DOJ Releases Barron Memo Justifying Drone Strike On Al-Awlaki

DOJ Releases Memo Justifying Drone Strike On U... by NewsyVideos

New York court releases government memo justifying drone killing of American citizen — RT USA
The 41-page memorandum was published along with the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling from Tuesday in which it was ordered that the controversial document finally be disclosed. The memo itself was originally authored by David J. Barron, the acting assistant attorney general at the time it was given to Mr. Holder two months before a US drone fired a Hellfire missile to kill Al-Awlaki in the town of Al-Jawf Governorate, Yemen.

According to a cursory analysis by Reuters published moments after the memo’s release, the document shows that the Office of Legal Counsel at the DOJ believed Al-Awlaki could be killed given his suspected standing as an “operational leader” of an “enemy force,” and therefore could be targeted “as part of the United States' ongoing non-international armed conflict with Al-Qaeda.”
 
▶ DOJ Releases Memo Justifying Drone Strike On U.S. Citizen - Video Dailymotion
The secret memo containing the legal justification for the drone strike on U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was made public Monday.

Court releases DOJ memo justifying drone strike on US citizen | TheHill
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday released a secret 2010 Justice Department memo justifying the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen killed in a drone strike in 2011. The court released the document as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union to make the document public.
Then-acting Assistant Attorney General David Barron, in the partially redacted 41-page memo, outlines the justification of the drone strike in Yemen to take out al-Awlaki, an alleged operational leader of al Qaeda. Barron wrote that al-Awlaki had taken up arms against his country, and it was necessary to take him out with a drone because he could have caused his nation harm.

Read more: http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/210240-court-releases-justice-department-memo-justifying-drone-strike#ixzz35hqCUmfM
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U.S. Seeks to Censor More of Memo That Approved Drone Strike on American - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — One week after the Obama administration said it would comply with a federal appeals court ruling ordering it to make public portions of a Justice Department memo that signed off on the targeted killing of a United States citizen, the administration is now asking the court for permission to censor additional passages of the document.

In the interim, the Senate voted narrowly last week to confirm David Barron, the former Justice Department official who was the memo’s principal author, to an appeals court judgeship. At least one Democratic senator who had opposed Mr. Barron over the secrecy surrounding his memo voted for him after the administration said it would release it.