Here’s a counter-intuitive view of the White Paper–from the always-interesting Andrew Kent:

Although many critics with a strong civil liberties and human rights bent deplore the DOJ White Paper for various reasons, there is actually something in there they should

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Yesterday, we posted the government’s supplemental brief in the Al Bahlul military commission appeal in the D.C. Circuit, the headline of which was the government’s concession that Judge Kavanaugh’s opinion for the Court of Appeals in Hamdan II requires reversal … Read more »

Andrew Kent writes in with the following guest post on his fascinating new article on Ex Parte Quirin. I asked Andrew to write up this piece, after reading an earlier draft of the underlying paper for a workshop last … Read more »

Andrew Kent (Fordham University School of Law) has posted a new paper to SSRN, “Judicial Review for Enemy Fighters: The Court’s Fateful Turn in Ex Parte Quirin, the Nazi Saboteur Case.”  (66 Vanderbilt Law Review 101 (2013).) Professor Kent will … Read more »

Below is a recap of yesterday’s oral argument before the D.C. Circuit in Hamdan v. United States.  As for key takeaways, you’ll find Steve’s breakdown here, and my two cents’ worth here.

Again, it is anyone’s guess how … Read more »

Both because of my own biases and because Wells is going to be posting more of a blow-by-blow at some point (on top of his initial reaction, which I basically share), I’ll spare readers from a comprehensive account of … Read more »

Further to my post from last Thursday on the Ex Post Facto Clause issue in the Nashiri prosecution, Haridimos Thravalos has sent in a response, which I’ve posted in its entirety below the fold. I’ll have a couple of reactions … Read more »

I received this evening a most extraordinary guest post. It isn’t every day that someone sends me a memo outlining how a four-justice plurality of the Supreme Court got a key historical point wrong in a major case–much less does … Read more »

Against the al-Nashiri backdrop, the government has now filed its brief on the merits in United States v. Hamdan (the first post-conviction appeal under the Military Commissions Acts of 2006 and 2009), which is set to be argued to a … Read more »

There’s been a fair amount of media and blog attention to the proposed new rules governing (and substantially widening) the government’s access to communications between military commission defendants and their counsel. The draft order (courtesy of the Miami Herald) … Read more »

Bobby is quite right to link yesterday’s New York Times editorial to the one about which I complained back in October. But Bobby is a more generous soul than I am, and I am disinclined to give the Times’ editorial … Read more »

[A jointly-written post by Bobby Chesney and Benjamin Wittes]

Does the substantive scope of detention authority conferred by the Graham bill (S. 3037) “dramatically expand existing law,” as Steve Vladeck alleges here? No, it does not.  It adds nothing … Read more »