In her news roundup for last Friday, Ritika briefly mentioned that a drone strike had killed four al-Shabab militants in Somalia.
The New York Times had also cursorily mentioned the strike in this short AP report on page A5 of … Read more »
While the experience is fresh, I thought I’d share some reflections on this morning’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Due Process Guarantee Act. [The SJC hearing page has copies of the witness statements (including my own), and … Read more »
Here for all the world to see.
We’ve got:
Interpol has arrested 25 suspected members of Anonymous, reports the AP.
Evan Perez and Julian E. Barnes at the Wall Street Journal (caution: paywall) report on the DOJ’s release of the Policy Directive and Fact Sheet, as do Sari … Read more »
Here is Chief Prosecutor Mark Martins’s remarks to the press, which are being delivered at this hour:
Chief Prosecutor Mark Martins
Remarks at Guantanamo Bay on 29 February 2012
Good afternoon. Today, following his initial appearance and arraignment, a military
Judge Pohl then turns to his required colloquy with Khan to verify that his plea is truthful, voluntary, and made cognizant of consequences. Khan’s plea, he says, will not be accepted unless he validates every act alleged and unless Judge … Read more »
The commission reconvenes and Judge Pohl announces that he has received the document. Trial counsel Sullivan reiterates that she had no notice about this document. But it turns out not to matter.
Judge Pohl says he’s going to deny the … Read more »
Military Judge James Pohl walks in promptly at 9:00 am and calls the military commission to order.
Trial counsel Courtney Sullivan of the Justice Department begins by announcing that there have been minor changes to the charge sheet. She introduces … Read more »
When my daughter was in day care and I would pick her up in the evening and ask her what she did during the day, she would sometimes respond, a little alarmingly, “I sat in a dark room and stared … Read more »
Raffaela earlier posted the President’s implementation procedures for Section 1022 of the NDAA–that is, the not-so-mandatory military detention provision. I have only had a chance to read it over quickly, but here’s a quick and dirty summary.
Bottom line: The … Read more »
This just in from the Department of Justice:
Today at 6:30 pm, the White House issued the following Fact Sheet and a Presidential Policy Directive that sets forth procedures implementing Section 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY
The narrow question presented in the Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum case is whether corporations may be held liable for violations of international law under the Alien Tort Statute. But during this morning’s Supreme Court argument, Justices Kennedy, Roberts, and … Read more »
There’s been a lot of buzz in the press on the plea bargain reached between Majid Khan and the prosecution in his Military Commission case–and a lot of it has focused on the mere four years before Khan might be … Read more »
Oral argument transcripts from the Supreme Court hearing this morning: Kiobel and Mohamad. Update: Opinio Juris is posting several posts and guest posts on the oral argument, including this one by Chimene Keitner. The comments to my … Read more »
I just noticed this video of Jeh Johnson’s speech at Yale Law School, the text of which I have already posted:
As Jack has already noted, Ellen Nakashima has an article in the Washington Post and a post on Checkpoint Washington reporting that the White House has been pushing back on NSA efforts to widen its role in monitoring private … Read more »
Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post reports that the White House thwarted NSA attempts to seek legislation that “would have required hundreds of companies that provide such critical services as electricity generation to allow their Internet traffic to be continuously … Read more »
I’ve blogged before about S. 2003, the “Due Process Guarantee Act” introduced late last year by Senator Feinstein, which would amend the Non-Detention Act to provide that
An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any
Along with the earlier reading on drones in Pakistan by Pia Zubair Shah in Foreign Policy, also check out Council on Foreign Relations fellow Micah Zenko’s short piece in the same March-April 2012 issue, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About … Read more »
Brookings scholars Kenneth Lieberthal and Peter W. Singer have just released a paper entitled “Cybersecurity and U.S.-China Relations.” It opens as follows:
There is perhaps no relationship as significant to the future of world politics as that between
A bomb went off in Katmandu, Nepal, killing at least three people. Claiming responsibility for the attack is the United Ethnic Liberation Front, reports the Associated Press.
Over the weekend, the AP released a study indicating that the civilian … Read more »
Journalist Pir Zubair Shah writes in the March-April 2012 issue of Foreign Policy. My Drone War: American drones have changed everything for al Qaeda and its local allies in Pakistan, becoming a fact of life in a secret war that … Read more »
For those interested in the ongoing academic debate over the rationale and implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene, I have a new (short) piece in the Iowa Law Review Bulletin responding to Professor Andrew Kent’s November 2011 … Read more »
We have now had four episodes of The Lawfare Podcast. Each has been downloaded a goodly number of times, so I know that people are listening to the podcast, but I have less sense of what people think of … Read more »
The technological frontiers of conflict include cyberwar, robotics, and autonomous lethal weapons. It is time to add a new one: the use of neuroscience in conflict. Whether by creating new weapons to be deployed against an enemy, cognitive enhancements to … Read more »
Wednesday’s oral argument on the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act generated a flurry of anticipatory and postmortem coverage, as well as divided commentary. The brief of the United States is here, the respondent’s brief is here… Read more »
Clive Walker, a professor of law at the University of Leeds, responds to the following comment in my Rahmatullah post: “It’s funny how courts discover deference when they realize that they have no power anyway. . . . British … Read more »
There’s a fun virtual symposium underway over at Opinio Juris on a new article by Oona Hathaway, Sabria McElroy, and Sara Aronchick Solow titled “International Law at Home: Enforcing Treaties in U.S. Courts.” Among other things, the article … Read more »
Protests in Afghanistan over the burning of Korans by NATO soldiers saw their deadliest day today with at least 10 casualties, says the New York Times. Guess a presidential apology only goes so far. Meanwhile, the Washington Post … Read more »
The Kiobel case will be argued next Tuesday before the Supreme Court. I have an op-ed in today’s Washington Post (headlined in the print edition “A Noble Cause That Goes Too Far”) about the foreign policy tensions caused by extraterritorial … Read more »
[Update: Over at Opinio Juris, John Dehn raises the interesting and important question whether it would be constitutional for a commission to convene at this point in regards to events in Iraq, given language in Yamashita suggesting that the … Read more »
On today’s episode of the podcast, Bobby discusses his encyclopedic new Title 10/Title 50 article with Jack. The article, “Military-Intelligence Convergence and the Law of the Title 10/Title 50 Debate,” has just been published in the Journal of … Read more »
…is entitled “Ben Wittes’ Appalling Take on Rahmatullah.”
I wonder what he really thinks, though.
It is always an awkward spectacle when a court has to climb down, having issued an opinion that it has no real power to effectuate. That’s what has now happened in the British Court of Appeals in the case of … Read more »
In breaking news, Majid Khan, a high-value Guantanamo Bay detainee, has reached a plea deal with prosecutors that “calls for him to testify at the trials of other detainees in exchange for a much-reduced sentence and eventual freedom,” reports the … Read more »
Fayiz Mohammad Al Kandari, a Guantanamo detainee, has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in his habeas case. This comes after the D.C. Circuit denied his petition for en banc review in late January.
The petition opens:
In
I have two thoughts on Military Judge James Pohl’s order and ruling, which I have now read.
The first is that on the narrow issue of the appropriate procedure for screening mail, this is largely a win for the … Read more »
In an earlier post about the information sharing provisions of the cybersecurity bill pending in the Senate I highlighted the issue of liability protection and the preemption of State law, musing that those provisions might prove controversial with those who … Read more »
…in the Al Nashiri case is now available. I will have comments after I’ve actually read it.
UPDATE: There is also a ruling, which I had not noticed earlier.
The Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke Law School will hold its annual conference on Friday, April 13th and Saturday, April 14th. The Center’s executive director, Air Force Maj. General Charles Dunlap, writes:
This year’s theme is … Read more »
Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson is giving a speech today at the Yale Law School. The prepared text is as follows:
Dean’s Lecture at Yale Law School
“National security law, lawyers and lawyering in the Obama Administration”
By Jeh Charles
This just in: the Office of Chief Defense Counsel in the Military Commissions asked the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Ethics Advisory Committee for an advisory opinion on whether defense counsel can comply with Rear Admiral David Woods’ order … Read more »
Over at USA Today, Kevin Johnson writes on the details coming to light about Amine El Khalifi, who was arrested last Friday for plotting to bomb the Capitol.
A U.S. District Court Judge in the Northern District of Texas … Read more »
Ben’s two questions in response to my post yesterday on the D.C. Circuit’s decision in al-Zahrani are both right on the money, but I think they both have answers–and take a shot below the fold.
Steve is quite right that yesterday’s decision in Al Zahrani is no surprise. Indeed, after the total train wreck of an oral argument, in which the judges literally walked out on counsel for the plaintiffs, I wrote that “everyone … Read more »
Apologies for the delay on this post today. It was in every sense Ben’s fault.
Protests have erupted at Bagram over NATO personnel who disposed of Korans by burning them. The New York Times and Wired’s Spencer Ackerman have the … Read more »
Here is your moment of Not-Zen for the day (with thanks to my student Daniel). (With apologies to the senior editors of Lawfare for momentarily lowering the tone.)
With the Supreme Court scheduled to hear arguments over corporate liability in the Alien Tort Statute later this month, this short book chapter makes for a good, useful read. Dr. Eric De Brabandere is an associate professor of international law … Read more »
Given Ben’s report on the oral argument, today’s fairly cryptic D.C. Circuit opinion in al-Zahrani v. Rodriguez, throwing out a damages suit arising out of the deaths of several inmates at Guantanamo, is hardly surprising. Writing for a … Read more »
Friday, May 24, 2013
Coverage of President Obama’s speech yesterday is plentiful: Here are Peter Baker of the New York Times, Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller of the Washington Post, and Mark Mazzetti of the Times with an analysis of the key points of the speech. Scott Wilson of the Post also provides a rundown of the speech, and cites Ben. The Associated Press reports on lifting the transfer ban on Yemeni detainees, and Colleen McCain Nelson, Adam Entous, and Julia E. Barnes… Read more »
