Suit seeks to force U.S. to reveal data on drone strikes

Washington, Mar 16 (EFE).- The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday filed a lawsuit to force the government to reveal details of the objectives and guidelines of the drone program to fight terrorism.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit with a federal court in New York to increase legal pressure on the White House to declassify "basic information on the program, including records on how the government picks targets, before-the-fact assessments of potential civilian casualties, and 'after-action' investigations into who was actually killed."

President Barack Obama's administration has intensified the attacks with uncrewed aircraft since 2009 in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia.

The program was developed by the George W. Bush administration as part of its effort to fight Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamist movements such as Somalia's Al Shabaab.

The secrecy with which the program has been pursued has prevented observers from reliably determining the number of civilians killed in the drone strikes.

The ACLU also wants to know the criteria whereby a suspected terrorist may be included on the administration's "kill list."

According to figures compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the United States has conducted 362 drone strikes in Pakistan, about 100 in Yemen, a dozen or so in Somalia and others in Afghanistan.

An investigation last year by the British organization Reprieve estimated that the Obama administration has killed more than 1,147 people in its attempt to target and eliminate 41 alleged terrorist objectives.

After significantly increasing the number of attacks using drones during his first term, Obama has reduced their frequency so far in his second although the latest one was carried out just a few days ago in Somalia, where a drone allegedly killed an Al Shabaab leader.

"Targeted killings have been a central part of U.S. national security strategy for more than a decade, but the American public still knows scandalously little about who the government kills, and why," wrote ACLU legal expert Matthew Spurlock in a commentary on the subject.