Speaking the Law: The Obama Administration's Addresses on National Security Law
For some time now, Lawfare and the Hoover Institution Press have been serializing our book on the Obama Administration's speeches on legal policy and national security. Now, we are pleased to announce Hoover has released an edition in hard copy, complete with a handy compendium on what we call the canonical national security law speeches of the administration.
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For some time now, Lawfare and the Hoover Institution Press have been serializing our book on the Obama Administration's speeches on legal policy and national security. Now, we are pleased to announce Hoover has released an edition in hard copy, complete with a handy compendium on what we call the canonical national security law speeches of the administration.
When Barack Obama came into office, the strategic landscape facing the United States in its overseas counterterrorism operations was undergoing a shift. Even before the rise of drones necessitated the articulation of legal doctrine, the Obama administration had to explain itself. In Speaking the Law, the authors offer a detailed examination of the speeches of the Obama administration on national security legal issues. Viewed together here for the first time, the authors lay out a broad array of legal and policy positions regarding a large number of principles currently contested at both the domestic and international levels. The book describes what the Obama administration has said about the legal framework in which it is operating with respect to such questions as the nature of the war on terrorism, the use of drones and targeted killings, detention, trial by military commission and in federal courts, and interrogation. The authors analyze this framework, examining the stresses on it and asking where the administration got matters right and where they were wrong. They conclude with suggestions for certain reforms to the framework for the administration and Congress to consider.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Kenneth Anderson is a professor at Washington College of Law, American University; a visiting fellow of the Hoover Institution; and a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution. He writes on international law, the laws of war, weapons and technology, and national security; his most recent book, with Benjamin Wittes, is "Speaking the Law: The Obama Administration's Addresses on National Security Law."
