This is going to be the shortest oral argument summary ever. In fact, I can do it in five sentences: (1) Chief Judge David Sentelle opens the hearing by announcing that it can't be held in open session ...

Is al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) so distinct from the original al Qaeda network (“core al Qaeda”) that the use of force against AQAP cannot be justified, as a matter of U.S.

In United States v.

Tomorrow morning, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in Obaydullah v. Obama, one of the few Guantanamo habeas cases that's still moving in the lower courts. There was a time, not ...

Marty Lederman has a post defending the Obama administration in connection with this NYT story, but I think he overreacts. Marty claims that the story by Charlie Savage contributes to the “common but fl...

In March 2011, the Obama administration issued an Executive Order (13567) that created a process of Periodic Review of Individuals Detained at Guantánamo Bay Naval Station Pursuant to the Authorization f...

Charlie Savage has a story today about how the Obama administration, stymied in Congress and seeking ways to accomplish policy goals, has “increasingly in recent months . . . been seeking ways to act wit...

Professor Jonathan Hafetz (Seton Hall) writes in with the following response to my critique of the qualified immunity ruling in Hamad v. Gates. My thoughts in reply appear at the bottom.   Jonathan write...

David Cole and Peter Margulies both have more to say on the Tarek Mehanna case. Their exchange convinces me that the merits of this First Amendment case are enormously fact-dependent.

Britain is announcing what it terms "historic reforms" to the European Court of Human Rights. According to the Secretary of State for Justice, Kenneth Clarke, Taken together, these changes should mean fe...

Peter Margulies of Roger Williams University School of Law writes in with the following response to David Cole's recent article on the Tarek Mehanna case: While David Cole’s passionate defense of the Fir...

Ken and Ben have recently commented on the national security speeches of Obama Administration officials, including most recently the remarks of CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston.  As a former Bush Admi...

So, now that Ben, Jack, and Bobby have officially given me a license to blog more broadly, I wanted to expand my attention (and that of Lawfare readers) to important legal issues involving homeland secur...

On Wednesday the House Homeland Security Committee marked up the Lungren cybersecurity proposal.  The details are reported here and are difficult to piece together.  In so far as one can tell, the Chairm...

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.

UCLA Professor John Villasenor and I have this oped coming out in tomorrow's Washington Post responding to calls for the Federal Aviation Administration to take action to protect privacy in the context i...

Georgetown law professor David Cole has this disturbing article in the New York Review of Books Blog on the Tarek Mehanna case. I have not followed this case carefully in the district court, but this art...

So Charlie Savage is reporting over at the New York Times: The transfer [of the two Uighurs] leaves 169 detainees at the prison in Cuba, but the Obama administration notified Congress several days ago th...