Saturday, April 5, 2014

Volokh Conspiracy on Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta

I actually checked over at Volokh before blogging my last entry, "Federal Judge Tosses Lawsuit Against Obama Administration Over Drone Strikes."

They've got something up now. Kenneth Anderson does the honors, "Al-Aulaqi ‘Bivens’ damages suit in drone strikes dismissed":
Judge Rosemary Collyer (District Court of DC) yesterday dismissed a damages lawsuit filed by families of Anwar Al-Aulaqi, his son Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, and Samir Khan, who were US citizens killed in US drone strikes. This was a Bivens suit for damages against individual US government officials alleged to be responsible for violations of the 4th and 5th amendments. After finding that the case is not precluded by the political question doctrine, Judge Collyer found that the 4th amendment was not at issue and focused her discussion on the 5th amendment instead; she then dismissed, with some hesitation, finding that cautionary principles attached to Bivens actions, counseling against judicial encroachment on the political branches, urged dismissal. The 41-page ruling is here and the national security and law website Lawfare has coverage of the oral argument from last July here and discussion and links to the briefs here. A couple of observations...
Keep reading.

Anderson doesn't quibble too much with Judge Collyer's decision, although I raised some additional/different questions at my post and I'm sure I'll be seeing more about them later. (Glenn Greenwald's too busy shilling around with Edward Snowden at the moment, but do check back.)

And FWIW, at the ACLU, "Court Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging U.S. Drone Killings of Three Americans."

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