NEW YORK — A coalition of civil liberties groups is asking a federal court to force the Trump administration to release its legal justification for what they describe as unlawful and deadly U.S. military strikes against civilian boats in international waters, a case that raises profound questions about executive power, secrecy and the use of lethal force.
The New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alongside the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, seeking the immediate release “of an Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion and other documents related to President Trump’s illegal lethal strikes on civilian boats in international waters,” according to the ACLU. The lawsuit was filed under the Freedom of Information Act and challenges the government’s refusal to disclose the legal basis for the strikes.
Jeffrey Stein, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, said, “The public deserves to know how our government is justifying the cold-blooded murder of civilians as lawful and why it believes it can hand out get-out-of-jail-free cards to people committing these crimes.”
The ACLU alleges that the Trump administration has “conducted 22 strikes, murdering at least 87 civilians, in clear violation of domestic and international law. Indeed, the U.S. military may not, under any circumstances, execute civilians who are merely suspected of smuggling drugs.”
The organization added, “The federal government must first pursue non-lethal measures like arrest and demonstrate that lethal force is an absolute last resort to protect against a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury. Despite bipartisan outrage over these plainly unlawful attacks, the Trump administration has said they will continue.”
In response to the administration’s actions, the civil rights groups are seeking disclosure of a “legal opinion authored by OLC, a part of the Justice Department whose opinions are generally treated as binding within the executive branch,” the ACLU said. The opinion allegedly “blesses the ongoing strikes as lawful acts in an alleged ‘armed conflict’ with unspecified ‘drug cartels.’ According to news accounts, the memo also purports to immunize personnel who authorized or took part in these unlawful strikes from future criminal prosecution for what would otherwise simply be homicides.”
The ACLU further argues that the United States is not, and legally could not be, in an armed conflict with Latin American cartels, stating that such a conflict “between a state and a non-state actor exists only if the non-state actor is an ‘organized armed group’ structured and disciplined like regular armed forces and engaged in ‘protracted armed violence’ against the state. There is no plausible argument that any drug cartel satisfies this test vis-à-vis the United States.”
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said, “The Trump administration is displacing the fundamental mandates of international law with the phony wartime rhetoric of a basic autocrat.”
Despite these criticisms, the Trump administration maintains that its strikes are “on firm legal grounds,” according to the ACLU, and continues to refuse to release the OLC opinion. The ACLU noted, “In mid-November, the Trump administration allowed members of Congress and their staffs to read the opinion. Many found its analysis deeply troubling.”
Civil liberties groups are now asking the courts to intervene, arguing that the government has failed to provide records requested under federal law. Despite what they describe as a clear and compelling public interest, those demands have not been met.
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