The New York Times has taken the U.S. Department of Defense to court, demanding the release of classified surveillance footage from deadly U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in New York federal court, the newspaper and investigative reporter Charlie Savage accused the Pentagon of violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by failing to meet statutory deadlines and effectively denying access to the requested materials.
According to the complaint, the Times exhausted all administrative channels after the Defense Department ignored or delayed multiple requests for footage of the strikes, which were publicly announced by former President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on social media.
“No exemptions permit the withholding of the documents sought by this request,” the Times asserted, urging the court to compel the Pentagon to release the videos.
The Strikes at the Center of the Lawsuit
The lawsuit seeks footage from three separate incidents: a Sept. 2 strike in the Caribbean Sea that killed 11 people, an Oct. 16 submarine strike that killed two alleged narcoterrorists, and an Oct. 27 attack that left one survivor presumed dead.
Trump, who personally announced the first two operations on his Truth Social platform, claimed the targets were Venezuelan gang members and drug traffickers linked to Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal group.
Hegseth, who later confirmed the Oct. 27 operation on X (formerly Twitter), said only one of 15 individuals survived. The Times noted, however, that the survivor is now believed to have died as well.
The publication’s FOIA requests, submitted by Savage, sought one hour of surveillance footage before and after the September attack and full-length videos from the October operations. The requests also asked for footage showing survivors and rescues, even extending five minutes past any visual disappearance beneath the waves.
