Litigation
855 Articles
Meshal: The Last, Best Hope for National Security Bivens Claims?
Last Friday, Judge Sullivan (D.D.C.) dismissed Meshal v. Higgenbotham, a long-outstanding Bivens suit brought by a U.S. citizen who alleged that, while travelling in the Horn…
U.S. Captures Suspected Benghazi “Ringleader” Ahmed abu Khattalah
The breaking news this morning is that the U.S. Special Ops forces have captured Ahmed Abu Khattala, a suspected ringleader of the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. Government…
A Second Chance for the Obama Administration on “Battlefield” Contractor Liability
One of the stranger briefs filed by the Office of the Solicitor General during the Obama Administration was the brief filed in response to the Supreme Court’s request (“CVSG”)…
Stepping back from the precipice in Bond
[Also posted on Opinio Juris.] The Supreme Court has finally issued its decision in United States v. Bond. Although it appeared the Court might be on the brink of a momentous…
FAA Section 702 developments
Back in February, I posted about the first brief on the merits challenging the constitutionality of Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, in the criminal case against…
Lavabit’s Owner Goes Public: His Legal Ordeal Makes For Bad Law
I’ve written several times here about the Department of Justice’s efforts to force secure email provider Lavabit to turn over its encryption keys. The DOJ wanted transactional…
United States War Crimes Statute & Sri Lanka
Ryan Goodman’s post on Sri Lanka calls for the prosecution under U.S. law of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In prior posts, we’ve discussed the way in which international crimes (including…
The Limits of the Logic that the Power to Kill includes the Power to Detain
I will soon have a longer post on the UK High Court judgment in Mohammed v. Ministry of Defense, but here I want to consider a specific argument that implicates the authority of…
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…
The “Culture of Misinformation” and the Government’s Representations to the Supreme Court in Clapper
In yesterday’s New York Times, Charlie Savage had a new installment in his series about the government’s representations (and misrepresentations) in Clapper v. Amnesty, a…
Assessing Serdar Mohammed through the Prism of Derogation and Detention
Last week the High Court of England and Wales, per Mr Justice Leggatt, delivered a comprehensive judgment in Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defence [2014] EWHC 1369 (QB). The case…
Letter to the Editor from Gabor Rona, Mohammed v. Ministry Defense and the ICRC’s Position
I don’t know if the ICRC will make any attempt to clarify its position, but I think the Court in Serdar Mohammed is wrong to suggest that the ICRC believes there is inherent…