U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon Said U.S. Can Keep Secrets On Killings of Terrorists Overseas

Personal Life

Colleen McMahon was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1951. In 1973, McMahon graduated with a B.A. from Ohio State University and in 1976, she earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School. From 1976 until 1995, she was in private practice in New York. However, from 1979 until 1980, McMahon took time off from private practice and became a speechwriter and special assistant to the Honorable Donald McHenry of the United States Mission to the United Nations. From 1995 until 1998, she served as a judge on the New York Court of Claims, New York Supreme Court.


On May 21, 1998, McMahon was appointed by President Bill Clinton to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. On October 21, 1998, McMahon was confirmed by the United States Senate and she received commission the following day. She is known for presiding over a defamation case, which was brought by Drug Enforcement Administration agents against the makers of the movie American Gangster. The film depicts the Drug Enforcement Administration agents as being corrupt.

Judge McMahon Said United States Can Keep Documents Regarding Drone Attacks Secret

On Wednesday, January 2, 2013, Judge McMahon ruled that President Obama's administration does not have to disclose its legal account to the public regarding drone attacks as well as other methods the U.S. implements to eliminate terrorists overseas. According to an Associated Press article on CBS News, “U.S. can keep secrets on targeted killings of terrorism suspects overseas, judge rules,” in 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and two New York Times reporters filed a appeal under the Freedom of Information Act that requested documents from the Department of Justice which explained the classified “target-killing” program.

The AP article reports that after the appeal was filed, a drone killed an al Qaeda leader, Anwar Al-Awlaki, in Yemen. Since Anwar was born in the United States, the attack raised serious issues from human rights activists and some law scholars. They questioned the U.S. tactics of killing American citizens while they were away from the battlefield. Human rights activists and some law scholars believe it is against the law to murder Americans without a trial.

The AP article on CBS News noted that the appeal for the documents were rejected because revealing anything about the target-killing agenda or mentioning it exists at the Department of Justice could potentially damage national security laws. Although McMahon disagreed with President Obama for not providing the documents, she admitted she didn't have the power to make the president reveal those documents. The judge wrote, “I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules — a veritable Catch-22. I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government 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.”

According to the AP article on CBS News, McMahon kept one part of the ACLU's document appeal alive. She was able to keep two documents from the Department of Defense that were not classified, but rejected the rest of the ACLU's document appeal due to national security laws. The CBS News article discusses that the judge's decision was filed under seal. Lawyers representing the ACLU and the reporters from the Times were not permitted to see part of McMahon's ruling due to national security laws and may only be read by individuals who had security clearance.

The AP article on CBS News pointed out that a spokesperson representing the Department of Justice refused to comment on McMahon's ruling, but said her decision was under review. The article also covers the opinion of David McCraw, assistant general counsel at the Times. He stated the newspaper will appeal McMahon's ruling. However, McCraw admired McMahon for speaking “eloquently and at length to the serious legal questions raised by the targeted-killing program.”

According to the AP article on CBS News, Jameel Jaffer, ACLU Deputy Legal Director, asserted that the judge's ruling would not permit the public to “access to crucial information about the government's extrajudicial killing of American citizens. The judge rightly acknowledges that the targeted-killing program raises troubling questions.”

The AP article on CBS News mentions that McMahon recognizes that President Obama and officials in his administration stated publicly that the killings of suspected terrorists were taking place, although the legality of the killings had been discussed behind closed doors. McMahon claimed those public discussions were done “in cryptic and imprecise ways.”

The AP article quoted McMahon when she said:

“More fulsome disclosure of the legal reasoning on which the Administration relies to justify the targeted killing of individuals, including United States citizens, far from any recognizable `hot' field of battle, would allow for intelligent discussion and assessment of a tactic that (like torture before it) remains hotly debated. However, this court is constrained by law, and under the law, I can only conclude that the government has not violated FOIA 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.”