The ongoing drone attacks come days after a federal judge ruled the Obama administration is under no obligation to publicly disclose their legal justification. The American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times had filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act demanding the U.S. government disclose the legal basis for launching drone strikes overseas. The suit was filed after the U.S. killed the American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen despite having never charged him with a crime. In upholding the Obama administration’s right to secrecy, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon expressed misgivings about the drone program itself, writing: “I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch … to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.” McMahon continued, “I can only conclude that the government has not violated [the Freedom of Information Act] by refusing to turn over the documents, and so cannot be compelled by this court of law to explain in detail the reasons why its actions do not violate the Constitution and laws of the United States. The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me.”