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February 23, 2017 VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION the Honorable
February 23, 2017 VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION The Honorable Jeff Sessions Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530 Dear Attorney General Sessions: In the midst of ongoing, fast-paced litigation challenging Executive Order 13769, titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” Acting Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Department of Justice not to defend the Order. In a number of those cases, Justice Department attorneys had only a few days to draft briefs or prepare for hearings at the time of Ms. Yates’ order to stop working on them. Given the very short timeframe the Department attorneys had, Ms. Yates’ instruction to them not to defend the Executive Order meaningfully reduced their preparation time, even though she was fired late on the night of January 30. As a result, the Department attorneys were not as prepared to defend the Executive Order in court as they would have been without Ms. Yates’ interference. For example, just a few days later at the hearing on the state of Washington’s motion for a temporary restraining order, the Department attorneys did not have relevant factual information on hand to answer the judge’s question about the number of terrorism-related arrests of nationals from the countries at issue in the Executive Order. As a result, they were unable to enter facts into the record to dispute the judge’s false claim that there had been none. This likely affected his decision to grant the motion for a temporary restraining order. In the appeal on that issue, the importance of that omission became clear, and was part of the basis of the appeals court’s ruling against the President. -
The First Amendment, the Public-Private Distinction, and Nongovernmental Suppression of Wartime Political Debate Gregory P
Working Paper Series Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Year 2004 The First Amendment, The Public-Private Distinction, and Nongovernmental Suppression of Wartime Political Debate Gregory P. Magarian Villanova University School of Law, [email protected] This paper is posted at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository. http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/wps/art6 THE FIRST AMENDMENT, THE PUBLIC -PRIVA TE DISTINCTION, AND NONGOVERNMENTAL SUPPRESSION OF WARTIME POLITICAL DEBATE 1 BY GREGORY P. MAGARIAN DRAFT 5-12-04 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1 I. CONFRONTING NONGOVERNMENTAL CENSORSHIP OF POLITICAL DEBATE IN WARTIME .................. 5 A. The Value and Vulnerability of Wartime Political Debate ........................................................................... 5 1. The Historical Vulnerability of Wartime Political Debate to Nongovernmental Suppression ....................................................................... 5 2. The Public Rights Theory of Expressive Freedom and the Necessity of Robust Political Debate for Democratic Self -Government........................ 11 B. Nongovernmental Censorship of Political Speech During the “War on Terrorism” ............................................... 18 1. Misinformation and Suppression of Information by News Media ............................................ 19 2. Exclusions of Political Speakers from Privately Owned Public Spaces. -
Minority Views
MINORITY VIEWS The Minority Members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 26, 2018 submit the following Minority Views to the Majority-produced "Repo11 on Russian Active Measures, March 22, 2018." Devin Nunes, California, CMAtRMAN K. Mich.J OI Conaw ay, Toxas Pe1 or T. King. New York F,ank A. LoBiondo, N ew Jersey Thom.is J. Roonev. Florida UNCLASSIFIED Ileana ROS·l chtinon, Florida HVC- 304, THE CAPITOL Michnel R. Turner, Ohio Brad R. Wons1 rup. Ohio U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, DC 20515 Ou is S1cwart. U1ah (202) 225-4121 Rick Cr.,w ford, Arka nsas P ERMANENT SELECT C OMMITTEE Trey Gowdy, South Carolina 0A~lON NELSON Ellsr. M . S1nfn11ik, Nnw York ON INTELLIGENCE SrAFf. D IREC f()ti Wi ll Hurd, Tcxa~ T11\'10l !IV s. 8 £.R(.REE N At1am 8 . Schiff, Cohforn1a , M tNORllV STAFF OtR ECToq RANKIN G M EMtlER Jorncs A. Himes, Connec1icut Terri A. Sewell, AlabJma AndrC Carso n, lncli.1 na Jacki e Speier, Callfomia Mike Quigley, Il linois E,ic Swalwell, California Joilq u1 0 Castro, T exas De nny Huck, Wash ington P::iul D . Ry an, SPCAl([ R or TH( HOUSE Noncv r c1os1. DEMOC 11t.1 1c Lr:.11.orn March 26, 2018 MINORITY VIEWS On March I, 201 7, the House Permanent Select Commiltee on Intelligence (HPSCI) approved a bipartisan "'Scope of In vestigation" to guide the Committee's inquiry into Russia 's interference in the 201 6 U.S. e lection.1 In announc ing these paramete rs for the House of Representatives' onl y authorized investigation into Russia's meddling, the Committee' s leadership pl edged to unde1take a thorough, bipartisan, and independent probe. -
This Is Almost Certainly James Comey's Twitter Account
Log in / GIZMODO DEADSPIN FUSION JALOPNIK JEZEBEL KOTAKU LIFEHACKER THE Sign ROOT up This Is Almost CertainlyVIDEO SPLOID JamesPALEOFUTURE Comey’sIO9 SCIENCE REVIEWS FIELD GUIDE Twitter Account Ashley Feinberg 3/30/17 3:29pm · Filed to: JAMES COMEY 2.8M 675 226 Digital security and its discontents—from Hillary Clinton’s emails to ransomware to Tor hacks—is in many ways one of the chief concerns of the contemporary FBI. So it makes sense that the bureau’s director, James Comey, would dip his toe into the digital torrent with a Twitter account. It also makes sense, given Comey’s high profile, that he would want that Twitter account to be a secret from the world, lest his follows and favs be scrubbed for clues about what the feds are up to. What is somewhat surprising, however, is that it only took me about four hours of sleuthing to find Comey’s account, which is not protected. Last night, at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance leadership dinner, Comey let slip that he has both a secret Twitter and an Instagram account in the course of relating a quick anecdote about one of his daughters. Kevin Rincon Follow @KevRincon Fun fact: #FBI director James #Comey is on twitter & apparently on Instagram with nine followers. 8:11 PM - 29 Mar 2017 150 139 Who am I to say no to a challenge? As far as finding Comey’s Twitter goes, the only hint he offered was the fact that he has “to be on Twitter now,” meaning that the account would likely be relatively new. -
Fight Terror, Not Twitter: Insulating Social Media from Material Support Claims
Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review Volume 37 Number 1 Article 1 Fall 2016 Fight Terror, Not Twitter: Insulating Social Media From Material Support Claims Nina I. Brown Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/elr Part of the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, and the Internet Law Commons Recommended Citation Nina I. Brown, Fight Terror, Not Twitter: Insulating Social Media From Material Support Claims, 37 Loy. L.A. Ent. L. Rev. 1 (2017). Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/elr/vol37/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ELR – BROWN (V4) (DO NOT DELETE) 1/17/2017 5:09 PM FIGHT TERROR, NOT TWITTER: INSULATING SOCIAL MEDIA FROM MATERIAL SUPPORT CLAIMS NINA I. BROWN Social media companies face a new threat: as millions of users around the globe use their platforms to exchange ideas and information, so do terrorists. Terrorist groups, such as ISIS, have capitalized on the ability to spread propaganda, recruit new members, and raise funds through social media at little to no cost. Does it follow that when these terrorists attack, social media is on the hook for civil liability to victims? Recent lawsuits by families of victims killed in terrorist attacks abroad have argued that the proliferation of terrorists on social media—and social media’s reluctance to stop it—violates the Antiterrorism Act. -
Rethinking Gun Violence
UCLA UCLA Public Law & Legal Theory Series Title Rethinking Gun Violence Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3mh6v370 Authors Greenberg, Mark Litman, Harry Publication Date 2010 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Rethinking Gun Violence Mark Greenberg* and Harry Litman** This working paper develops the argument of "Gun Violence and Gun Control" (also posted on SSRN), a short piece commissioned by the London Review of Books. We decided not to publish either paper, in part because we felt there were empirical issues that we were not in a position to assess. We welcome comments on either paper. The gun policy debate in the United States is in sorry shape. To exaggerate only slightly, the debate proceeds as if there were only two possible positions: for guns or against them. Both sides wave the banner of crime prevention. Fundamentally, however, their fight is not a considered argument over how best to reduce crime, but a clash between those who hate guns and those who love them. Guns for the anti-gun camp represent lawlessness, gangs, drug wars, vigilantes, and survivalist, federal government-hating fanatics. For the pro-gun side, guns are a symbol of self-reliance, the frontier spirit, individualism, resistance to tyranny. The passion of this symbolic fight over guns has greatly infected, if not overwhelmed, serious empirical analysis of how to reduce crime. Instead of a careful discussion of the efficacy and costs of possible gun-violence reduction measures, much of the debate in the United States takes the form of a partisan shouting match over whether we should have more guns or fewer guns. -
The Contributions of the Obama Administration to the Practice and Theory of International Law
\\jciprod01\productn\H\HLI\57-2\HLI205.txt unknown Seq: 1 14-OCT-16 13:24 Volume 57, Number 2, Spring 2016 The Contributions of the Obama Administration to the Practice and Theory of International Law Jack Goldsmith* My aim in this essay is to give a tour of the horizon of the Obama admin- istration’s international law record in order to identify the distinctiveness of its approach and to tie it in to some general themes in international and foreign relations law. Due to his upbringing and education, Barack Obama came to the Presi- dency with a cosmopolitan outlook and an informed commitment to inter- national law. This attitude differed sharply from his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was suspicious of international law and generally viewed it as an obstacle to the exercise of American power. By contrast, Obama devoted a chapter of his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope to international relations and made plain that he understood international law intimately and viewed it as a constructive force in international relations.1 He criticized the view that “international law [was] an encroachment on American sovereignty [and] a foolish constraint on America’s ability to impose its will around the world”—a position that Obama associated with Henry Cabot Lodge, but one that might also describe the early Bush administration.2 And Obama argued it was “in America’s interest to work with other countries to build up international institutions and promote international norms . because the more international norms were reinforced and the more America sig- naled a willingness to show restraint in the exercise of its power, the fewer the number of conflicts that would arise.”3 On the campaign trail Obama gave voice to this attitude when he criticized the Bush administration for its weak compliance with U.S. -
Attorney General Barr Letter on Mueller Report, LAWFARE (Mar. 24, 2019, 3:44 PM)
April 11, 2019 VIA ONLINE PORTAL Douglas Hibbard Chief, Initial Request Staff Office of Information Policy U.S. Department of Justice 1425 New York Avenue NW Suite 11050 Washington, DC 20530-0001 Via FOIAOnline Re: Expedited Freedom of Information Act Request Dear Mr. Hibbard: Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, and the implementing regulations of the Department of Justice (DOJ), 28 C.F.R. Part 16, American Oversight makes the following request for records. Requested Records American Oversight requests that DOJ produce the following within twenty business days and seeks expedited review of this request for the reasons identified below: 1. All communications (including emails, email attachments, letters, messages sent by courier, and other communications) attaching or otherwise including any draft, or any portion of a draft, of Attorney General William Barr’s March 24, 2019 letter to the Judiciary Committees of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives concerning Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.”1 2. All records reflecting communications (including emails, email attachments, telephone call logs, talking points, electronic or handwritten notes, or drafts used as reference documents during oral communications) between DOJ and any employee or official at the White House regarding Attorney General William Barr’s March 24, 2019 letter to the Judiciary Committees of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives concerning Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “Report on the Investigation into Russian 1 A copy of Attorney General Barr’s letter can be viewed here: Quinta Jurecic, Document: Attorney General Barr Letter on Mueller Report, LAWFARE (Mar. -
July 13, 2020 the Honorable William P. Barr Attorney General U.S
July 13, 2020 The Honorable William P. Barr Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20530 Dear Attorney General Barr: President Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence for obstructing a bipartisan congressional investigation raises serious questions about whether this extraordinary intervention was provided in exchange for Mr. Stone’s silence about incriminating acts by the President. During your confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2019, I asked whether you “believe a President could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise not to incriminate him.”1 Without hesitation or caveat – and under oath – you responded: “No, that would be a crime.”2 Given recently surfaced information indicating that President Trump may have commuted Mr. Stone’s sentence in exchange for his refusal to incriminate the President, pursuant to your own standard, an inquiry by the Justice Department into Mr. Stone’s commutation is clearly warranted. Thanks to recent Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, newly unredacted portions of Special Counsel Mueller’s report reveal that multiple witnesses confirmed then-candidate Trump’s direct knowledge and encouragement of Roger Stone’s efforts to release damaging information about Hillary Clinton stolen by Russian hackers.3 These witnesses’ observations flatly contradict President Trump’s repeated denials of having such knowledge of Mr. Stone’s activities in his written responses to Special Counsel Mueller’s questions.4 After submitting these suspect answers to the Special Counsel, President Trump took to twitter and praised Mr. Stone for being “brave” and having “guts” for refusing to cooperate with investigators and provide incriminating testimony against him.5 Special Counsel Mueller observed that the President’s tweets about 1 Meg Wagner, Veronica Rocha, & Amanda Wills, Trump’s Attorney General Pick Faces Senate Hearing, CNN (last updated Jan. -
Legal Dilemmas Facing White House Counsel in the Trump Administration: the Costs of Public Disclosure of Fisa Requests
LEGAL DILEMMAS FACING WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: THE COSTS OF PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF FISA REQUESTS Peter Margulies* INTRODUCTION Not every presidential administration can forge a new brand of government lawyering. Historically, government lawyering has swung between two poles: (1) dialogic lawyering, which stresses reasoned elaboration, respect for institutions, and continuity with unwritten norms embodied in past practice; and (2) insular lawyering, which entails opaque definitions, disregard of other institutions, and departures from unwritten norms.1 Because President Trump regularly signals his disdain for institutions, such as the intelligence community, and unwritten norms, such as prosecutorial independence,2 senior lawyers in the White House have added a new mode of legal representation that entails ad hoc adjustments to President Trump’s mercurial decisions and triage among the presidential decisions they will try to temper. Call it: lifeboat lawyering. Lifeboat lawyering, as practiced by Donald F. McGahn II—the first White House Counsel of the Trump administration3—and others, involves * Professor of Law, Roger Williams University School of Law. B.A., Colgate University; J.D., Columbia Law School. I thank Bob Bauer and participants at the Fordham Law Review Colloquium on The Varied Roles, Regulation, and Professional Responsibility of Government Lawyers for comments on a previous draft. For more information on the Colloquium, which was hosted by the Fordham Law Review and the Stein Center for Law and Ethics on October 12, 2018, at Fordham University School of Law, see Bruce A. Green, Lawyers in Government Service—a Foreword, 87 FORDHAM L. REV. 1791 (2019). 1. See Peter Margulies, Reforming Lawyers into Irrelevance?: Reconciling Crisis and Constraint at the Office of Legal Counsel, 39 PEPP. -
The Future of Penal Reform, the Carceral State, and American Politics*
Bring It On: The Future of Penal Reform, the Carceral State, and American Politics* Marie Gottschalk** Fifteen years ago, mass imprisonment was largely an invisible issue in the United States. Since then, criticism of the country’s extraordinary incarceration rate has become widespread across the political spectrum. The huge prison buildup of the past four decades has few ardent defenders at present. But reforms to reduce the number of people in jail and prison have been remarkably modest so far. Meanwhile, a tenacious carceral state has sprouted in the shadows of mass imprisonment and has been extending its reach far beyond the prison gate. It includes not only the country’s vast archipelago of jails and prisons, but also the far-reaching and growing range of penal punishments and controls that lie in the never-never land between the prison gate and full citizenship. As it sunders families and communities, and radically reworks conceptions of democracy, rights, and citizenship, the carceral state poses a formidable political and social challenge. The reach of the carceral state today is truly breathtaking. It extends well beyond the estimated 2.2 million people sitting in jail or prison today in the United States.1 It encompasses the more than 8 million people—or 1 in 23 adults―who are under some form of state control: including jail, prison, probation, parole, community sanctions, drug courts, immigrant detention, and other forms of government supervision.2 It also includes the millions of people who are booked into jail each year— nearly twelve million—and the estimated 7.5 percent of all adults who are felons or ex-felons.3 * This article is based on a revised and updated version of the concluding chapter of Marie Gottschalk, Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015). -
Speaker Bios
Intelligence Reform and Counterterrorism after a Decade: Are We Smarter and Safer? October 16 – 18, 2014 University of Texas at Austin THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16 Blanton Museum, UT Campus 4:00-5:00pm Welcome Remarks and Discussion: Admiral William McRaven (ret.) Admiral McRaven is the ninth commander of United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. USSOCOM ensures the readiness of joint special operations forces and, as directed, conducts operations worldwide. McRaven served from June 2008 to June 2011 as the 11th commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C. JSOC is charged to study special operations requirements and techniques, ensure interoperability and equipment standardization, plan and conduct special operations exercises and training, and develop joint special operations tactics. He served from June 2006 to March 2008 as commander, Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR). In addition to his duties as commander, SOCEUR, he was designated as the first director of the NATO Special Operations Forces Coordination Centre where he was charged with enhancing the capabilities and interoperability of all NATO Special Operations Forces. McRaven has commanded at every level within the special operations community, including assignments as deputy commanding general for Operations at JSOC; commodore of Naval Special Warfare Group One; commander of SEAL Team Three; task group commander in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility; task unit commander during Desert Storm and Desert Shield; squadron commander at Naval Special Warfare Development Group; and SEAL platoon commander at Underwater Demolition Team 21/SEAL Team Four. His diverse staff and interagency experience includes assignments as the director for Strategic Planning in the Office of Combating Terrorism on the National Security Council Staff; assessment director at USSOCOM, on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, and the chief of staff at Naval Special Warfare Group One.