(CNSNews.com) - The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act in an effort to force the U.S. government to release "basic and accurate information" about its drone-strike "targeted killing" program.

This comes two days after the nation's commander-in-chief publicly admitted for the first time that "a lot of these strikes" have been in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.

The ACLU said it also is seeing information about the process by which the Obama administration adds Americans to secret government “kill lists.”

"Our government’s deliberate and premeditated killing of American terrorism suspects raises profound questions that ought to be the subject of public debate," the ACLU stated on its Web site. "Unfortunately the Obama administration has released very little information about the practice — its official position is that the targeted killing program is a state secret — and some of the information it has released has been misleading."

President Obama, during an online chat Monday, admitted for the first time the existence of the drone strike program -- and the fact that the strikes are happening in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area: "So, obviously, a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] and going after al Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan," the president said.

"That doesn't mean we should not be careful on how we proceed on this," Obama added. He said the U.S. has to "be judicious" in how it uses drones. He also said U.S. respect for the sovereignty of other nations is "enhanced" by the "pinpoint" drone strikes, which make a broader incursion unnecessary.

The next day, Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney, in response to reporters' questions, refused to discuss the president's surprising admission on drone strikes -- or "supposed covert programs."

The ACLU says its FOIA lawsuit "overlaps" with one filed by The New York Times in that both seek the legal memos on which the drone strikes are based. But the ACLU says its suit is "broader" because it also seeks the government's "evidentiary basis" for the drone strikes that killed three Americans in Yemen in the fall of 2011. One of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who ended up leading al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

On Sept. 30, 2011,  President Obama called Awlaki's death "a major blow to al Qaeda's most active operational affiliate" and said it marked "another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates."

The ACLU notes that a second U.S. citizen, Samir Khan, was killed in the attack on Awlaki; and two weeks later, Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, also a U.S. citizen, was killed in another U.S. drone strike elsewhere in Yemen.

"The administration has not adequately explained the legal basis for these strikes, and it has not explained the factual basis, either," the ACLU said. The group said it submitted FOIA requests to the CIA, Defense Department, and Justice Department soon after last year's drone strikes, but -- three months later -- "we have yet to receive a single document in response.

"Outrageously, the CIA and the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel responded by refusing to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to our request. Essentially, these agencies are saying the targeted killing program is so secret that they can’t even acknowledge that it exists."

The ACLU says the administration's "self-serving attitude toward transparency and disclosure is unacceptable."