Mike Schmitt (Durham) has an very interesting piece at the Yale Journal of International Law Online concerning UNSCR 1973 and the use of force in Libya.  Mike previously served as legal advisor to Operat...

Last week the AP published a rather breathless piece titled "AP Exclusive: US military holds terror suspects in secret jails for weeks without charge."  That certainly got my attention.  From the title, ...

Tomorrow morning, a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in another Guantanamo habeas case, that of Hussain Salem Mohammad Almerfedi (Case No. 10-5291).

A pair of federal prosecutions pending in Chicago raise interesting questions about the "public authority" defense, which is a perenially-vexed issue when it comes to illegal activity that might have tak...

Judge Laurence Silberman's concurring opinion today in Esmail makes three points, each of them warranting comment. I have enormous regard for Judge Silberman, and I critique his opinion with caution. But...

OLC’s Libya memorandum (see here for Jack’s assessment, and here for a point-by-point overview) concludes as a matter of constitutional law that President Obama did not need approval from Congress in ord...

The D.C. Circuit's per curiam opinion today in Esmail is unremarkable--exactly what one would have suspected from the oral argument. Judge Laurence Silberman's concurrence, by contrast, is altogether rem...

Today the D.C. Circuit, in a per curiam decision accompanied by a concurrence from Judge Laurence Silberman, affirmed Judge Henry Kennedy's denial of habeas to petitioner Yasein Khasem Mohammad Esmail (C...

My to-read shelf is getting unmanagebly stacked. Today's addition: Jonathan Hafetz's new book from NYU Press, Habeas Corpus After 9/11: Confronting America's New Global Detention System. According to Ama...

Further to Jack's post summarizing the OLC opinion on Libya, here is a point-by-point summary of the document's legal analysis (I agree very much with Jack's take on the implications of all this): 1.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has just published its opinion in support of its view that “the President had constitutional authority, as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and purs...

Below find the prepared hearing testimony from yesterday's hearing before the full Senate Judiciary Committee. April 6, 2011: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act: Government Perspectives on Protec...

Alejandro Manevich, a lawyer in Ontario and one of my oldest friends, writes in with the following: I have an idea for your Lawfare contest.  As a friendly amendment to Luis Dickson's proposal, might I s...

Below find the prepared hearing testimony from two recent hearings of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. One is the March 30th hearing on the permanen...

Luis M. Dickson's truly heroic effort to chart a path by which the Obama administration could conceivably live under the law as articulated by the New York Times editorial board seems, alas, to have hit ...

The first Lawfare contest--to come up "with a strategy for KSM that is both unambiguously lawful under [the law as stated in recent] New York Times editorials and politically conceivable on Planet Earth"...

Steve Aftergood is reporting at Secrecy News: The Senate Intelligence Committee is proposing to punish leaks of classified information by authorizing intelligence agencies to seize the pension benefits o...

Yesterday, I wondered how the New York Times would treat Attorney General Holder's announcement of a military commission trial for the September 11 conspirators: "Will the Times praise Holder for respect...

I am really--and I mean really--looking forward to the New York Times editorial on Holder's announcement.

The Supreme Court today denied three pending petitions for certiorari: Al Odah v. Obama (No. 10-439), Awad v. Obama (No. 10-736), and Al Bihani v. Obama (No. 10-7814).