Two journalists lost their appeal against the US Government on Monday, after alleging they were on a ‘kill list’ while working in Syria.

US citizen and journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem had filed a lawsuit with a second plaintiff, journalist Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, a Pakistani-Syrian, against the US Government alleging targeted attacks upon them during their work in Syria in 2019. On Monday, their appeal was dismissed.

Kareem said he was almost killed in five separate attacks in Syria, and alleged the US military was targeting him for death.

Department of Justice Attorney Bradley Hinshelwood, successfully arguing the case for the US Government, said the government can kill American citizens without review in cases that trigger The State Secrets Act.

Not all members of the three-justice panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with the decision. Justice Patricia Millet asked Hinshelwood, “Do you appreciate how extraordinary that proposition is?” and then said the attorney was giving the government the power to “unilaterally decide to kill US citizens.”

Kareem, who works for the “On the Ground Network” news channel, alleged he is on a kill list that has made him a target for military attacks. The plaintiff alleged that since he is on the ground with rebel forces in Syria as part of his work as a journalist, his metadata from his electronic devices are accessible to the US military and allegedly triggering the attacks. Kareem also alleged he is on a kill list by the US Government.

The plaintiff’s work includes him being near Syrian rebel militants, who are linked to al-Qaida. Kareem’s lawsuit sought to remove him from the alleged kill list. However, in order to have Kareem removed from the alleged kill list, the US Government would have to confirm he was on the kill list in the first place and thus targeted.

The US Government requested the case be dismissed, invoking the State Secrets Privilege Act that was signed into law in 2013. The State Secrets Act offers wide liberties to the US Government, as “public disclosure of the information that the government seeks to protect would be reasonably likely to cause significant harm to the national defense or the diplomatic relations of the United States.”

Hinshelwood argued in court, in part, that because the journalist sought discovery in this case as to whether he was being targeted, it would make public the process the military uses to target him or others, and also would include information as to whether or not the United States had tried to murder Kareem, an American citizen.

The judge ruled in the US Government’s favor.

Kareem’s attorney, Tara J. Plochocki, said of the historic decision, “Whether it’s in a parking lot in the United States or abroad in Syria, the government has claimed—for the first time ever in this case—that it has the unfettered and unreviewable discretion to kill US citizens at will.”

However, as the law stands, the plaintiff’s rights cannot come before national security.

In the legal brief, the US Government states, “Even if plaintiff had plausibly alleged standing, the state secrets privilege forecloses litigation of his due process claim,” and “even the most compelling necessity cannot overcome the claim of privilege if the court is ultimately satisfied that military secrets are at stake,” United States v. Reynolds, 345 US 1, 11 (1954).

Currently, Kareem is being held against his will by radical Islamist group Hay’at Tahir al-Sham in Syria.