Wednesday, March 18, 2015

ACLU Files New Lawsuit Over Obama Administration Drone 'Kill List'

Boys gather near the wreckage of car destroyed last year by a US drone air strike targeting suspected al Qaeda militants in the southeastern Yemeni province of Shabwa in 2013.

Link provided by George Jefferson

As the US debates expanding its campaign against the Islamic State beyond Iraq and Syria, the leading US civil liberties group is intensifying its efforts to force transparency about lethal US counterterrorism strikes and authorities.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will file a disclosure lawsuit for secret Obama administration documents specifying, among other things, the criteria for placement on the so-called “kill list” for drone strikes and other deadly force.

Information sought by the ACLU includes long-secret analyses establishing the legal basis for what the administration terms its “targeted killing program” and the process by which the administration determines that civilians are unlikely to be killed before launching a strike, as well as verification mechanisms afterward to establish if the strike in fact has caused civilian deaths. 

The suit, to be filed in a New York federal court, also seeks basic data the Obama administration has withheld about “the number and identities of individuals killed or injured” in counterterrorism strikes, according to the ACLU filing. In February 2013, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who favors the drone strikes, estimated they had killed 4,700 people.

4 comments:

  1. " obama hate".....The ACLU hates Obama is that your contention Mike?

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    1. Not at all. Your suggesting the post was.

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    2. Mike thats about the most dishonest thing you've said to date


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    3. It's an opinion. What's wrong with you? It's my opinion that you suggested this link out of Obama hate. I may be wrong, but dishonesty doesn't enter into it.

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