WASHINGTON — The Obama administration urged a federal judge early Saturday to dismiss a lawsuit over its targeting of a U.S. citizen for killing overseas, saying that the case would reveal state secrets.
The U.S.-born citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, is a cleric now thought to be in Yemen. Federal authorities allege that he is leading a branch of al-Qaeda there.
Government lawyers called the state-secrets argument a last resort to toss out the case, and it seems likely to revive a debate over the reach of a president’s powers in the global war against al-Qaeda.
Civil-liberties groups sued the U.S. government on behalf of Awlaki’s father, arguing that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command’s placement of Awlaki on a capture-or-kill list of terrorism suspects — outside a war zone and absent an imminent threat — amounted to an extrajudicial execution order against a U.S.citizen. They asked a U.S. district court in Washington to block the targeting.
In response, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the groups are asking “a court to take the unprecedented step of intervening in an ongoing military action to direct the president how to manage that action — all on behalf of a leader of a foreign terrorist organization.”
Miller added: “If al-Awlaki wishes to access our legal system, he should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions.”
In a statement, lawyers for Nasser al-Awlaki condemned the government’s request to dismiss the case without debating its merits, saying that judicial review of the pursuit of targets far from the battlefield of Afghanistan is vital.
“The idea that courts should have no role whatsoever in determining the criteria by which the executive branch can kill its own citizens is unacceptable in a democracy,” the American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights said.
“In matters of life and death, no executive should have a blank check,” they said.
Other state-secrets cases
The Obama administration has cited the state-secrets argument in at least three other cases. In defense of:
• Bush-era warrantless wiretapping
• Surveillance of an Islamic charity
• The torture and rendition of CIA prisoners, a case in which it prevailed last week, on a 6-5 vote by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
