Remes on Koh's "Enemies of the State" Language

Robert Chesney
Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 5:17 PM
David Remes writes in with the following observation:
Yesterday, Ben questioned the propriety of Harold Koh's reference to "enemies of the state" at a State Department event marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The event consisted of series of panel discussions tracing the evolution of United States human rights policy. Koh was on one of the panels.

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David Remes writes in with the following observation:
Yesterday, Ben questioned the propriety of Harold Koh's reference to "enemies of the state" at a State Department event marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The event consisted of series of panel discussions tracing the evolution of United States human rights policy. Koh was on one of the panels. He referred to "enemies of the state" as shorthand for "enemies of the United States" in responding, informally and in passing, to criticisms of the Administration's Guantanamo policies by a fellow panelist. I go to the trouble of defending Koh because even though the point is a small one, Koh doesn't deserve Ben's tut-tutting.

Robert (Bobby) Chesney is the Dean of the University of Texas School of Law, where he also holds the James A. Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs at UT. He is known internationally for his scholarship relating both to cybersecurity and national security. He is a co-founder of Lawfare, the nation’s leading online source for analysis of national security legal issues, and he co-hosts the popular show The National Security Law Podcast.

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