Reply Brief filed in Kareem v. Haspel

​Last month, we flagged the case of Kareem v. Haspel, a case currently pending in the D.C. Circuit that asks whether U.S. citizens have a right to know whether they are being targeted for assassination abroad. The district court had dismissed Kareem's case on the ground that it was preempted by the state secrets privilege. Yesterday, Kareem filed his reply brief, arguing:

The government can only succeed if it can mislead this Court into believing that it is being asked to decide far larger questions than those actually presented. This Court should consider the specific facts of this case, not the parade of horribles presented by the government. The Court is not asked to decide, as the government suggests, what information about military operations ought to be disclosed publicly to all targeted individuals, and certainly not when an attack is imminent. Govt. Br. 24, 48. The Court need only to decide what should be disclosed here, to enforce this U.S. citizen’s Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of his life without due process, given his unique, well-pleaded allegations that his government has tried to kill him on multiple occasions when there was no basis to do so.1 Recent precedent has reaffirmed that U.S. citizens in foreign countries—including and especially those in conflict areas—maintain their Fifth Amendment right to life and liberty, and there is ​no precedent from either the state secrets or political question jurisprudence that dictates otherwise.

Michel Paradis

LOAC Editor