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Waging War Within The Constitution, Alberto R. Gonzales

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the United States' response to the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al Qaeda from my perspective as Counsel to the President and then later as Attorney General. It reviews the actions of government lawyers and how federal courts have judged the implementation of U.S. government policy. It explains that U.S. government officials quickly understood that our nation was confronted with a non-state enemy fighting an unconventional war. This forced us to make a number of difficult decisions quickly about how best to fight this threat in a manner consistent with the United States' domestic and international legal …