Department of Justice (DOJ)
353 Articles
The Government Should Stop Rewarding Bad Policies for Police Body Cameras
Body cameras have major potential to increase police accountability. However, without informed policies governing their use, they might not only fail in this goal, they could actually…
Power Wars Symposium: The Powers Wars Debate and the Question of the Role of the Lawyer in Crisis
Editor’s Note: This is the latest entry in a symposium Just Security is hosting in conjunction with the recent release of Power Wars: Inside Obama’s Post-9/11 Presidency…
Lawyering in Secret and the Government’s FOIA Bogeyman
Last week, in Washington, the Central Intelligence Agency’s top lawyer aired a pointed complaint — or was it a warning? — that has been bubbling about for some time. At an…
Secret Law Isn’t the Public’s Fault
Officials in this administration have a funny way of blaming the victim. Did the CIA spy on Senate intelligence committee staffers who were investigating the agency’s torture…
After the NDAA Veto: Now What?
This time, he’s serious. After all these years of unexecuted veto threats, on October 22, 2015, President Obama finally vetoed the $612 billion National Defense and Authorization…
There’s No Reason to Hide the Amount of Secret Law
Last week, President Obama announced a new policy that would allow private parties to pay ransoms to hostage takers. The policy was established through an executive order and an…
DOJ Guidance on Cybersecurity Carrots and Sticks
In a speech yesterday to the annual Cybersecurity Law Institute, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell showed how far the Department of Justice has come in its dealings with…
Has the Gov’t Under-Charged an al-Qaeda Recruit?: The Ohio case of Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud
An important criminal charge is conspicuously absent in the Indictment of Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, who is reportedly “the first American accused of returning from Syria with…
Guest Post: Torture is Still on the Table
The recent Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA interrogations is a parade of horribles. Detainees by the dozen arrested wrongfully and later released, including innocent…
Why the immigration initiative has nothing to do with assertions of executive constitutional power
My quick take here, dispelling some of the more common misunderstandings about the legal bases of the Executive’s new immigration policies.
Key Government Legal Offices Need Permanent Leadership
The Obama administration is confronting a range of foreign crises. Options for responding will continue to present difficult questions of both domestic and international law. And…
Executive Order 12333, Notice, and the Due Process Rights of Criminal Defendants
In a world of electronic surveillance and secret searches, notice is more essential than ever. Notice allows criminal defendants to test whether the government’s evidence was,…