National Security Law Commons^™

Not Reading Means Losing: The National Security Cost Of Ignoring Osama Bin Laden's Words, Michael Scheuer

William Mitchell Law Review

No abstract provided.

International Law In Crisis: Piracy Off The Coast Of Somalia, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The rise of piracy off the coast of Somalia over the last five years has been spectacular, amounting to a true crisis in international law. During the first six months of 2011, Somali pirates attacked 163 ships and took 361 sailors hostage. As of June 30, 2011, Somali pirates were holding 20 ships and 420 crew members, demanding millions of dollars in ransom for their release. Moreover, pirates have been attacking larger ships, such as oil tankers, and using more potent weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons. Pirates have also been attacking during monsoon season, an otherwise risky …

Searching For Effective And Constitutional Responses To Homegrown Terrorists, Barbara L. Mcquade

Articles

Thank you, Brad, and thank you to the Law Review for inviting me here today. Protecting national security while honoring civil liberties is the greatest challenge of our generation. As a prosecutor, I am charged with protecting national security, and I understand the importance of protecting the public from acts of terrorism. But prosecutors are also sworn to uphold the Constitution. In fact, at the U.S. Attorney's Office, we are also charged with prosecuting violations of civil rights. So in every case, we understand how important it is to protect people's constitutional rights, such as First Amendment rights to free …

Responses To The Ten Questions, Aziz Rana

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This essay responds to a question posed by the William Mitchell Law Review for its annual national security issue: Has Obama Improved Bush's National Security Policies? I maintain that Obama Administration practices have been marked by striking continuities with those of the previous Administration. I then attempt to explain these continuities by discussing how American policymakers across the political spectrum share basic assumptions about the concept of national security and the need for an aggressive and interventionist foreign policy.

Murder And Martial Justice: Spying And Retribution In Wwii America. By Meredith Lentz Adams (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2011), Millard E. Moon Ed.D.

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

Restricted Access To Justice For Canadians Mistreated Abroad: Abdelrazik V. Canada (Re: Interim Costs), Sean Rehaag

All Papers

Abousfian Abdelrazik is a Canadian citizen who, after having his name added to various anti-terrorism lists, and after being tortured by Sudanese officials, found himself unable to return home from Sudan largely because of Canadian government actions. Abdelrazik sought to challenge the constitutionality of these restrictions on his ability to return to Canada. However, he had no money and no means of support, as he was unable to leave a Canadian embassy in Sudan where he had sought refuge to avoid further torture by Sudanese officials. He therefore brought a motion for interim costs in Canada’s Federal Court. If granted, …

Disarming Youth Combatants: Mitigating Youth Radicalization And Violent Extremism, Alpaslan Özerdem, Sukanya Podder

Journal of Strategic Security

In the complex of motivating variables that define the push and pull factors behind recruitment and participation in civil conflict, "radicalization"—or "violent extremism"—is not conceived as a very strong motive, as is the case with studies on terrorism. As part of disarming youth combatants,the linkages between reintegration outcomes and possible rerecruitment into radical and extremist violence must be better understood to mitigate such risks. In our analysis, the policies guiding reintegration of child soldiers and youth should be better attuned to the relationship between recruitment motivations and reintegration outcomes, and must be approached from a political lens rather than a …

Radicalism Within The Context Of Social Movements: Processes And Types, Remy Cross, David A. Snow

Journal of Strategic Security

Drawing on work within the study of social movements and on conversion processes that is relevant to understanding radicalization, as well as on our own relevant research experiences and findings, especially on radicalism in right-wing and left-wing movements, we focus attention on the elements and dynamics of social movements, both intra-movement and extra-movement, that facilitate the grassroots development and maintenance of radical identities and enhance or diminish the prospect of engagement in radical action. In particular, we note the importance of free spaces to associate apart from the reach of control agents and adversaries,the development of affinity groups and a …

Advising Terrorism: Material Support, Safe Harbors, And Freedom Of Speech, Peter Margulies

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Network Accountability For The Domestic Intelligence Apparatus, Frank Pasquale, Danielle Keats Citron

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Cyber-Attacks And The Use Of Force: Back To The Future Of Article 2(4), Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

This Article makes two overarching arguments. First, strategy is a major driver of legal evolution. Most scholarship and commentary on cyber-attacks capture only one dimension of this point, focusing on how international law might be interpreted or amended to take account of new technologies and threats. The focus here, however, is on the dynamic interplay of law and strategy – strategy generates reappraisal and revision of law, while law itself shapes strategy – and the moves and countermoves among actors with varying interests, capabilities, and vulnerabilities. The purpose is not to come down in favor of one legal interpretation or …

Cyber Attacks As "Force" Under Un Charter Article 2(4), Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

In a 2010 article in Foreign Affairs, Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn revealed that in 2008 the Department of Defense suffered "the most significant breach of U.S. military computers ever" when a flash drive inserted into a US military laptop surreptitiously introduced malicious software into US Central Command's classified and unclassified computer systems. Lynn explains that the US government is developing defensive systems to protect military and civilian electronic infrastructure from intrusions and, potentially worse, disruptions and destruction, and it is developing its own cyber-strategy "to defend the United States in the digital age."

To what extent is …

Open Service And Our Allies: A Report On The Inclusion Of Openly Gay And Lesbian Servicemembers In U. S. Allies' Armed Forces, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of the Obama Administration's pledge to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the United States, the Columbia Law School Sexuality & Gender Law Clinic undertook a review of how allies of the United States moved from a policy of banning gay and lesbian servicemembers from serving in the armed forces to a policy of allowing these servicemembers to serve openly ("open service"). In documenting this review, this report aims to provide information about the decision to implement open service and the mechanics of the transition to open service in Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom. In …

Disappearing Government Information And The Internet's Public Domain, Susan Nevelow Mart

Publications

This article surveys the types and amounts of information that have been removed from the Internet since September 11th. Information has been removed in the name of national security as well as for reasons of seeming political expediency. After discussing the bases of some of the rationales for removing the information, and the legal underpinnings of continued access, the article suggests several forms of advocacy that could be used to return the information to the public's domain.

An Unintended Casualty Of The War On Terror, Aya Gruber

Publications

As the dust of the Bush administration's war on terror settles, casualties are starting to appear on the legal battlefield. The United States' human rights reputation and the Supreme Court's international influence lay wounded in the wake of U.S. policies that flouted international law by advocating torture, suborning indefinite detention, and erecting irregular tribunals. Through declining citation, the courts of the world are telling the Supreme Court that if it does not respect international and foreign law, international and foreign courts will not respect it. Some might object that the Supreme Court should not be lumped with the Bush administration …

Under Attack: Terrorism Risk Insurance Regulation, Alexia Brunet Marks

Publications

Scholarly debates over the September 11th attacks focus predominantly on high-profile issues, such as torture, preventive detention, interrogation, privacy, and surveillance. These debates have overshadowed the equally important and far-reaching issue of terrorism risk insurance, which not only involves billions of dollars, but provides powerful incentives to keep us safe. Developing a sound understanding of the market for terrorism risk insurance is essential to guiding the difficult determination of the appropriate balance between private and public responsibility for preventing and (when necessary) compensating for terrorism.

The attacks of September 11th represented one of the costliest insurance events in American history. …

A Hypothetical Postulate For The Polemic Of Extraordinary Rendition Vis-A-Vis The Paradigm Of Asymmetric Warfare, John C. Duncan, Jr.

Journal Publications

This article presents a controversial hypothetical approach to a side of the polemic regarding extraordinary rendition. War is not always controlled by rules, fairness, or ethics. The United States would prefer the foregoing if forced to go to war, but the enemy may not follow the same approach. As a result, the United States becomes hampered by unilaterally self-imposed rules and standards. Conceivably, we could fail to achieve our military objective because of the enemy's adherence to a very different approach and beliefs regarding warfare. Were we to have the privilege of fighting under relatively similar rules with the other …

Protecting Information Privacy, Charles D. Raab, Benjamin J. Goold

All Faculty Publications

This report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (the Commission) examines the threats to information privacy that have emerged in recent years, focusing on the activities of the state. It argues that current privacy laws and regulation do not adequately uphold human rights, and that fundamental reform is required. It identifies two principal areas of concern: the state’s handling of personal data, and the use of surveillance by public bodies. The central finding of this report is that the existing approach to the protection of information privacy in the UK is fundamentally flawed, and that there is a pressing …

The Self-Judging Wto Security Exception, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

This Article analyzes the WTO security exception, with a particular focus on State practice. In the absence of any GATT or WTO jurisprudence, State practice affords the best vehicle to understand the meaning of Article XXI. In the few instances when invocation of the security exception has been challenged, State practice suggests that the security exception is not judicially reviewable.

A critical question emerges from this analysis of State practice. If a Member State can avoid WTO obligations through a self-judging security exception, what is to prevent bad faith invocations? The WTO regime includes a number of devices to address …

The Extraordinary Mrs. Shipley: How The United States Controlled International Travel Before The Age Of Terrorism, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Terrorist watchlists used to restrict travel into and out of the United States owe their conceptual origins to Mrs. Ruth B. Shipley, the Chief of the State Department’s Passport Division from 1928 to 1955. Mrs. Shipley was one of the most powerful people in the federal government for almost thirty years, but she is virtually unknown today. She had the unreviewable discretion to determine who could leave the United States, for how long, and under what conditions.

This article examines how Mrs. Shipley exercised her power through a detailed study of original documents obtained from the National Archives. It then …