WASHINGTON – In language that is both sharp and direct,

on Wednesday demanded the Obama Administration provide the legal justification – in public – for targeting and killing U.S. citizens as part of the war on terror.

“For the executive branch to claim that intelligence agencies have the authority to knowingly kill American citizens … while at the same time refusing to provide Congress with any and all legal opinions that delineate the executive branch’s understanding of this authority represents an indefensible assertion of executive prerogative, and I expected better from the Obama Administration,”

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Wednesday’s letter is only the latest installment in Wyden’s long-running skirmish with the administration over what he calls the misuse of “secret law.” In previous episodes, Wyden has criticized the administration for denying the public access to the legal basis for monitoring people with "geo-location” devices as well as the legal underpinning for monitoring the calls and emails of U.S. citizens under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments of 2008.

In the latest flare up, however, the stakes are even higher because the administration has said it holds the legal authority to kill U.S. citizens deemed to be a threat to national security. Wyden, who is a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, decline to discuss individual cases or even acknowledge that lethal force has ever been used.

However, last year, Anwar al-Awlaki who held dual U.S.-Yemeni citizenship was killed in a drone strike.

Awlaki was a suspected al-Qaeda militant. U.S. officials confirmed that a second American, Samir Khan, was also killed in the drone attack. Khan had served as editor of Inspire, a glossy English-language magazine used by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as a propaganda and recruitment vehicle.

Wyden's letter comes one week after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in federal court in New York to force the government to outline its legal reason for targeting U.S. citizens.

The lawsuit asked a federal judge to order the agencies to produce any records that may have been generated in order to legally justify the targeted killing of U.S. citizens overseas.

The New York Times has filed a similar lawsuit. Both cases are before U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon.

Wyden said secrets must be kept, such as those pertaining to sources and methods used by intelligence agencies. The legal basis, for those actions, however, does not earn similar protection, the letter to Holder said.

“Americans generally do not expect to know every detail about sensitive military and intelligence operations, but voters absolutely have a need and a right to understand the boundaries of what is and is not permitted under the law, so that they can debate what should and should not be legal and ratify or reject decisions that elected officials make on their behalf,” the letter said.

“The federal government’s official views about the President’s authority to kill specific Americans who have not necessarily been convicted of a crime are not a matter to be settled in secret by a small number of government lawyers,” it continues.

“Instead, the government’s interpretation … should be public knowledge, so that they can be publicly debated and understood. Intelligence agencies may sometimes need to conduct secret operations, but they should never be in the position of relying on secret law,” Wyden wrote.

Wyden said in an interview he decided to issue a public letter after more discrete efforts to obtain information failed. “These are especially troubling secret laws,” he said. “I want to make sure the legal analysis … is clear.”

Wyden’s efforts began more than a year ago when Wyden asked the

, for the legal authority “to knowingly kill American citizens in the course of counterterrorism operations.”

Clapper told Wyden he did not have authority to provide that information. Two months later, in April 2011, Wyden called Holder to ask for the legal basis. Some information was provided in May but it was incomplete. Wyden said he thought additional information would follow. It did not.

“Nine months later, however, the Justice Department still has not fully complied with my original request, and it is increasingly clear that it has no intention of doing so,” Wyden writes to Holder.

The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment. In the Senate, however, Wyden has at least one ally. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has also requested similar information and has yet to receive a full response, even after asking Holder directly about it during a hearing in November, a spokeswoman for Leahy said Wednesday.

Holder refused to answer Leahy’s question. “I will not address – cannot address whether or not there is an opinion in this area,” Holder told Leahy in November.

In an interview, Wyden insisted that he does not necessarily oppose the actions against U.S. citizens, only the administration’s refusal to outline the legal basis for its authority. He also said that withholding the information damages U.S. interests.

“It always comes out and when it does it diminishes public confidence,’’ he said. “When the public is told the legal analysis for these operations, they invariably are supportive.”

Without that information, Wyden said, important questions cannot be answered.

They include:

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How much evidence does the President need to decide that a particular American is part of a terrorist group?

•

Does the President have to provide individual Americans with an opportunity to surrender before using lethal force against them?

•

Is the President’s authority to kill Americans based on authorization from Congress or his own authority as Commander-in-Chief?

•

Can the President order intelligence agencies to kill an American who is inside the United States?’

•

What other limitations or boundaries apply to this authority?

Aside from the question of the public’s right to know, Wyden said in an interview that offering the legal basis will mostly likely generate public support for the effort. Failing to do that, however, could seriously undermine public trust and confidence along with raising doubts among allies.

The most famous was written 10 years ago by the Bush administration that defined torture and gave U.S. forces authority to use practices that many defined as torture and, as a matter of law, declared that the United States was not bound by its obligations under the Geneva Convention.

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