National and International Security

Since U.S. forces started taking alleged terrorists to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the task of crafting American detention policy has migrated decisively from the executive branch to federal judges. These judges, not experts in terrorism or national security and not politically accountable to the electorate, inherited this responsibility because of the Supreme Court's intervention in detention policy. Over time they maintained it because legislative and executive officials of both political parties refused to craft a comprehensive legislative approach to this novel set of problems that cries out for decisive lawmaking.

President Obama has nominated Paul L. Oostburg Sanz ’99 to be general counsel of the Navy, and Solomon B. Watson IV ’71 as general counsel of the Army.

An estimated 400 Harvard Law School students, faculty and staff gathered in Pound Hall for a “Thanksgiving for the Troops” on November 18, raising money and collecting items for soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reasonable minds can disagree about Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 perpetrators in a Manhattan federal court. But some prominent criticisms are exaggerated, and others place undue faith in military commissions as an alternative to civilian trials.

Experts on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and veterans who served under it drew a-standing-room-only crowd at Harvard Law School last week, during a panel discussion sponsored by the student organization Lambda and moderated by Dean Martha Minow.

Camp Julien is surrounded by reminders of Afghanistan’s past. The coalition military base--which sits in the hills south of Kabul, just high enough to rise above the thick cloud of smog that perpetually blankets the city--is flanked by two European-style palaces built in the 1920s by the modernizing King Amanullah. Home to Soviet troops and mujahedin during the past decades of war, the now-crumbling palaces are littered with bullet holes and decorated with graffiti in multiple languages. Uphill from Julien is the old Russian officers’ club, dating from the Soviet invasion and featuring a recently refilled swimming pool that overlooks the southern half of the city. The pool is said to have been the site of executions in the 1990s; the condemned were apparently shot off the diving board.

The following op-ed by Lecturer on Law Ganesh Sitaraman ’08, “The land of 10,000 wars,” appeared in the August 17, 2009, edition of the New York Times.

For the last four years, Juan Zarate ’97 has not gotten very much sleep. As the deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, Zarate spent countless hours poring over the National Counterterrorism Center’s threat matrix.

The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith, “Defend America, one laptop at a time,” appeared in the July 1, 2009, edition of the New York Times.

The following op-ed “Will Obama Follow Bush Or FDR?” by HLS Professor Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, appeared in the June 29 issue of The Washington Post. Goldsmith served as an assistant attorney general in the Bush administration and is the author of “The Terror Presidency.” Wittes is the author of “Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror.” Both are members of the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law.

William A. Gunn ’86, a retired Air Force colonel, has been sworn in as general counsel of the Department of Veterans Affairs.  He was recently confirmed by the Senate.  Prior to his confirmation, he had a private practice in northern Virginia representing military members and veterans.

In a May 31, 2009 Washington Post op-ed, HLS Professor Jack Goldsmith writes, “The revelation last weekend that the United States is increasingly using foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain terrorist suspects points up an uncomfortable truth about the war against Islamist terrorists. Demands to raise legal standards for terrorist suspects in one arena often lead to compensating tactics in another arena that leave suspects (and, sometimes, innocent civilians) worse off.”

In his op-ed “The Cheney Fallacy,” HLS Professor Jack Goldsmith discusses why he believes Barack Obama is waging a more effective war on terror than George W. Bush. The op-ed was published in the May 18, 2009, issue of The New Republic. Goldsmith, a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law, was an assistant attorney general in the Bush administration and is the author of “The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration.”

Michael E. Leiter ’00 is currently serving as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He was confirmed by the Senate in June 2008, after serving as acting director in the Bush administration since 2007. In January, President Obama ’91 announced that Leiter would remain in his post as part of the new administration’s intelligence team.

Stephen Preston ’83 has been nominated to be the Central Intelligence Agency’s next general counsel. He is currently a partner and co-chair of the Defense, National Security, and Government Contracts Practice Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Washington, DC.

At this year’s annual Harvard Law School Clinical Forum, Scott Glick, Deputy Chief of Counterterrorism in the National Security Division of the US Department of Justice, talked to students about a unique externship program in which they can work with the department’s counterterrorism prosecutors on cases of critical national importance.

Rear Admiral William D. Baumgartner ’94 gave the closing remarks at the Harvard National Security and Law Association symposium on immigration and national security on April 3. His talk capped a day of panel discussions on immigration reform, border security and international cooperation and information sharing.

President Barack Obama ’91 has reappointed Stuart A. Levey ‘89 as undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence. 

Dean of Yale Law School Harold Hongju Koh ’80 has been named legal adviser of the U.S. Department of State, President Barack Obama ’91 has announced. Kate Stith ’77 has been appointed acting dean of Yale Law School.

Has the Obama administration changed the legal rules for detaining suspects in the war on terrorism, or is it continuing in the footsteps of the Bush administration? HLS Professor Noah Feldman explores the question in an op-ed, “A Prison of Words,” that appeared in the March 19 edition of The New York Times.

Juliette Kayyem ’95 will be assistant secretary for intergovernmental programs in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Janet Napolitano announced today. In her new role, Kayyem will coordinate the department’s efforts with state, local, tribal, and territorial governments.