United States v. Kashmiri, a recent decision by a district judge in Illinois, provides a nice illustration of the process by which defendants in criminal cases may object to the admission of evidence der...

Khost, Thursday, November 18, 2010 -- Having outlined, in theory as well as in practice, the military’s and ROLFF’s proper counterinsurgency (COIN) role in Afghanistan, it is time to blog more pointedly—...

It will come as a surprise to nobody who has followed the many exchanges between us Lawfare folks and Steve Vladeck that Steve has written a thoughtful objection to Jack and my oped and series of posts a...

My post yesterday on Israeli airline security prompted the following response from reader Steve Checkoway, a computer science PhD candidate specializing in security issues: Mr. Wittes is incorrect to wri...

A few days ago, in response to comments by David Remes, I asked for thoughts from criminal defense lawyers as to whether they would rather defend a terrorist case in federal court or in a a military comm...

Kandahar City, Wednesday, November 17, 2010 -- Counterinsurgency (COIN) theory—for that is what my last post describes—is only that: theory. The current reality in Afghanistan is that the rule of law rem...

A few days ago, Judge Dennis Jacobs (Second Circuit) gave the 10th Annual Barbara K.

Jack's post yesterday on TSA crystalized a thought over which I have been stewing passively as this debate has unfolded. While I do not hold myself out as an expert in any sense of airline security, Jack...

Commenting on the Ghailani prosecution a few nights ago on PBS Newshour, former Attorney General Mukasey criticized the use of a civilian court rather than a military commission.  He observed that the ve...

Here, via the excellent Secrecy News, and just in time for General Martins’ posts on the subject, is a new CRS Report entitled: Afghanistan: U.S. Rule of Law and Justice Sector Assistance.

Kandahar, Tuesday, November 16, 2010 -- Whether contemporary U.S. counterinsurgency operations (COIN) and legal institution-building are “an attractive form of lawfare,” as Jack proposed in his 8 Septemb...

Kabul, Monday, November 15, 2010 -- Jack Goldsmith invited me more than two months ago to write in this space about our military’s involvement in efforts to build the rule of law in Afghanistan. In his i...

(By Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Robert Chesney) We are thrilled to be joined this week by a guest blogger: Brigadier General Mark Martins. General Martins commands the Rule of Law Field Force--...

I assume that TSA’s intrusive patdowns are not cost-effective, that some TSA employees will abuse the new body scanners, and that the TSA on the whole focuses too much on “security theater” and not enoug...

Responding to my earlier post objecting to CCR's statement on the Ghaliani verdict, David Remes--one of the key Guantanamo habeas lawyers--wrote me a very interesting letter. It is interesting, in my vie...

Rounding out the public merits briefs in Al Warafi v. Obama, today the petitioner's public reply brief became available.  Below we link to the brief, the other two public merits briefs, and Chief Judge L...