The “Who’s Listening” section of this week’s issue of PrepareTheWord frames a key question found in the Sunday readings: “How well do we each recognize God's authority in our lives?” Reporters and civil libertarians have been asking by whose or what authority an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was recently assassinated in Yemen by a U.S. drone strike. A secret Obama administration legal memorandum sheds light on the question.

Written last year, the memo followed months of extensive interagency deliberations, anonymous sources who have seen it said. The secret document provided justification for killing al-Awlaki despite an executive order banning assassinations, federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights, and various strictures of the international laws of war.

The legal analysis concluded that al-Awlaki could be legally killed if it were not feasible to capture him, because intelligence agencies said he was taking part in the war between the United States and Al Qaeda and posed a significant threat to Americans, as well as because Yemeni authorities were unable or unwilling to stop him.

The Obama administration has refused to acknowledge or discuss its role in the specific drone strike that killed al-Awlaki last month, which technically remains a covert operation. The government has also resisted growing calls that it provide a detailed public explanation of why officials deemed it lawful to kill an American citizen, setting a precedent that scholars, rights activists, and others say has raised concerns about the rule of law and civil liberties.

Sources: Articles by Peter Finn for the Washington Post,Charlie Savage
for the New York Times, and Harvey Silvergate for Forbes.com