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<b>Will the U.S. government get away with the power to target and kill
individuals, including U.S. citizens, far from any armed conflict and
without charge, trial, or judicial process?</b> This is the central
question in
<a href="http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=CXeXsFcRhMFv4s65A%2F6hNNJAlsB%2FK1yL">
<i>Al-Aulaqi v. Obama</a></i>, a lawsuit CCR and the ACLU filed today in
federal court. <br><br>
We recently had a small victory in our efforts to contest the legality of
a kill-list maintained by the U.S. government. On August 3, 2010,
we wrote to tell you that we filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Treasury
Department and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to dispute the
constitutionality of a licensing scheme that requires lawyers to seek
government permission to represent individuals the same government
intends to kill. The government put U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi on a
kill-list, then added him to an OFAC list last month, making it a crime
for CCR and the ACLU to challenge the government's authority to kill
him. On August 4, the day after we filed our lawsuit against OFAC,
OFAC granted CCR and the ACLU a license to provide <i>pro bono</i> legal
services to Anwar Al-Aulaqi's father Nasser Al-Aulaqi as representative
of his interests. Although we obtained a license, we will continue
to pursue our challenge to the OFAC regulations because it is
unconstitutional to require lawyers to ask the government for permission
to challenge the legality of its conduct.<br><br>
<b>Today, CCR and ACLU have filed a lawsuit on behalf of Nasser Al-Aulaqi
against President Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates. </b> The lawsuit aims to stop the U.S. government
from carrying out a "targeted killing" far away from any armed
conflict, without due process, and where there is not an imminent threat
and lethal force is not necessary. Anwar Al-Aulaqi has not been
charged with any crime, but has reportedly been the target of several
strikes in Yemen, a country in which the U.S. is not engaged in war but
where air strikes have caused civilian casualties and popular protests,
and where he is believed to be in hiding. Outside the context of
armed conflict (Yemen is almost 2000 miles away from Iraq and
Afghanistan), targeted killing is permissible under international law
only as a last resort and in the face of a truly imminent threat - and
then only because the imminence of the threat makes judicial process
infeasible. Outside these narrow circumstances, targeted killing amounts
to the imposition of a death sentence without charge or trial. The
government's authorization to kill U.S. citizen Al-Aulaqi far from any
armed conflict violates his Fourth Amendment right to be free from
excessive force and his Fifth Amendment right to due process before being
deprived of life and to have notice of the criteria that make a person
targetable for death. It also constitutes an extrajudicial killing
in violation of international law. <br><br>
Regardless of the government's allegations against Anwar al-Aulaqi or any
person suspected of wrongdoing, authorizing the death of individuals on
secret standards, far from any conflict zone, and outside of any legal
process not only violates the Constitution and international law, but
seriously undermines our collective safety. The executive should
not be able to act as judge, jury, and executioner, substituting its own
bureaucratic process for the due process required by law. The U.S.
government should not be able to claim the sweeping authority to carry
out extrajudicial killings of U.S. citizens or other individuals far from
any actual battlefield, nor make the dangerous contention that the entire
world is now a battlefield. Such assertions of power will inevitably
target innocent people-the U.S. government has a long and well-documented
history of wrongly accusing both citizens and foreigners of terrorism and
of being a threat to national security-and kill scores of innocent
bystanders, undermining the rule of law and effectively creating a war
without boundaries or end. <br><br>
If the government suspects individuals of criminal activity, they should
be charged and tried in a court of law, not put to death on the
government's say-so. <br><br>
<br>
We will keep you updated on this important case. To read more,
<a href="http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=V24fEkakwq8f2WkO6bc%2Fm9JAlsB%2FK1yL">
visit our case page</a>.<br><br>
<br>
Thank you for your continued support.<br><br>
<br>
Sincerely,<br><br>
Vincent Warren<br>
Executive Director<br>
Center for Constitutional Rights<br><br>
<br><br>
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