A few thoughts on President Obama's remarks Wednesday on Guantanamo, the full text of which I posted earlier. "Obviously, we haven’t gotten it closed.  And let me just step back and explain that the rea...

At his news conference Wednesday, President Obama made the following remarks about Guantanamo and the forthcoming executive order: Q    Guantanamo, sir.  I understand a draft of an executive order is bei...

Having already introduced a bill this week to modify CIPA, Senator Cardin has now introduced a bill to modify espionage-related statutes.  The Espionage Statutes Modification Act ("ESMA") bill--S.4051--i...

The combination of Jack's post and sleeping on the subject has mostly set my mind at ease on the difference between an executive order and a statute for purposes of the Guantanamo review system currently...

During my 2003 confirmation hearings to be the head of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, one Senator showed up to ask me one or two perfunctory questions.  This was a time when relatively few people knew wh...

I think the proposed EO for periodic review of detainees is a sensible move.  Ben says the EO belongs in a statute “because in the long run, a detention system based on an aging AUMF and an executive ord...

I promised earlier that I would describe my exceedingly mixed feelings about the stories today that President Obama is preparing to issue an executive order outlining a Guantanamo review process.

Ben beat me to the punch in noting the stories by Dafna Linzer (ProPublica) and Peter Finn and Anne Kornblut (Washington Post) to the effect that the White House will soon announce an executive order cre...

If you haven't wasted a few minutes playing with Google Ngram, you've got to give it a ride.  The basic idea, as I understand it, is that Google has put together a vast database of every word in every bo...

The Washington Post and Propublica are both reporting that the Obama administration is readying an executive order laying out a process for long-term detention for Guantanamo detainees. I will post some ...

[Update: Readers should also check out John Radsan's just-published paper on CIPA reform, in Cardozo Law Review, here.  Further update: the server hosting that paper is down until the afternoon of Dec. 2...

Gregg Easterbrook of TMQ making a point similar to one I have been harping on (thanks to Paul Stephan for pointing me to it): Leaks Don't Come Out of the Sky: Is the WikiLeaks disclosure of Pentagon and ...

David Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey have this oped in today's Wall Street Journal. As it is behind a paywall, I will maximize my fair use rights to bring its argument to the attention of Lawfare readers. T...

Today the D.C. Circuit released the public version of the appellant's brief in another habeas merits appeal, Abdah v. Obama, No. 10-5319. In this case, the government appeals Judge Henry Kennedy’s July 2...

For the past several months, the Obama administration has been in a weird limbo about Guantanamo. On the one hand, it has barely lifted a finger to effectuate its declared policy of closing the facility-...

A few of the habeas merits appeals before the D.C. Circuit were just scheduled for oral argument.  Here are the dates and panel assignments: Al Warafi v. Obama: Oral argument will be held February 7, 201...

I have received a number of inquiries from Lawfare readers about my my new book, Detention and Denial: The Case for Candor after Guantanamo. I am told there were sightings of it at Brookings this past we...

I disagree with the characterization in David’s latest post of Bush administration practices.  But I am not going to change his mind on that issue, so I will end this exchange on my side by noting points...

[updated to remove/fix typos...] Mark Mazzetti and Salman Masood for the New York Times report an immensely disturbing development in Pakistan.  A Pakistani lawyer named Mirza Shahzad Akbar has filed a ...