Two nonprofit groups launched an ad campaign Tuesday, offering legal information and confidential advice to help U.S. troops who believe they may have received unlawful orders.
The effort will include billboards saying “Obey Only Lawful Orders” and online messages providing links to organizations and information to ensure troops are aware of their rights and informed about their options, organizers told NBC News.
The move comes amid intense debate over the legality of the Trump administration’s military strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in Latin America, which some lawmakers and legal experts say violate U.S. and international law.
“If you believe you’ve received a ‘manifestly unlawful order,’ you are protected by law and you are not alone,” reads one online message, addressed to “every U.S. service member.”
The campaign is led byDefiance.org, a nonprofit that vows to “defend democracy,” in partnership with Whistleblower Aid, a legal organization that says it helps public and private sector workers expose wrongdoing.
“We’re making sure troops know their rights and that they’re not alone if they’re told to cross the line,” said Miles Taylor, a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security during Donald Trump’s first term in office and the founder of Defiance.org.
“The president may be the commander in chief, but even he is bound by the law,” said Taylor, who wrote an article and book critical of Trump. “This campaign is a constitutional alarm bell to remind our service members of that.”
In a statement, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said neither Trump nor Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have issued unlawful orders.
“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have never given an unlawful order," Parnell said. "Those who continue to encourage seditious behavior are scum and should be ashamed of themselves."
Billboards, posters and online messages will be focused in particular on military communities near U.S. Southern Command in Doral, Florida, and U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida, organizers said. Personnel from both commands are involved in the boat strikes that began in September.
One online message quotes from the U.S. military’s manual for courts-martial: “A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders.”
In August, the senior military lawyer for U.S. Southern Command disagreed with the Trump administration’s position that the boat strikes are lawful, NBC News previously reported. The lawyer was ultimately overruled by more senior officials.
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as legal, saying that drug cartels from Venezuela and elsewhere pose a threat to national security and that the narcotics they smuggle into the United States are killing tens of thousands of Americans.
Last month, six Democratic lawmakers, who served in the military or with U.S. intelligence agencies, posted a video advising U.S. service members not to follow unlawful orders. Trump condemned the video as traitorous and the Pentagon has announced an investigation of Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a retired naval officer who was featured in the video.
The Pentagon on Monday said it was “escalating” a preliminary review into “serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly. The Arizona senator and former astronaut has dismissed the probe as baseless and an attempt to stifle criticism of the administration.
Kelly said that it “should send a shiver down the spine of every patriotic American that the president and secretary of defense would abuse their power to come after me or anyone this way.”
