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.
4,711 Articles
The D.C. Circuit, Article II, and the Constitutionality of the Guantánamo Transfer Restrictions
When President Obama transferred five Taliban detainees from Guantánamo in exchange for American POW Bowe Bergdahl, forests were felled over whether the Obama Administration…
Autonomy, “Killer Robots,” and Human Control in the Use of Force – Part II
[Editor’s Note: This is Part II of a two-part guest post from Paul Scharre, a fellow and Project Director for the 20YY Warfare Initiative at the Center for a New American…
Autonomy, “Killer Robots,” and Human Control in the Use of Force – Part I
[Editor’s Note: This is Part I of a two-part guest post from Paul Scharre, a fellow and Project Director for the 20YY Warfare Initiative at the Center for a New American…
Endless War is the Wrong Response to ISIS
“Obama’s Blueprint for Fighting Terrorism Collides with Reality in Iraq,” blared the New York Times headline late last week, in a story that set forth the challenges of the…
Transparency and Lethal Operations: A Checklist of What’s Public and What’s Still Secret [Updated]
Transparency is the touchstone for many debates about US lethal operations against Al Qaeda and associated forces. This post contains a checklist of sorts—cataloguing what information…
Social Science Data on Public Reactions to Drone Strikes and Civilian Casualties
One of the hats I wear is that of a social scientist. I don’t often write at Just Security in that capacity, but recent empirical research — on public attitudes toward…
The Stakes of al-Bahlul, Nine Months Later…
This past Monday marked nine months since the en banc oral argument in al-Bahlul v. United States, in which the D.C. Circuit is considering whether military commissions at Guantánamo…
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An unfortunate story on the non-review of U.S. surveillance authority in Section 702
Federal oversight agency punts on international human rights, while findings the programs lawful and constitutional The President’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (“PCLOB”)…
Did PCLOB Answer My Eight Questions About Section 702?
TL;DR: A little bit, but not enough. Yesterday, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) issued a massive report about the legally and technologically complicated…
Cloud City: A Fourth Amendment Thought Experiment
Reading the Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s rather tepid report on NSA surveillance under §702 of the FISA Amendments Act last night, I found myself thinking…
A Response to General Dunlap
First a caveat—I have worked with many honorable national security law experts who do exceptional scholarship and whose perspective I find extremely valuable, just as I have…
NYC Bar Association Releases Report on Legality of Drones
Last month (and somewhat unnoticed — at least by many of us here), the International Law Committee of the NYC Bar Association released a report evaluating the legality of…