I’m pleased to report that a group of former Obama Administration lawyers (including yours truly) has just submitted to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence a letter expressing our strong support for John Brennan’s nomination to be Director of the … Read more »

Trevor Morrison of Columbia Law School writes in with the following response to my earlier post about Raha Wala’s use of the word “government.” His point is quite correct; my phraseology, about which he complains, was imprecise. I pass on … Read more »

Peter Margulies’s reporting on AALS panels continues with this dispatch:

Libya and Presidential Power

Presidential war powers were debated at the AALS conference that spurred my recent posts on detention and military commissions.  The Libyan intervention elicited disagreement peeking

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Peter Margulies of Roger Williams University School of Law has sent in two accounts of panel discussions at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools. Here is the first: 

Federal Courts and National Security: A D.C. Circuit

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In my haste to survey the NSL-related panels at this week’s AALS Annual Meeting, I missed one of the “Hot Topics” sessions–a plenary discussion of “Political Crises and Constitutionalism: War,” with a special focus on the use of force … Read more »

Session 4 begins with a brief introduction of the panelists from Prof. Dick Fallon, the panel’s moderator.  Panelists include Prof.  Phil Heymman, Ben Wizner, director of litigation of the ACLU’s National Security Project, Prof. Gerald Neuman, and Prof. Trevor Morrison.… Read more »

A couple of weeks ago, as Ben noted, Trevor Morrison posted an article addressing the Libya-hostilities-OLC debate.  An expanded and updated version of that paper is now available here at Harvard Law Review Forum, and it is well worth … Read more »

Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule have an essay in Slate that argues that it was appropriate for President Obama to ignore OLC’s advice related to the War Powers Resolution.  The thrust of their argument, which contrasts sharply with Trevor Morrison’s … Read more »

Columbia law professor Trevor Morrison sent the following email over the weekend concerning one of my posts on the Senate NDAA language. In essence, Trevor suggests that I am over-reading the provision, and he homes in on the effective date … Read more »

Columbia law professor Trevor Morrison has a new essay, posted at SSRN, entitled “Libya, ‘Hostilities,’ the Office of Legal Counsel, and the Process of Executive Branch Legal Interpretation.” Among other things, the paper continues Morrison’s ongoing exchange with Bruce … Read more »

Some time back, I spoke at a panel at Duke Law School on detention policy alongside, among others, Michael Gottlieb, who had just completed a fourteen month tour as the top civilian official in Task Force 435 in Afghanistan. As … Read more »

Bruce Ackerman has responded on Balkinization to Trevor Morrison’s review of Ackerman’s book The Decline and Fall of the American Republic.  Ackerman’s opening paragraphs explain his post and have all the relevant links:

In a recently published book review

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Columbia Law Professor Trevor Morrison has this lengthy review essay in the Harvard Law Review of Bruce Ackerman’s new book, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic. The essay, entitled “Constitutional Alarmism,” is rather devastating in my opinion. … Read more »

Bobby and I just finished an unusually good panel at the annual Duke University national security law conference. It was entitled “Indefinite Detention of Terrorists” and was one of the best such events I have ever participated in. In … Read more »