Justifying Targeted Killing

Sources close to the process that resulted in a yet-to-be-disclosed OLC memo authorizing the targeted killing of Anwar al Awlaki have revealed more and more information about what's in that memo, between last week's story in WaPo and today's story in the NYT.  And according to the source or sources, the legal justification seems pretty close to the justification that State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh gave in his 2010 speech to the American Society of International Law, which we covered and analyzed in May 2010.  Koh relied heavily on the right of self defense under international law and on the AUMF; he made only little mention of the assassination ban under long-standing executive order and the Due Process Clause.  See our May 2010 analysis for more on those sources.

But if we have some little hint of the administration's legal justification, we don't yet have much information on the process, except this sentence in the NYT story today:

The deliberations to craft the memo included meetings in the White House Situation Room involving top lawyers for the Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and intelligence agencies.

Now Members of Congress are calling on the Justice Department to release the memo, or at least non-classified portions of it, according to WaPo.  The administration hasn't responded to congressional or media requests for information.

SDS