Terrorism & Violent Extremism
Just Security provides expert legal and policy analysis of terrorism, counterterrorism, and domestic and international violent extremism.
2,224 Articles

Are Cross-Border Shootings Heading to the Supreme Court?
Two weeks ago, I wrote about an important new decision by the US District Court for the District of Arizona, holding that the Fourth Amendment does apply to the cross-border shooting…

Letter to the Editor: The Geography of the War Against al-Qaeda
Nathalie Weizmann’s compendium of various views on the geographic scope of a non international armed conflict (NIAC) is extremely useful. In addition to the listed papers,…

CIA and OLC Must Release More “Secret” Documents on Aulaqi Drone Strike
On Thursday, a federal district court in New York issued its latest ruling in the ACLU’s long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation seeking the legal and factual…

The APA Scandal
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…

Cross-Border Shootings as a Test Case for the Extraterritorial Fourth Amendment
Ever since the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, courts and commentators alike have wondered about the relationship between the functional approach…

Describing Violence: The Charleston Shootings and the Label of Terrorism
Soon after the Charleston church shooting, FBI Director James Comey argued that Dylann Roof’s actions probably weren’t terrorism, eliciting criticism that law enforcement employs…

The US Must Ensure Umm Sayyaf Is Not Subjected to Human Rights Abuses
Umm Sayyaf, the wife of a suspected high-ranking ISIL member, is back in the news at The Daily Beast. US special operations forces captured Sayyaf in Syria in May and brought her…

Video and Highlights From a Conversation on Countering Violent Extremism
Just Security and the Project for the Study of the 21st Century (PS21) recently hosted an extremely interesting discussion between ex senior UN counter terrorism official Richard…

The CIA Can’t Keep Its Drone Propaganda Straight
This week, one government intelligence agency, after patiently and methodically tracking a terrorist leader for months through precise electronic surveillance, successfully targeted…

The Hidden Meaning (Maybe) of the New FISC Opinion
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court released an opinion today, dated June 17, holding that despite the brief lapse of several provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the effect…

Delay and Detention at Obama’s Guantánamo: The Missing PRBs
As Steve Vladeck noted last week, lawyers for Guantánamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi filed a motion in his habeas corpus case demanding that the Obama administration…

Abu Ghraib and the Perversion of the Political Question Doctrine
I’ve written extensively about the important and complex legal questions raised by state-law tort suits against private military contractors, many of which have arisen in…