. But the government is hiding behind a veil of secrecy and is refusing to publicly release information about its justifications for killing U.S. citizens far from any active battlefield. We know from reports in the press that the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) produced a memorandum providing legal justifications for killing al-Awlaki and that he was placed on a so-called "kill list" by a secret group of government officials. The government refuses to release the OLC memo or any other information about the legal and factual bases for killing Anwar and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, however.

Before the public can determine whether the targeted killings of these U.S. citizens were lawful, the government must come clean and release the OLC memo and other records..."