Court orders US to open up on drone attacks
22 April 2014, 03:42 -- The US government must make public secret papers justifying drone attacks against suspected terrorists, including American citizens, a New York federal appeals court ordered Monday. The case was brought by The New York Times and two of its journalists in a Freedom of Information Act case supported by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Their request came following the drone attacks in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan in September 2011 and al-Awlaki's teenage son, Abdul Rahman, in October 2011. All three victims were United States citizens either by birth or naturalization, AFP reports.
Judges based their decision on the fact that the information had already been the subject of numerous public statements and speeches, particularly by President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and CIA chief John Brennan.
'Whatever protection the legal analysis might once have had has been lost by virtue of public statements of public officials at the highest levels and official disclosure of the DOJ White paper,' wrote Judge Jon Newman, referring to the Justice Department.
The decision reverses a judgment of January 2013, which had sided with the US government.
Human rights groups say the drone strike program remains shrouded in secrecy and lacks clear legal limits.
US officials defend the program as carefully regulated and say the strikes have weakened Al-Qaeda's core leadership while reducing the threat of an attack on US soil.
Federal judge dismisses lawsuit against Obama administration over drone-strike killings of US citizens
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit against Obama administration officials for the 2011 drone-strike killings of three US citizens in Yemen, including an al-Qaeda cleric.
US District Judge Rosemary Collyer said the case raises serious constitutional issues and is not easy to answer, but that 'on these facts and under this circuit's precedent,' the court will grant the Obama administration's request.
The suit was against then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, then-CIA Director David Petraeus and two commanders in the military's Special Operations forces, according to Associated Press.
Permitting a lawsuit against individual officials 'under the circumstances of this case would impermissibly draw the court into 'the heart of executive and military planning and deliberation,'' said Collyer. She said the suit would require the court to examine national security policy and the military chain of command as well as operational combat decisions regarding the designation of targets and how best to counter threats to the United States.
'Defendants must be trusted and expected to act in accordance with the US Constitution when they intentionally target a US citizen abroad at the direction of the president and with the concurrence of Congress,' said Collyer. 'They cannot be held personally responsible in monetary damages for conducting war.' The lawsuit sought unspecified damages.
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, called it a 'deeply troubling decision that treats the government's allegations as proof while refusing to allow those allegations to be tested in court.'
'The court's view that it cannot provide a remedy for extrajudicial killings when the government claims to be at war, even far from any battlefield, is profoundly at odds with the Constitution,' said Shamsi, one of the attorneys who argued the case.
At oral arguments last July, the judge challenged the Obama administration's position repeatedly, pointedly asking 'where was the due process in this case?' for the now-dead US citizens targeted in the drone attacks. When an administration lawyer said there were checks in place, including reviews done by the executive branch, Collyer said that 'the executive is not an effective check on the executive' when it comes to protecting constitutional rights. But in Friday's ruling, it was clear that the administration's arguments had a strong impact on the judge, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.
The government argued that the issue is best left to Congress and the executive branch, not judges, and that courts have recognized that the defense of the nation should be left to those political branches.
Source: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_22/Court- orders-US-to-open-up-on-drone-attacks-1330/
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