Terrorism & Violent Extremism
Just Security provides expert legal and policy analysis of terrorism, counterterrorism, and domestic and international violent extremism.
2,223 Articles
More Executive-Minded than the Executive
The English judiciary continues to show its habit of subservience to the government on security matters. In August 2013, David Miranda, who was carrying a hard disk with files…
Al Darbi Pleads Guilty but Questions Remain [UPDATED re AE168]
In news today from the military commissions in Guantanamo Bay, Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al Darbi pled guilty to charges brought against him—charges which arose from his role…
The al Iraqi Case and the Future of Military Commissions
This morning’s New York Times features a story by Charlie Savage about yesterday’s addition of a conspiracy charge to the pending military commission proceeding at…
Benghazi Oversight: What New Congressional Reports Tell Us about Committee Clients
This week, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) issued a 31-page majority interim report on the September 11-12, 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya. The HASC…
Do “Extrajudicial Releases” of Afghan Detainees Violate International Law?: The Missing Legal Arguments
Today’s release of detainees by Afghan authorities, from the Parwan detention facility near Bagram airfield, has met with strong responses by the US embassy in Kabul (here) and…
The True Significance of Judge Tatel’s Opinion in the Force-Feeding Appeal
As Wells already flagged over at Lawfare, the D.C. Circuit decided Aamer v. Obama this morning — the effort by some of the Guantánamo detainees to challenge the force-feeding…
What the No Fly List Teaches Us About Big Data
Shirin beat me to the punch in her excellent discussion of the court’s order in the first-ever no fly list case to be decided on the merits (an issue I previously discussed here).…
A Terrorist Watchlist Error Revealed
Last month, a federal district court for the very first time ordered the government to disclose an individual’s status on the terrorist watchlist. Jennifer Daskal described…
An al Qaeda Armed Conflict with France or Malaysia?: The Legal Question at the Heart of the al Darbi Case
Yesterday the Acting Convening Authority of the GTMO Military Commissions, Navy General Counsel Paul Oostburg Sanz, referred charges against Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al Darbi,…
House Committee on Foreign Affairs Hearing on “Al-Qaeda’s Resurgence in Iraq”
Yesterday was a busy day on Capitol Hill for those interested in various facets of U.S. national security policy with several hearings relevant to Just Security readers. Today…
A Reply to Gabor Rona on “Extrajudicial Release” in Afghanistan
In his post “Extrajudicial Release: A New Rule-of-Law Problem?” Gabor Rona rightly criticizes U.S. officials’ use of the term “extrajudicial release.” It is a troubling…
“Associated Forces” has a legal meaning . . . but it’s not “every group that calls itself al Qaeda”
Daphne reports that at a House Armed Services hearing today, Christopher Swift of the UVa Center for National Security Law emphasized that “the United States has to stop…