A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Pentagon to let him review its secret legal justification for lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific before he decides whether to release it. The Pentagon has been bombing boats for allegedly carrying drugs, even as it provides no evidence they had engaged in narcotrafficking. Since last fall, the Pentagon has claimed 70 boat strikes, killing more than 200 people. Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, responded, “The public deserves to know how our government is justifying the cold-blooded murder of hundreds of civilians. Today’s order is a huge step in the right direction of ensuring that the government does not get to summarily execute people based on secret law.”