The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Tuesday to obtain a copy of the memo the Department of Justice drafted to legally justify the Pentagon's spate of vessel strikes in the Caribbean.
The Trump administration says the strikes, which have largely been conducted off the Venezuelan coast, are necessary to stop the flow of drugs into the U.S., but critics say they are tantamount to war crimes. At least 88 people have died in the attacks in recent months.
"Prompt disclosure of these records is critically important to ensuring informed public debate about the U.S. military's unprecedented strikes, which have killed more than eighty civilians since September, in clear violation of domestic and international law," the ACLU said in the complaint, which lists the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation as co-plaintiffs.
Democrat lawmakers in Congress have called for the memo to be declassified and publicly released, arguing in a Nov. 24 letter that the move "is necessary" and would "enhance transparency in the use of deadly force by our Nation's military."
In a Tuesday statement, Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project, said the American people are entitled to answers.
"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," Stein said. "The Trump administration must stop these illegal and immoral strikes, and officials who have carried them out must be held accountable."
The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is the ACLU's latest attempt to obtain the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that argues the strikes are legal and provides immunity from criminal prosecution to those who took part in them.
The group filed an open public records request on Oct. 15, seeking the memo, but did not receive a response from the OLC, the Department of State and the Department of Defense, according to the complaint.
The Trump administration has characterized the strikes as "noninternational armed conflict," but has come under intense scrutiny since it was revealed that a second strike was ordered on Sept. 2 following the initial attack after two survivors were spotted.
According to the War Department's own law-of-war manual, it is illegal to fire upon those who are shipwrecked. The military is instead directed to rescue survivors and treat them as prisoners of war.
"The U.S. military may not summarily kill civilians who are merely suspected of smuggling drugs," the ACLU argues in the suit. "It 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."
The Justice Department declined to comment.
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