Civil liberties groups sued the Treasury Department on Tuesday over its refusal to permit them to challenge the federal government's claim of authority to target U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism overseas for killing.
The Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit against the department and its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in U.S. District Court in Washington.
The groups say that without a change, it would be a crime for them to provide even free legal services to a citizen whom the government has designated a terrorist and is seeking to kill.
Human rights lawyers said they were retained early last month by Nasser al-Aulaqi, the father of Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S.-born radical cleric based in Yemen whom U.S. authorities have called a propagandist for al-Qaeda who has helped plan attacks against the United States.
"The government is targeting an American citizen for death without any legal process whatsoever, while at the same time impeding lawyers from challenging that death sentence and the government's sweeping claim of authority to issue it," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in a written statement. "Such an alarming denial of rights in any one case endangers the rights of all Americans."
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