Latest in Executive Branch
Published by The Lawfare Institute in Cooperation With 
-
Should the U.S. Military Receive the Benefit of the Doubt When Investigating Itself for Alleged War Crimes?
The October 2015 bombing of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan has amplified a long-simmering discussion regarding the ability of the American military to objectively condu... -
The Art of the Bluff: How Presidents Can Leverage Deception
In the eyes of the DC foreign policy establishment, issuing threats without any intention to back them up with action is a cardinal sin. Bluffing, the thinking along think tank row goes, dangerously unde... -
Mullah Mansour as a "Continuous" Threat: Was the AUMF Strictly Necessary?
The DOD airstrike that may have killed Taliban leader Mullah Mansour is interesting, from a legal perspective, at many levels. -
Geof Stone on the NSA
"Geof Stone is a prominent civil liberties expert and advocate who is a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union [and a Professor at the University of Chicago Law Sch... -
Oversight of DOD Kill-Capture Missions Outside Theaters of Major Hostilities: What May Change Under the Next NDAA?
Despite the substantial overlap between counterterrorism activities undertaken by the CIA and JSOC, we tend to pay a lot more attention to the details of the congressional oversight framework for the for... -
Classified Legislation: Tracking Congress’s Library of Secret Law
Most citizens assume that all of the law Congress writes is public. That is not, in fact, true. Our general norm of publishing law has a significant and largely overlooked legislative exception: classifi... -
The ISIS Lawsuit and the Perverse Effects of National Security Litigation
Last week, U.S. Army Captain Nathan Michael Smith sued the U.S. Government in federal court, seeking a declaration that Obama’s war against ISIS is illegal. Jack Goldsmith and Marty Lederman have put for... -
Legislation to Micromanage the NSC Staff Raises Constitutional and Political Concerns
Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are reportedly considering amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017 to limit the size of the NSC staff and subject NSC staff and N... -
The War Against ISIS is Unconstitutional
As I explained in a New York Times op-ed today, Captain Nathan Smith has gone to court for a declaratory judgment on the legality of President Obama’s undeclared war against the Islamic State. While I en... -
Analysis of Lawsuit Challenging War Against ISIL
Charlie Savage reports that Captain Nathan Michael Smith, an army intelligence officer deployed in Kuwait, has brought a lawsuit challenging President Obama’s interpretive extension of the 2001 AUMF in r... -
Beyond Privacy & Security: The Role of the Telecommunications Industry in Electronic Surveillance
The court fight between Apple and FBI over access to a terrorist iPhone is just the latest chapter in the long-running tension between security professionals trying to get access to information and commu... -
Do the Strikes on al Shabaab Stretch the AUMF or The Unit Self-defense Doctrine?
Charlie Savage’s piece on the legal basis for the March 5 U.S. strike against an al Shabaab training camp, which allegedly killed 150 fighters, raises the intriguing question of whether the AUMF has been...
Topics
