I have a long review in the New Republic of Mark Mazzetti’s excellent new book, The Way of the Knife. The first half of the review simply summarizes the book, the main point of which is to demonstrate how … Read more »
Ritika linked yesterday to a new Gallup poll on public attitudes towards drone strikes. The results are not surprising, but they are interesting. Americans largely support drone strike against foreign terrorist suspects abroad (65 percent support) but are less supportive … Read more »
I’ve so far stayed out of the exchange over the last few days between Jack, on the one hand, and Steve and Jennifer Daskal, on the other, about the paper that Jack and Matt and Bobby and I wrote on … Read more »
I was really struck by Raffa’s post last week on how to visualize Senator Paul’s drone filibuster. It reminded me of the truth I learned long ago in a class taught by Ed Tufte — that a good picture with … Read more »
About a month ago, I posted a draft paper my colleague Dan Byman and I had put together about the different tools the United States uses to go after citizens waging war against it from abroad. In the crush of … Read more »
The more I reflect on last week’s drone contretemps–and what effect the efforts of Senator Paul and his followers has had / may still have on U.S. policy–the more I have a profound and distressing sense of déjà vu. After … Read more »
Rand Paul has a triumphant blow-by-blow account of his filibuster in the Washington Post. It contains the following curious sentence that to me captures almost everything wrong with his little campaign: “I wanted to sound an alarm bell from … Read more »
Senator Paul has an op-ed this morning that repeats many of the misrepresentations of the administration’s positions that were contained in his filibuster. It also contains in a nutshell one reason why this issue has been so hard to resolve: … Read more »
First, I objected to the large mischaracterizations in Senator Paul’s remarks, and think the ones about our targeting practices abroad were especially damaging. But there is no doubt that Senator Paul succeeded wildly in focusing public (and congressional) attention on … Read more »
Transcripts: they’re not just for reading anymore. Yesterday, when I posted the transcript of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination as CIA Director, I assumed that our readers would appreciate reading what the senator and his … Read more »
The Washington Post, meanwhile, has this excellent editorial on Rand Paul’s filibuster and openness in the drone program:
AFTER SEN. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held the Senate hostage Wednesday in order to warn that American citizens could be targeted by drone
Readers by now know this much: Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz harbor great anxieties about possible drone strikes against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil—chiefly against citizens who pose no imminent threat to our national security. And their concerns apparently … Read more »
I have held off for nearly 24 hours in writing up my thoughts about Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster because I was trying to think of something to say beyond that this was a dumb publicity stunt. But here’s the problem: … Read more »
According to this Talking Points Memo piece, Attorney General Eric Holder today sent another letter to Senator Rand Paul, regarding the latter’s inquiries on the executive branch’s authority to conduct domestic drone strikes against U.S. citizens. The note seems … Read more »
As you no doubt already know, Kentucky’s junior Senator, Rand Paul, on Wednesday filibustered John O. Brennan’s nomination to be CIA Director for thirteen hours (with help, in part, from his Senate colleagues).
He commenced his marathon like so:
Madam
There is a connection between Senator Paul’s filibuster and the need for a comprehensive renewal of presidential authorities for the administration’s stealth counterterrorism tactics (i.e., the cluster of tactics that include “covert action, Special Forces, drone surveillance and targeting, cyberattacks … Read more »
Jack is certainly right that Senator Paul “is painting a misleadingly very unattractive picture of the circumstances in which the United States uses drones abroad in words that will now be played around the world as credible statements of U.S. … Read more »
Recall that Senator Paul asked John Brennan whether he believed the President “has the authority to order lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without a trial?,” and that John Brennan and … Read more »
As the New York Times reports, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been speaking on the Senate floor since before noon in an effort to filibuster the nomination of John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor and nominee to lead … Read more »
This week, Attorney General Eric Holder and DCIA nominee John Brennan both responded, separately and in writing, to Senator Rand Paul’s inquiry regarding the government’s authority to use lethal force against an American citizen within the United States, and without … Read more »
I noted last week than in his answer to the question whether the Obama administration could “carry out drone strikes inside the United States,” John Brennan gave this non-response: “This Administration has not carried out drone strikes inside the United … Read more »
In transition from long-time legislator to senior Executive branch official, and asked to reconcile positions that are impossible to reconcile, Senator Kerry in his confirmation testimony took a nuanced and not always coherent position today on the relationship between presidential … Read more »
As readers probably already know, the Senate ended an otherwise largely legislation-light 2012 by approving a controversial five-year extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), which the House had previously passed in September. President Obama signed the reauthorization … Read more »
[Updated 3:08 p.m] Last night, the Senate approved Senator Dianne Feinstein’s amendment (No. 3018) to the pending NDAA bill, regarding the military detention of citizens and lawful permanent residents. The vote was 67-29.
As Lawfarers well know by now, the … Read more »
Senator Dianne Feinstein—along with Senators Lee, Coons, Collins, Paul, Lautenberg, Gillibrand, and Kirk—have introduced this amendment to the current NDAA, now on the Senator floor.
Sen. Rand Paul’s office has been circulating the following draft amendment—which is rather different from his earlier version:
sec. [____]. prohibition on indefinite detention and transfer of persons.
(a) [FINDINGS]
(b) Section 4001 of Title 18, United States Code,
Senator Rand Paul’s rumored detention amendment got me reminiscing about S.2003, better known as the Due Process Guarantee Act (“DPGA”).
Remember this? It was Senator Feinstein’s proposal to clarify that force authorizations and like statutes would not be read so … Read more »
In his post on Senator Rand Paul’s proposal regarding citizens and the NDAA, Bobby highlights a recurring and important question: why is it so hard for ostensibly civil libertarian legislators explicitly to oppose the domestic detention of U.S. citizens? To … Read more »
Ben notes what appears to be a draft proposal from Senator Rand Paul to amend the NDAA so as to address situations involving American citizens captured inside the United States. While the context suggests that the drafters’ aim might be … Read more »
A source sent me a copy of this email, apparently from Senator Rand Paul’s office last week to Republican Senate legislative directors about a coming amendment by the senator to restrict military detention of U.S. citizens under last year’s NDAA:… Read more »
FAA, eat your heart out. From The Hill, we learn that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has proposed legislation to curb the use of drones for domestic surveillance. The heart of his “Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act of 2012… Read more »
Well that was fast… With the ink barely dry on the Senate’s passage of the NDAA, Senator Feinstein yesterday introduced on behalf of herself and 13 Senate colleagues (including Republican Senators Lee, Kirk, and Paul) the “Due Process Guarantee … Read more »
As so many of you have found our earlier post of the Senate debate over the NDAA useful, we wanted to offer legislative materials related to the Senate’s deliberations. I will continue to update this post with new materials, as … Read more »
…yet it did get 30 “yea” votes.
The invaluable Josh Gerstein of the Politico offers these important pieces of the legislative politics puzzle surrounding the Kelly Ayotte amendment, which I wrote about here and here:
The vote, taken just after 1 a.m. Friday, broke largely along
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
Monday, May 20, 2013
As Jack posted yesterday—and as everyone is buzzing about—President Obama will give a major counterterrorism speech on Thursday at the National Defense University. The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Politico all report on the talk, and subjects that the President will likely address.
Speaking of Jack, he noted another of today’s big stories: the Washington Post’s piece on the FBI’s search, a few years… Read more »
