Law Commons^™

Ordered Liberty And The Homeland Security Mission, James E. Baker

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper will start with a brief discussion of the terrorism threat because the threat remains predicate for any serious discussion of where we draw our legal lines. I will then suggest a legal model for looking at questions of homeland security called ordered liberty. The model is simple. First, given the nature of the threat, the executive must have broad and flexible authority to detect and respond to terrorism-–to provide for our physical security. Second, the sine qua non for such authority is meaningful oversight. Oversight means the considered application of constitutional structure, executive process, legal substance, and relevant …

When Lawyers Advise Presidents In Wartime: Kosovo And The Law Of Armed Conflict, James E. Baker

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The events of September 11 changed how we perceive national security as a society, a government, and as individuals. This is as true of national security specialists, who have been aware that America has been at war with terrorism sine at least the 1990s, as it is for those whose sense of geographic security was shattered in New York and Washington. There is talk of “new war” and “new rules,” and concern that we not apply twentieth-century lessons to a twenty-first-century war.

Over time, September 11 and its aftermath will test our interpretation and application of domestic law. It may …