Executive Branch
Just Security’s expert authors provide analysis of the U.S. executive branch related to national security, rights, and the rule of law. Analysis and informational resources focus on the executive branch’s powers and their limits, and the actions of the president, administrative agencies, and federal officials.
4,601 Articles
What’s Lost in the Move-Guantánamo-North Debate
Defense Secretary Ash Carter has been doing a lot of public hand-wringing lately over what he’s going to do with the Guantánamo detainees he’s decided will have to be moved…
Questions the Media Should Be Asking About DOD’s Latest Targeted Killing
Last week, the Pentagon confirmed that an American drone strike in Raqqa, Syria, killed a hacker named Junaid Hussain, a British man also believed to be a recruiter for ISIL.…
Politicization of Intelligence: Lessons From a Long, Dishonorable History
The Daily Beast and the New York Times have reported allegations that senior (but thus far unidentified) Defense Department and United States Central Command (CENTCOM) officials…
Better Never Than Late? The D.C. Circuit’s Problematic Standing Holding in Klayman
This morning, nearly 10 months after it was argued, the D.C. Circuit finally handed down its decision in Obama v. Klayman—the government’s appeal of Judge Leon’s December…
Armed Drones and the Influence of Big Business on Police Surveillance Technology
On Wednesday, the Daily Beast reported that the North Dakota state legislature recently passed a bill allowing law enforcement drones to carry less-than-lethal weapons. In theory,…
The Alarming Gaps in Military Appellate Review
We pay a lot of attention on this blog to the Guantánamo military commissions and the principal structural defect in those tribunals as currently constituted, to wit, their power…
The Supreme Court, ISIS, and the War Powers
In the latest issue of the Atlantic, Yale Professor Bruce Ackerman has a provocative essay titled “Can the Supreme Court Force Congress to Own the War on ISIS?” Not…
On the Front Lines: Women and the Military
Images of the first two female rangers to graduate from the Army Ranger school last Friday made front page news over the weekend. The grueling physical challenges conquered by…
Beyond the APA: The Role of Psychology Boards and State Courts in Propping up Torture
The image of torture in US popular culture is an intimate one: a government agent and a suspect in a dark cell, usually alone. But the reality of our state-sanctioned torture program…
A Legislative Fix to Inspectors’ General Difficulties Accessing Information?
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…
Female Rangers: Historic Change or Lost Opportunity?
Today, two Army officers will be the first women to graduate from Ranger school. This is a groundbreaking milestone many predict is cracking the “brass ceiling”, but what does…
It’s Time for a Civilian Protection Strategy in Iraq
Editors’ note: This piece is adapted from a longer article by the author originally published in the International Journal of Stability & Development. The military…