Federal Courts
186 Articles
Transparency, Review, and Relief: The Far-Reaching Implications of the Kunduz Report
Thus far, many discussions of the US military’s release of a 120-page detailed report of the lawfulness of its attack on the Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) facility in Kunduz,…
Fourth Circuit To Hear Abu Ghraib Political Question Doctrine Appeal
Tomorrow morning, an (as-yet-unannounced) panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will hear the (third!) appeal in Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology, Inc.,…
Are US Courts Going Dark?
Now that the cell phones in San Bernardino and Brooklyn have been unlocked (no thanks to Apple), FBI warnings about “going dark” in the face of advancing digital encryption…
One-and-a-Half Cheers for Salim v. Mitchell
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…
FOIA Litigation Has Its Own Rules, But We Deserve Better
When will federal judges start acting more like State Department flacks? It’s a question worth thinking about during Sunshine Week. For those of us who regularly litigate national…
DOJ’s appeal to district court judge from Magistrate Orenstein’s rejection of Apple All Writs Act order
is here; I have not yet read it. It will be considered by Judge Margo Brodie.
A Readers’ Guide to the Apple All Writs Act Cases
The last few weeks and months have been awash in media coverage of two cases before magistrate judges involving the federal government seeking to use the All Writs Act to compel…
[UPDATED] Magistrate Judge Orenstein’s order in the EDNY, denying DOJ’s All Writs Act request . . .
. . . is here. The order that the government requested the judge to issue would have required Apple to bypass the passcode security on an iPhone 5s (which used Apple’s iOS…
A FOIA Circuit Split That the Supreme Court Needs To Resolve
On Friday, January 8, the Supreme Court will consider a petition for certiorari in EPIC v. DHS, a lawsuit by the Electronic Privacy and Information Center (EPIC) under the Freedom…
Why should the Constitution require Article III courts for criminal trials of federal offenses?
[UPDATED for clarification.] Many thanks to Charlie Dunlap for his thoughtful response to my posts (here and here) about al-Bahlul and the Article III question in that case. Our…
Military Commissions and Fairness
My friend Marty Lederman provides a lot of fascinating commentary about the en banc rehearing in the Al-Bahlul case (here and here). I’d like to focus on just part of Marty’s…
Second Circuit Denies Rehearing En Banc in Turkmen; Is Supreme Court Next?
I’ve written before both here and at MSNBC about the Second Circuit’s immensely significant June 17 decision in Turkmen v. Hasty, which recognized a cause of action…