Former U.S. District Judge James Robertson published this interesting letter to the editor in the Washington Post. Judge Robertson is, to my knowledge, the first member of either the district court or the court of appeals to publicly express … Read more »
Rep. Michael McCaul proposes doing just that, in this legislation, with the goal of enabling material support prosecutions under 18 USC 2339B against those who supply guns (or just about anything else) to the six cartels named in the … Read more »
I’m very happy to present this very interesting and useful summary produced by Ryan Sylvester, a third-year student at Fordham Law:
On March 10, 2011, the U.S. Department of State posted its Response to UN Human Rights Council Working … Read more »
Senator Rand Paul has attached the following Amendment to S. 493, the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011:
It is the sense of the Senate, that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military
Josh Rogin has an intriguing post up over at the Cable, detailing an interview with HPSCI Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) concerning the ongoing debate regarding whether to arm the Libyan rebels. There is much worth comment here, but I’ll confine … Read more »
As Ben mentioned yesterday, the D.C. Circuit’s new Uthman decision signaled a notable clarification in how lower courts should consider evidence in habeas cases: When considering whether a detainee is “part of” Al Qaeda or the Taliban, Judge Kavanaugh wrote, … Read more »
On Monday, counsel for the habeas petitioners Farhi Saeed Bin Mohammed and Omar Khadr replied to the government’s oppositions to their cert. petitions.
The Khadr reply is short, and the Mohammed reply even shorter. In fact, the Mohammed reply, which … Read more »
Habeas lawyer David Remes sent me the following the other night from Guantanamo. I am not sure what to say about it, so I pass it on without comment:
Being in Guantanamo, visiting clients who understand they’ll spend the rest
The recent decisions from the D.C. Circuit (the Mohammed dismissal and Uthman reversal), as well as some activity in the district court, meant an update to the habeas numbers was in order:
- Uighur cases in which detention was … Read more »
The D.C. Circuit continued this morning its broad-based, cross-ideological conspiracy to mess up my schedule. I was returning this morning from a perfectly delightful trip to Saratoga Springs, NY to teach some classes and give a lecture at Skidmore College, … Read more »
In a post this morning at Balkinization, Mark Tushnet argues that President Obama need not seek Congressional approval for U.S. participation in the Libyan Civil War because this armed conflict is not a “war” within the meaning of the Declare … Read more »
Today a D.C. Circuit panel of judges Garland, Griffith, and Kavanaugh reversed and remanded, with instructions to deny, Uthman v. Obama (Case No. 10-5235). Uthman is the merits appeal concerning habeas petitioner Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman. The government … Read more »
President Obama’s speech was a full-throated defense of his deployment of U.S. military force, without congressional authorization, in a situation “when our safety is not threatened, but our interests and our values are.” The President added that he (not he … Read more »
Today the D.C. Circuit granted the government’s motion to dismiss as moot Farhi Saeed Bin Mohammed’s Guantanamo habeas merits appeal.
The government had appealed Judge Gladys Kessler’s grant of Mohammed’s habeas petition. However, the government soon requested that the merits … Read more »
At the American Society of International Law annual meeting yesterday, State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh gave this statement on the legality of the use of force in Libya. The international law justification relied straightforwardly on UNSCR 1973. As for … Read more »
My partner in the Comment OR Vote campaign, Jonathan Rauch, has this column today in The Daily.
Back in December, we announced the Lawfare Official Advertising for Charity program, the LOAC Fund as we jokingly named it. The idea was to create a revenue stream through advertising on the blog for two particularly worth causes: the CIA … Read more »
The major significance of the FBI’s Miranda memo, in my view, having now read it, is two-fold. First, it essentially states a policy of exploiting fully the Quarles public safety exception to Miranda in terrorism cases and interprets that … Read more »
Charlie Savage of the New York Times has posted the text of the FBI’s new guidance on Miranda. I’ll post thoughts after I’ve had a chance to digest it.
In the last few days several smart people have disagreed with my argument in favor of the constitutionality of the Libya intervention. This is a perennial debate that arises every time the President threatens or uses force abroad without congressional … Read more »
The other day, Bobby posted a link to the the Second Circuit’s recent decision in Amnesty International v. Clapper, a case holding that plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of provisions in the 2008 FISA Amendments Act (“FAA”) had standing to … Read more »
A few thoughts worth bearing in mind in light of the FBI “guidance” memo Ben describes below and the considerable attention it is generating.
There is a tendency in this debate to conflate rules of evidentiary admissibility with rules that … Read more »
Evan Perez of the Wall Street Journal has this very interesting piece reporting that “New rules allow investigators to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning, significantly expanding exceptions to the instructions that have governed … Read more »
Critics are starting to swarm around the Obama administration’s increasingly unintuitive claim – in the sixth day of what the New York Times now describes as “ferocious” air strikes on ground forces, tanks, and artillery – that the … Read more »
Yesterday the public version of the government’s response brief in Khan v. Obama (No. 10-5306), a Guantanamo habeas case currently pending before the D.C. Circuit, became available. In this case, petitioner Shawali Khan appeals Judge John Bates’s September 2010 … Read more »
The Washington Post has an interesting editorial today largely in support of Senator Lindsey Graham’s new habeas bill. Like me, the Post expresses sympathy for Graham’s basic project, and objects to the probable cause standard for detention, instead of … Read more »
As Scott Shane reported in today’s New York Times, the panel of independent psychiatric experts who reviewed the behavioral health history of Dr. Bruce E. Ivins–the person believed to be responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks–just released a redacted, public … Read more »
Charlie Savage reports that the Obama administration’s “legal team appears to be distinguishing between a full war and a more limited military operation, on the theory that the Libyan intervention falls short of what would prompt any Congressional authority to … Read more »
Today President Obama sent this letter to Congress, “as part of [his] efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution,” about the recent operations in Libya. After citing UNSCR 1970 and 1973, and explaining both … Read more »
I make the case, mostly drawing on arguments previously made on this blog, in Slate. I also make the obvious point that just because it is lawful does not mean it is a good idea.
This is the final installment in my series of posts on the post-Executive Order spree of legislation emerging from Capitol Hill. It concerns the interrogation bill introduced by Sen. Saxby Chambliss as part of the Senate package of bills–the … Read more »
* Amnesty International, et al. v. Clapper, et al. (2d Cir. Mar. 21, 2011) (reversing grant of summary judgment to government in FISA Amendments Act challenge)
The plaintiffs in this suit are a mix of individuals and groups relating to … Read more »
I arrived in the office this morning to find a copy in my mailbox of Garrett Graff’s new book, The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror. Graff is the editor of Washingtonian magazine … Read more »
The U.S. invasion of Libya without authorization from (or even much consultation with) Congress has caused many people to note Barack Obama’s 2007 statement that “the President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack … Read more »
I have now had the chance to go over a transcript of Thursday’s House Armed Services Committee hearing on detention policy, at which Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III both testified. Video of … Read more »
This afternoon, in connection with FOIA litigation by the ACLU, the Department of Justice released this May 2004 memorandum that I wrote as head of the Office of Legal Counsel about a certain surveillance program. (It also released this memorandum… Read more »
Yesterday I noted that I’d summarize the United States v. Hamdan oral argument in the Court of Military Commission Review separately from Al Bahlul. I’ll note the same caveats with respect to this summary as to those I mentioned … Read more »
Adam Serwer has a very thoughtful piece on yesterday’s House Armed Services Committee hearing, which I could not attend. Like me, Adam has come to the conclusion that there is quite a bit of common ground between the Obama administration … Read more »
It looks like the Obama Administration is planning to deploy some form of U.S. military power in Libya without congressional authorization, perhaps soon. Such a deployment would not be an obviously prudent move, in my opinion. I am concerned in … Read more »
Anthony Arend (Georgetown) has the text of UNSCR 1973, which among other things authorizes a no-fly zone for Libya (and possibly more, though it explicitly does not authorize any “occupation” forces). Here are some of the key passages in … Read more »
The following is my best attempt to summarize some of the arguments made at this morning’s oral argument in United States v. Al Bahlul. This argument–audio for which is here–stood in considerable contrast to the Hamdan session (which … Read more »
The U.N. Security Council has authorized “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians, but we still have no word on whether the President thinks he needs congressional authorization to intervene in Libya, or whether Congress would give it to him … Read more »
In anticipation of the growing likelihood of some form of U.S. intervention in Libya, Michael Stransky of the Senate Republican Policy Committee this afternoon circulated an impish collection of Bush-era views by senior Obama administration and congressional Democratic officials “concerning … Read more »
I am pleased to announce the launching of the Comment OR Vote! campaign, which I consider to be the most important work I have ever done. Readers of this blog know how we feel about the scourge of Internet commenting. … Read more »
The audio from today’s oral arguments at the CMCR is available here (for the Hamdan argument) and here (for the al-Bahlul argument). Be forewarned that these are hefty files (if I recall correctly, around 40mb each). Fortunately, Larkin Reynolds was … Read more »
Al-Bahlul (though not Hamdan, so far as I know) has filed a reply brief in relation to the en banc CMCR proceedings (oral argument this morning). The brief is posted here.
As promised yesterday, I’m posting a short overview of the arguments in the government’s briefs to the en banc CMCR in al-Bahlul and Hamdan (click here for an earlier post doing the same for the appellants’ briefs). Recall that the … Read more »
Friday, May 17, 2013
The Department of Justice’s Inspector General released an interim report on the Department’s handling of “known or suspected” terrorists who have entered the government’s witness protection program. The report found, among other things, that information on some program participants had not been turned over to no-fly list authorities; and, that two such people could not be located—though one… Read more »
