A newly revealed Justice Department memo outlines the government’s rational for ordering deadly drone strikes on Americans, according to a report.
The 16-page “white paper” concludes the government can kill any suspected high-level al Qaeda members who are US citizens if they pose an “imminent” threat, but the document admits it uses a “broader concept of imminence” that does not mean the target must be about to launch an attack, NBC News reported last night.
“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack . . . will take place in the immediate future,” the memo says, according to NBC.
The memo comes in the wake of criticism over recent deadly drone strikes ordered by the Obama administration, which included a 2011 operation in which two US citizens who joined al Qaeda — Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan — were blasted to death in Yemen.
Though they had been branded high-level terrorists, neither had been charged with any crime.
The memo says that strikes are justified if “informed, high-level” government officials conclude the target has taken part in terrorist “activities,” NBC says.
The paper, however, does not say just what constitutes a terrorist “activity.”
The paper also says strikes are justified if capture of the suspect would pose an “undue risk.”
Civil libertarians pounced on the memo’s conclusions.
“This is a chilling document,” Jameel Jaffer, of the ACLU, told NBC.