The Week That Was: All of Lawfare in One Post

Folks, there's more to life than guessing what the future King of England will be named.  There's the week that was! Ritika completed a significant research project comparing various studies' approaches to measuring civilian drone strike casualties; she later reacted to feedback from one of the studies' authors. Be sure to check it out. On the topic of drone strikes, Ben and his Brookings colleague Dan Byman released a report entitled "Tools and Tradeoffs: Confronting U.S. Citizen Terrorist Suspects Abroad." GTMO continued to be in the news, with the revelation that the Periodic Review Board process will be re-starting. And on Friday, the White House announced that the Department of Defense certified to Congress its intent to repatriate two GTMO detainees to Algeria. I caught us up on a habeas appeal---that of Abdul Razak Ali, also known as Saeed Bakhouch.  Oral arguments in the D.C. Circuit are scheduled for September 27th. In other GTMO/D.C. Circuit related news, a pair of amicus briefs supporting the government was filed in the appeal of GTMO detainee Ali Hamza Ahmad Suleiman Al-Bahlul.  (We've refreshed the wiki page dedicated to Al-Bahlul's military commission case, so have a look.) Steve explained his disagreement with some arguments advanced in the first brief, which was filed on behalf of Former Government Officials, Former Military Lawyers and Scholars of National Security Law.  That brief's co-author, Peter Margulies, responded to Steve's and other critiques this morning. The D.C. Circuit handed down its decision in Zivotofsky v. Clinton earlier this week.  The Supreme Court had remanded the case to the court of appeals, which then found unconstitutional Congress's effort to require the Department of State to record "Jerusalem, Israel" in the passports of U.S. citizens born in the holy city, if they so requested. Jack reacted to that ruling, and Samantha summarized the court's opinion. Significantly, the House did not approve the so-called Amash Amendment, which would have defunded the NSA's metadata program.  Paul discussed the various parties supporting and opposing Amash's effort. After Janet Napolitano announced that she will step down as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Carrie Cordero contemplated the qualities we should seek in a future Secretary. Jack commented on what appears to be a very out-in-the-open U.S. covert action operation in Syria. Jack also wrote about the Defense Department's seeming interpretation of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force ("AUMF") in particular the government's dubious refusal to publicly release a list of entities deemed to be "associated forces" under the AUMF. DoD General Counsel nominee Stephen Preston had his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. Ben noted comments by CATO's Julian Sanchez about the famous Ashcroft-hospital-room showdown in 2004---which apparently arose in connection with the collection of internet metadata. A participant in that drama, of course, was the nominee to be the next FBI Director, James Comey.  Apropos of the FBI, we learned of the Bureau's response to Senator Rand Paul's questions about its use of drones in U.S. airspace; I also wondered whether another Paul filibuster, this time of Mr. Comey's nomination, is nigh. Paul noted developments in the British parliament with regards to Chinese company Huawei's operations in the UK. Officials released a report detailing concerns over the company's hardware in government technology. Ben updated us on the DoD's updating and publication of its law of war manual.  It's in the works, it seems. If you missed last Friday's remarks by ODNI General Counsel Bob Litt here at Brookings, you can listen to our latest Lawfare Podcast episode. John commented on the dismissal of a case against former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, in light of the Justice Department's Suggestion of Immunity. In his latest "New Tech and National Security" post, Paul shared his thoughts on Google Glass. Ben expressed relief that this Shenandoah trail marker didn't indicate the entrance to a SCIF. Ben also thought this video footage taken by a drone of Niagara Falls was pretty cool. (If you liked that, check out Dronestagram.) For those who experienced technical difficulties accessing the blog in recent weeks, we apologize. We performed some much-needed maintenance, and Lawfare seems to be running just fine now. For something different, I thought I'd share some interesting web statistics: In the last week, we had about 250 visits from readers in India and over 150 visits from readers in Switzerland! And that was the week that was.