Federal judges have ordered the release of documents from a memo detailing why in 2011 the U.S. government targeted and killed an American who had joined Al Qaeda. The order overruled a previous decision last year, which allowed the government to withhold the materials, which explain the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in drone strike in Yemen three years ago. According to a New York Times report, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the Justice Department “waived its right to keep the analysis secret” after it released a “white paper” justifying their policy of monitoring Americans involved in terrorist activity on foreign soil for targeting and execution. “Whatever protection the legal analysis might once have had has been lost by virtue of public statements of public officials at the highest levels and official disclosure of the D.O.J.