The Week That Was
The Week That Was: All of Lawfare In One Post
There is little sense in rounding up all of Lawfare-ers' Syria-related posts, as our fearless Managing Editor already did so. But for convenience sake, here is a recap of the links anyway:
- Jack: British Bow Out of Syria Intervention, USG Plunging Ahead
- Wells: UK Parliament Votes Down British Military Action in Syria
- Bobby: The War Powers Resolution and Using Force in Syria
- Matt: Intervention to Stop Atrocities: Kosovo as Predictive
- Jack: Akande on the Legality of Humanitarian Intervention
- John: The UK Legal Position on Humanitarian Intervention in Syria: Kosovo Redux
- Jack: UK Legal Position on Humanitarian Intervention in Syria
- Rick: Creating New International Law “Justifications” for Using Military Force Against Syria
- Ben: Vacancies at the Top
- Jack: Hathaway and Shapiro on Syria and the U.N. Charter
- Wells: Letter From the Speaker of the House to POTUS Regarding Legal Justification for Action in Syria
- Jack: Why Doesn’t President Obama Seek Congressional Approval for Syria?
- Wells: Two Thoughts on Syria and Kosovo
- Jack: George Friedman on Obama’s Bluff
- Jack: Secretary of State Kerry on UNSCRs and Legality
- Jack: General Dempsey on Syria Intervention
- Rick: Kosovo, Syria: When it Comes to Military Force, What’s the Proper Relationship Between Law and Political Judgment?
- Jack: More on the Impact of Kosovo + Syria
- Ashley: The Value of Kosovo as a Non-Legal Precedent
- Jack: How Administration Lawyers Are Probably Thinking About the Constitutionality of the Syria Intervention (and a Note on the Domestic Political Dangers of Intervention)
- Jack: The Kosovo Precedent for Syria Isn’t Much of a Precedent
- Ashley: Arming Syrian Rebels: Lethal Assistance and International Law
- Ashley: Chemical Weapons and Syria: Enough to Justify the Use of Force?
Matt shared a related draft Yale Law Journal article entitled "The Constitutional Power to Threaten War."
We've finished summarizing all of the NSA materials declassified last week. Here's the whole series:
- Introduction, by Ben
- Summary of the October 2011 FISC Opinion, written up by Ben and Lauren
- Summary of the November 2011 FISC Opinion, by Ben and Jane
- Summary of the September 2012 FISC Opinion, by Ben and Sean
- Summary of Statements to Congress, by Ben, Ritika and me
- Summary of the Minimization Procedures, by Ben and Sean
- Summary of the Compliance Report, by Jane
Ben declared war against the law review, announcing that Lawfare would henceforth be publishing policy-relevant scholarship. As a first installment on that promise, he released this paper on the NSA programs by former OLC chief Steven G. Bradbury.
Some Guantanamo-related news: The DoD announced that two detainees were transferred to Algeria, and a Yemeni detainee's petition for rehearing his habeas case en banc was denied by the D.C. Circuit.
A special edition Lawfare podcast episode came out mid-week: The Cairo Edition, featuring Laura Dean.
Perhaps to some people the most significant cyberattack this week was that on the New York Times, but not to Paul; he thinks it was the denial of service attack on the .cn network (the Chinese internet, that is). Paul also noted the draft cybersecurity framework promulgated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology; the framework is a component of the President's cybersecurity executive order.
Ben shared a video to note a little-discussed reason the FAA is concerned about drones in domestic airspace: ground safety.
Our uneventful summer wouldn't be complete without one more leak from Edward Snowden---this time, the Intelligence Community FY13 budget request, which Paul conceded must be a painful leak, despite the Washington Post's decision not to release the line-by-line details. Joel Brenner wrote a guest post on the leaks, wondering how on earth Snowden had access to these particular documents, given his role at Booz Allen.
Praise the Internet gods: Lawfare finally completed its hosting switch. We thank you, loyal readers, for bearing with us the last few weeks.
Here's a peak at our web statistics during this "slow" month of August: around 30 visits from Iran, about 10 from Cuba, over 140 from Russia, and one from Syria.
And that was the week that was.