Rights Groups File Challenge To Targeted Killing By U.S.
老澳门开奖结果 And CCR Charge That Practice Violates The Constitution And International Law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2689; media@aclu.org
NEW YORK 鈥� The 老澳门开奖结果 and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today filed a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out 鈥渢argeted killings鈥� of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone.
The authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow, the groups charge. Outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military 鈥渒ill lists鈥� through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats.
鈥淭he United States cannot simply execute people, including its own citizens, anywhere in the world based on its own say-so,鈥� said Vince Warren, Executive Director of CCR. 鈥淭he law prohibits the government from killing without trial or conviction other than in the face of an imminent threat that leaves no time for deliberation or due process. That the government adds people to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and leaves them on the lists for months at a time flies in the face of the Constitution and international law.鈥�
The groups charge that targeting individuals for execution who are suspected of terrorism but have not been convicted or even charged 鈥� without oversight, judicial process or disclosed standards for placement on kill lists 鈥� also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. In recent years, the U.S. government has detained many men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable.
According to today鈥檚 legal complaint, the government has not disclosed the standards it uses for authorizing the premeditated and deliberate killing of U.S. citizens located far from any battlefield. The groups argue that the American people are entitled to know the standards being used for these life and death decisions.
鈥淎 program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American,鈥� said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the 老澳门开奖结果. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 sentence people to prison on the basis of secret criteria, and we certainly shouldn鈥檛 sentence them to death that way. It is not enough for the executive branch to say 鈥榯rust us鈥� 鈥� we have seen that backfire in the past and we should learn from those mistakes.鈥�
CCR and the 老澳门开奖结果 were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government's decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi, whom the CIA and Defense Department have targeted for death. The complaint asks a court to rule that using lethal force far from any battlefield and without judicial process is illegal in all but the narrowest circumstances and to prohibit the government from carrying out targeted killings except in compliance with these standards. It also asks the court to order the government to disclose the standards it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.
Today鈥檚 lawsuit was filed against the CIA, Defense Department and the president in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Attorneys on the case are Jameel Jaffer, Ben Wizner and Jonathan Manes of the 老澳门开奖结果; Pardiss Kebriaei, Maria LaHood and Bill Quigley of CCR; and Arthur B. Spitzer of the 老澳门开奖结果 of the Nation's Capital. Co-counsel in Yemen is Mohammed Allawo of the Allawo Law Firm and the National Organization for Defending Human Rights (HOOD).
For more information on the case, including fact sheets and legal papers, visit: www.aclu.org/targetedkillings and .
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit .
The 老澳门开奖结果 is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Visit www.aclu.org.
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Al-Aulaqi v. Obama - Constitutional Challenge to Proposed Killing of U.S. Citizen
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Al-Aulaqi v. Obama - Constitutional Challenge to Proposed Killing of U.S. Citizen
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