Skip to content
The World Can't Wait
Menu
  • Home
  • Events
  • About
    • About World Can’t Wait
      • History of World Can’t Wait
  • Projects
    • War Criminals Watch
    • We Are Not Your Soldiers!
    • Fire John Yoo
    • Sudan’s Struggle
  • Media
    • Audio
      • Video
    • Public Svc. Announcements
    • Press & Press Releases
      • Press Releases
      • Press Coverage
    • Photos
  • Take Action
    • Materials in English
    • Materials in Spanish
    • What You Can Do Now
    • Donate
    • More Resources
      • News & Analysis
        • Alternet
        • Antiwar.com
        • Black Agenda Report
        • Common Dreams
        • CounterPunch
        • Dissident Voice
        • Media Matters
        • Next Left Notes
        • OpEd News
        • Project Censored
        • Raw Story
        • Revolution Newspaper
        • Truthdig
        • Truthout
      • Anti-War
        • Afghans for Peace
        • Courage to Resist
        • Drone Warfare Awareness
        • Iraq Vets Against the War
        • Peace of the Action
        • Veterans for Peace
        • Voices for Creative Non-Violence
        • War is a Crime
      • Anti-Torture/Detention
        • Andy Worthington
        • Close Guantanamo
        • Free Detainees
        • Int’l Justice Network
        • No More Guantánamos
        • Religious Campaign Against Torture
        • Witness Against Torture
      • Political Repression
        • Bill of Rights Defense Committee
        • Center for Constitutional Rights
        • Committee to Stop FBI Repression
        • Drop the Charges on Gregory!
        • National Lawyers Guild
        • No Separate Justice
        • Project Salam
        • Stop Mass Incarceration
      • Women’s Rights/Theocracy
        • Defend Science
        • Feministing
        • RH Reality Check
        • Stop Patriarchy
        • Talk 2 Action
        • Theocracy Watch
        • Walk for Choice
      • Environment
        • Bill McKibben
        • Climate Connections
        • Enviros Against War
        • Grist
        • Tar Sands Action
  • En Español
Menu

Lawsuit Challenges U.S. Drone Killings of Three Americans

Posted on July 23, 2013
Share:
The Center for Constitutional Rights | July 23, 2013

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following press release was issued by The Center for Constitutional Rights on July 19, 2013. World Can’t Wait issued the Crimes Are Crimes statement in 2010 after it was revealed that Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American citizen, had been placed on the Obama administration’s “kill list,” but before he was actually assassinated in 2011.  

ACLU and CCR Argue Killings Must Be Subject to Judicial Review

July 19, 2013, Washington – The Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union will be in federal court today for oral argument in their lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the U.S. government’s killing of three U.S. citizens in Yemen in 2011: Anwar Al-Aulaqi and Samir Khan in September and Al-Aulaqi’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman the following month. The groups argue that the killings violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process, and that courts have a crucial role to play in judging the legality of the government’s actions.

“The Constitution does not allow government officials to kill Americans based on vague and shifting legal criteria and evidence never presented to a court,” said ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi, who will argue in court today. “The government has argued that the court should step aside when the executive branch conducts extrajudicial killings of American citizens abroad, but the Supreme Court has ruled that the judiciary has an essential role to play in protecting civil liberties even in the context of actual military conflict. The Constitution’s protections are never more crucial than when the government seeks to deprive people of their lives.”

The lawsuit was filed one year ago today on behalf of Nasser Al-Aulaqi, the father and grandfather of Anwar and Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, and Sarah Khan, the mother of Samir Khan.

“The government’s position is unprecedented and extraordinary. It claims the most consequential power a government can exercise against its own citizens – the power to take life without due process – and asserts that the courts should have no role at all in reviewing its actions, even after the fact, even when the killings are off any battlefield,” said CCR Senior Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, who will also argue in court today. “The court should exercise its constitutionally mandated role and review our clients’ fundamental claims. It is for the court to determine the legality of the government’s actions, not for the government simply to assert it.”

The Justice Department has filed briefs seeking to dismiss the case, arguing that “political questions” and national security issues bar judicial review.

In 2010, following press reports that the U.S. government had put Anwar Al-Aulaqi on a “kill list,” the ACLU and CCR filed a lawsuit representing Nasser Al-Aulaqi challenging the government’s authority to do so. The court dismissed that suit on the grounds that Nasser Al-Aulaqi did not have legal standing to challenge the targeting of his son, and that the request for before-the-fact judicial review raised non-justiciable “political questions.” The current lawsuit raises different legal questions because it was filed after the killings had taken place.

For more information and legal filings click here.
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org.

This press release originally appeared on ccrjustice.org.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Because humanity & the planet come first...
store
Don’t stop… Don’t conciliate... Don’t accommodate... Don’t collaborate... and support World Can't Wait.

Sign up for email

Stop FBI Repression
Know your rights
If An Agent Knocks

About

World Can't Wait mobilizes people living in the United States to stand up and stop war on the world, repression and torture carried out by the US government. We take action, regardless of which political party holds power, to expose the crimes of our government, from war crimes to systematic mass incarceration, and to put humanity and the planet first.

Read More

Subscribe to E-Newsletter

Contact World Can't Wait

TOPICS

  • Afghanistan & Pakistan
  • Covert Drone War
  • Crimes are Crimes
  • Culture of Bigotry
  • Environment
  • G.I. Resistance
  • Haiti
  • Immigrants
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Libya
  • Mass Incarceration
  • Obama
  • Occupy
  • Palestine
  • Police State Repression
  • Real History Lessons
  • Reproductive Rights
  • Reports on Protest & Resistance
  • Theocracy
  • Torture
  • Wikileaks
  • Calls to Action
  • The Expanding War on the World

Projects

  • War Criminals Watch
  • We Are Not Your Soldiers
  • Get Involved

  • Donate
  • Download filters, stickers and posters
  • More ways to get involved
  • ©2025 The World Can't Wait | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme