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The President’s Speech, Al Qaeda and the Legal Challenge of the Future
One of the most striking features of President Obama’s 28 May 2014 commencement address at West Point was its “turning the page” theme. The speech sought to look at the major…
Is Snowden Obliged to Accept Punishment?
This is Secretary of State John Kerry’s answer, given May 28 on CBS This Morning: “He should man up, come back to the United States. If he has a complaint about what’s…
Force Feeding at Guantanamo and Judge Gladys Kessler
In his commencement address at West Point on May 28, President Obama said, “What makes [America] exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law,…
Targeting Transparency: A Call for DoD to Automatically Release Investigations of Civilian Casualties in Armed Conflict
There has been much discussion on the lack of demonstrable government follow through after President Obama’s 2013 claims of increased transparency of US lethal targeting of suspected…
Taking on “Killer Robots”
New weapons that could revolutionize killing are on the horizon. Lethal autonomous weapons systems, also called fully autonomous weapons or “killer robots,” would go beyond…
David Barron and the OTHER missing memos
David Barron was just confirmed to the First Circuit. To secure that vote, the Administration announced it would not appeal the Second Circuit’s order to turn over a redacted…
Summary of Key Developments from Yesterday’s SFRC Hearing
[Editor’s Note: Nathalie Weizmann, an Associate Research Scholar and Senior Director of the Counterterrorism and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights…
Why We Can’t Support the New USA FREEDOM Act
[Editor’s Note: Just Security has been closely following the congressional proposals, including the USA FREEDOM Act, introduced in recent months aimed to curb the administration’s surveillance authorities.…
Serdar Mohammed: A View onto U.S. Detentions
[Editor’s Note: This post is part of a“mini forum” hosted by Just Security that analyzes different elements of the judgment in Serdar Mohammed v. Secretary of State for…
Crowdsourcing Intelligence – Putting Smart Phones to Good Use
It is painfully clear that there are vast reservoirs of useful, untapped information in the hands of individuals across the world who are already tethered to the digital environment. …
Does IHL Need Human Rights Law?: The Curious Case of NIAC Detention
As Ryan noted last week, the United Kingdom’s High Court ruled in Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defense that the United Kingdom’s 110-day detention of a suspected Taliban…
Terrorist Watchlists and the Myth of Individual Suspicion
Jen Daskal commented last week on the revelation of a secret exception to the “reasonable suspicion” standard for adding people to the terrorist watchlist. I want to raise…