Law Commons^™

The World Of Private Terrorism Litigation, Maryam Jamshidi

UF Law Faculty Publications

Since 9/11, private litigants have been important players in the “fight” against terrorism. Using several federal tort statutes, these plaintiffs have sued foreign states as well as other parties, like non-governmental charities, financial institutions, and social media companies, for terrorism- related activities. While these private suits are meant to address injuries suffered by plaintiffs or their loved ones, they often reinforce and reflect the U.S. government’s terrorism-related policies, including the racial and religious discrimination endemic to them. Indeed, much like the U.S. government’s criminal prosecutions for terrorism-related activities, private terrorism suits disproportionately implicate Muslim and/or Arab individuals and entities while …

The Discriminatory Executive & The Rule Of Law, Maryam Jamshidi

UF Law Faculty Publications

Today, the executive enjoys unprecedented power, particularly in the area of national security. By and large, this authority is not meaningfully restrained by Congress or the courts. However, some scholars argue that the presidency is still kept in check by the rule of law and politics. According to this view, substantive and procedural laws and internal executive branch rules combine with political efforts by the public, like voting, to hold the President accountable. This Article challenges this view. It argues that the rule of law and politics do not always work together to restrain the executive. Instead, law can sometimes …

A Statutory National Security President, Amy L. Stein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Not all presidential power to address national security threats stems from the Constitution. Some presidential national security powers stem from statute, creating complicated questions about the limits of these powers delegated to the President by Congress. Scholars who have explored ways to achieve the proper balance between responsiveness and accountability have generally focused on the proper degree of deference that courts should provide to the President interpreting statutory provisions, with little confidence in the utility and efficacy of statutory constraints.

This Article counters this narrative by arguing that a key to achieving this balance may lie in such constraints. Instead …

The Climate Crisis Is A Human Security, Not A National Security, Issue, Maryam Jamshidi

UF Law Faculty Publications

Climate change is one of the first times, in recent memory, where public debate about treating an issue as a matter of “national security” has occurred. Many, including members of the grassroots climate change movement, have called for climate change to be treated as a national security issue. While there are a host of good reasons for treating the climate crisis as a security concern, there are equally good reasons to worry about applying the national security label to climate change, which have largely been absent from public debate. For the first time in the legal literature, this Article articulates …

How The War On Terror Is Transforming Private U.S. Law, Maryam Jamshidi

UF Law Faculty Publications

In thinking about the War on Terror’s impact on U.S. law, what most likely comes to mind are its corrosive effects on public law, including criminal law, immigration, and constitutional law. What is less appreciated is whether and how the fight against terrorism has also impacted private law. As this Article demonstrates, the War on Terror has had a negative influence on private law, specifically on torts, where it has upended long-standing norms, much as it has done in the public law context.

Case law construing the private right of action under the Antiterrorism Act of 1992, 18 U.S.C. § …

The Implausibility Of Secrecy, Mark Fenster

UF Law Faculty Publications

Government secrecy frequently fails. Despite the executive branch’s obsessive hoarding of certain kinds of documents and its constitutional authority to do so, recent high-profile events — among them the WikiLeaks episode, the Obama administration’s infamous leak prosecutions, and the widespread disclosure by high-level officials of flattering confidential information to sympathetic reporters — undercut the image of a state that can classify and control its information. The effort to control government information requires human, bureaucratic, technological, and textual mechanisms that regularly founder or collapse in an administrative state, sometimes immediately and sometimes after an interval. Leaks, mistakes, and open sources all …

Disclosure’S Effects: Wikileaks And Transparency, Mark Fenster

UF Law Faculty Publications

Constitutional, criminal, and administrative laws regulating government transparency, and the theories that support them, rest on the assumption that the disclosure of information has transformative effects: disclosure can inform, enlighten, and energize the public, or it can create great harm and stymie government operations. To resolve disputes over difficult cases, transparency laws and theories typically balance disclosure’s beneficial effects against its harmful ones—what I have described as transparency’s balance. WikiLeaks and its vigilante approach to massive document leaks challenge the underlying assumption about disclosure’s effects in two ways. First, WikiLeaks’ ability to receive and distribute leaked information cheaply, quickly, and …

Mission Creep In National Security Law, Fletcher N. Baldwin Jr., Daniel R. Koslosky

UF Law Faculty Publications

Many anti-terrorism measures are enacted with broad public support. There is often a general willingness on the part of the public to accept greater civil liberties deprivations in the face of a specific threat, or otherwise in times of general crisis, than would otherwise be the case. Sweeping anti-terrorism legislation is frequently crafted in reaction to the presence, or perceived presence, of immense, imminent danger. The medium and long-term consequences of the legislation may not fully be comprehended when political leaders and policymakers take swift action in the face strong public pressure in light of a recent terrorist attack or …

Seeing The State: Transparency As Metaphor, Mark Fenster

UF Law Faculty Publications

When applied as a public administrative norm, the term and concept “transparency” has two intertwined meanings. First, it refers to those constitutional and legislative tools that require the government to disclose information in order to inform the public and create a more accountable, responsive state. Second, it operates as a metaphor that identifies and decries the distance between the public and the state, and that drives and shapes the desire for a more perfect democratic order. Viewed together, these two meanings both demand efforts to impose legal obligations on the state to be “open” and suggest that such efforts are …

Developing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy And International Law: The Approach Of The Obama Administration, Winston P. Nagan, Erin K. Slemmens

UF Law Faculty Publications

Prior U.S. presidential administrations have developed and adhered to the nuclear weapons policy of nuclear deterrence. This policy was largely conditioned by the Cold War and the fact that the U.S. Cold War adversary was a major threat to U.S. security because of its nuclear capability. The policy of nuclear deterrence worked on the principle of mutually assured destruction. It appears to have had the effect of discouraging recourse to nuclear weapons as instruments of war. It has also been generally perceived as a position that has an uneasy relationship with conventional international law. Even before entering office, President Obama …

National Security Policy And Ratification Of The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Winston P. Nagan, Erin K. Slemmens

UF Law Faculty Publications

While no legal obstacles prevent the U.S. Senate's reconsideration of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), lingering doubts (about the effectiveness of the international treaty) and partisan politics (founded upon outdated ideologies of national sovereignty) may again foreclose the opportunity for the United States to lead a just and thorough regime of international arms control. By closely examining the U.S. Senate's previous rejection (and, by implication, the nation's non-ratification) of the CTBT, we assess the political process that failed to realize the security values now imperative to U.S. national defense. To this appraisal, we join analysis of the contemporary law, policy, …

The Bush Administration's Terrorist Surveillance Program And The Fourth Amendment's Warrant Requirement: Lessons From Justice Powell And The Keith Case, Tracey Maclin

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article was written for a symposium issue of the University of California at Davis Law Review on the fortieth anniversary of Katz v. United States. The article analyzes the Bush Administration's claim that the President has the authority to order warrant less electronic surveillance of communications between American citizens and persons abroad suspected of having connections with foreign terrorists groups. When evaluating this claim, my article focuses on a case that could be characterized as more constitutionally robust and stronger Katz. That case is United States v. United States District Court, also known as Keith. The Keith ruling held …

Down To The Wire: Assessing The Constitutionality Of The National Security Agency's Warrantless Wiretapping Program: Exit The Rule Of Law, Fletcher N. Baldwin Jr., Robert B. Shaw

UF Law Faculty Publications

The article discusses the constitutionality of warrantless wiretapping surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) on U.S. citizens. The wiretapping program existed weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, on the justification that Congress authorized the president to wiretap U.S. citizens without a warrant, and that the president had inherent authority as commander-in-chief. But it is argued that Congress did not expressly authorize the president to conduct warrantless wiretapping and that he does not have such inherent authority.

We intend this Article to be a commentary on the constitutionality of the NSA wiretapping program solely as it relates to the …

Terrorism Risk In A Post-9/11 Economy: The Convergence Of Capital Markets, Insurance, And Government Action, Robert J. Rhee

UF Law Faculty Publications

September 11 changed the American economy and the global insurance market. The insurance industry no longer covers terrorism risk for "free." The traditional insurance mechanism alone cannot spread the risk of repeated catastrophic losses. Beyond the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 lingers the questions of a longterm solution and government's role therein. Government can assume different roles: reinsurer, wealth (re)distributor, regulator, or a combination thereof. This article suggests that the government should foster a regulatory and tax environment in which the private sector can develop a capital market solution for terrorism risk. Securitization is an alternative to reinsurance and …

Patriotism, Nationalism, And The War On Terror: A Mild Plea In Avoidance, Winston P. Nagan, Craig Hammer

UF Law Faculty Publications

Professor Viet Dinh, a major drafter of and architectural influence upon the USA PATRIOT Act, provides an indirect scholarly justification for the far-reaching powers of the act in his article, Nationalism in the Age of Terror. Part II of this Commentary begins by exploring the ostensible underpinnings of Dinh's article by examining his understanding of nationalism. Part III explains why crony nationalism is not the best defense against global terrorism. Part IV then analyzes some significant United States foreign policy undertakings that have arguably negatively affected United States national security. Finally, in Part V we conclude by gleaning lessons from …

The New Bush National Security Doctrine And The Rule Of Law, Winston P. Nagan, Craig Hammer

UF Law Faculty Publications

The war on terrorism has dramatically impacted the direction of U.S. foreign policy, as well as the strategic and tactical operations for securing its objectives. Three questions central to U.S. foreign relations are whether these interests are consistent with international law; whether the United States seeks to modify international law to secure its interests; or whether foreign policy makers see the need to significantly change international legal standards. The aftermath of the of the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States triggered an intuitive reaction that the normal rules of restraint embodied in international law might no longer …

Restricting The Flow Of Funds From U.S. Charities To International Terrorist Organizations - A Proposal, Mindy Herzfeld

UF Law Faculty Publications

This paper argues that the Internal Revenue Service should take a more active stance in denying tax exemption to organizations that finance terrorist activities abroad. The paper explores the well-established principle that organizations granted U.S. tax-exemption must act consistently with national public policy, and the application of that principle to charitable organizations that send monies overseas. To foster that policy, the Service should apply special guidelines to charitable organizations that channel contributions abroad, similar to the special guidelines in effect for tax-exempt private schools. In addition, legislative changes should be made to advance such a goal in order to provide …

Latcritical Perspectives: Individual Liberties, State Security, And The War On Terrorism, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This overview of the events of September 11 and the series of domestic and international responses thereto--legal, military, and political--intertwine the global and the local, effectively glocalizing terror. Foreign forces united to effect a military strike against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Captives from numerous countries are held by the U.S. military on a base in Cuba. Assets have been frozen in financial institutions around the world. The global and local lines are blurred or trespassed, depending on one's point of view, by collective enforcement against terror as well as by unilateral actions that, while seeking to bring …