Civil Liberties
1,368 Articles
Australia Introduces Foreign Fighter Bill on Eve of Obama Chairing UNSC Meeting on Foreign Fighters
The Australian Government introduced a proposed law on Sept. 22 aimed at preventing Australian residents from traveling abroad to join terrorist organizations. Called the Counter-Terrorism…
Back to post-9/11 panic? Security Council resolution on foreign terrorist fighters
The United Nations Security Council is about to adopt a resolution on foreign terrorist fighters, scheduled for the afternoon of Wednesday, September 24 when President Barack Obama…
President Obama to Preside over Flawed UN Security Council Resolution on Foreign Fighters
On Wednesday, President Obama will take the unusual step of chairing a session of the U.N. Security Council, which will consider a U.S.-sponsored draft resolution on foreign fighters.…
No, You Can’t Strip Americans of their Citizenship, Senator Cruz: The Folly of the Expatriate Terrorists Act
Today, as the nation debates serious matters such as how best to address the ISIS and how best to reform NSA surveillance authorities, Senator Ted Cruz will reportedly seek unanimous…
Reading Jack Goldsmith’s STELLARWIND Memo (Part II)
Last week, I tried to read between the lines of Jack Goldsmith’s 2004 memorandum on the STELLARWIND surveillance program to explain why the bulk collection of Internet metadata…
ECHR: UK Did Not Violate Hassan’s Human Rights
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights today found that the British government did not violate the human rights of Iraqi Ba’ath Party member Tarek Hassan…
A Guantánamo Test Case for the “New” D.C. Circuit
Back in August, I wrote about the D.C. Circuit’s disappointing decision in Hatim v. Obama (the genital searches case), in which the Court of Appeals (1) held that the…
What’s the matter with the revised DoD Directive 2310.01E?
Both Steve and Gabor Rona have posted here in recent days with concerns about the newly promulgated Department of Defense Directive 2310.01E, on the “DoD Detainee Program.”…
The Posse Comitatus Act, Unlawful Surveillance, and the Exclusionary Rule
Most students of U.S. national security law are familiar with the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) — an 1878 statute that subjects to criminal punishment anyone who, “except…

The Bells of September
This September 11th, I traveled with my little boy down the tree-lined beauty of Savannah to Reynolds Square where, amidst the draped Spanish Moss, historic Christ Church rang…
Reading Jack Goldsmith’s STELLARWIND Memo (Part I)
In response to a lawsuit first filed eight years ago by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the government has finally released a less-heavily-redacted version of Jack…
The Very Strange New DoD Detainee Directive
On August 19, the Department of Defense apparently issued a new version of “Directive 2310.01E,” which, if you haven’t been scoring at home, is one of the central…