This time last year, President Obama responded to the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act with a signing statement. Objecting to the law's restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial or to their home countries, the president promised: "My Administration will work… Read full post »

The death of Osama bin Laden last week is prompting the Obama Administration, members of Congress and the American public to re-think the war in Afghanistan, and to wonder how the demise of the world's most famous terrorist might hasten its end.

That's as it should be. But for now, there… Read full post »

The flood of news stories in the wake of the latest Wikileaks document dump reveal how one Guantanamo detainee after another was imprisoned at Gitmo for years based on tips from informants that turned out to be false. As James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation said in today’s… Read full post »

Gulet Mohamed, the 19-year-old American citizen detained in Kuwait in December where he says he was tortured in prison could be on his way back to the United States soon, according to Justice Department lawyers. But that won't answer the larger question his detention and alleged torture in Kuwait rai… Read full post »

Shortly after taking office, President Obama announced he'd close CIA prisons and end abusive interrogations of terrorism suspects by U.S. officials. But the Obama administration has notably preserved the right to continue "renditions" - the abduction and transfer of suspects to U.S. allies in it… Read full post »

After Ahmed Ghailani was found guilty of participating in a conspiracy to bomb two U.S. embassies in November, a conviction that could land him life in prison (his sentencing hearing is scheduled for January), the usual slate of right-wing pundits took to the airwaves, eager to denounce President Oba… Read full post »

"How is it that judicial approval is required when the United States decides to target a U.S. citizen overseas for electronic surveillance, but ... judicial scrutiny is prohibited when the United States decides to target a U.S. citizen overseas for death?"

That's just one of many intriguing questio… Read full post »

Since Ahmed Ghailani's conviction on only one of 285 criminal counts on Wednesday, the verdict has been pronounced by supporters of military commissions as the reason to stop trying any terror suspects in civilian courts.

In their op-ed in the Washington Post today, Brookings In/… Read full post »

In a surprising verdict issued late Sunday afternoon, a military commission jury sentenced Omar Khadr to 40 years in confinement. Given that Khadr has already served eight years at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that's a 48-year sentence for a child soldier. Khadr is also the only figh… Read full post »

The government's star witness in the sentencing hearing of Omar Khadr continued to talk for hours on the stand today, explaining his view of why he believes that the Canadian captured in 2002 at the age of 15 is "highly dangerous."

But it turns out that much of the information… Read full post »

In testimony Tuesday afternoon that literally had my jaw dropping, a forensic psychiatrist called by the U.S. government testified that Omar Khadr, the Canadian who Monday pled guilty to a slew of terrorist acts including murder, is too dangerous to be released because he is sincerely religious and… Read full post »

This morning I sat in a U.S. military commissions courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and watched the first child soldier charged by a Western nation since World War II plead guilty to crimes he was never even accused of. If the guilty plea of Omar Khadr this morning was a face-saving… Read full post »

As the trial of a former Guantanamo detainee proceeded peacefully in a New York courtroom today, U.S. military prosecutors in Cuba werereportedly scrambling to get Omar Khadr, the alleged child soldier on trial for war crimes at Gitmo, to plead guilty to murder. Plea negotiations are r/… Read full post »

the government portrayed the slight, baby-faced 36-year-old as a vicious al Qaeda murderer who helped plan two US embassy bombings that killed 224 p… Read full post »

On Wednesday, to the surprise of some spectators in the courtroom, a U.S. federal judge did the right thing: he followed the law.

Judge Lewis Kaplan had a clear choice before him: he could exclude the testimony of a government witness discovered via abusive CIA interrogation of Ahmed K… Read full post »

 In the wake of the life sentence of Times Square bombing plotter Faisal Shahzad, the trial of the first former Guantánamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian U.S. federal court will finally get underway on Wednesday. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who's been in U.S. custody since… Read full post »

The first trial of a former Guantanamo detainee in a U.S. federal court began in New York City this week. With jury selection completed, opening arguments will begin Monday for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.

I went to the jury questioning and it was just another day at court, with a second te… Read full post »

When Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was first transferred to New York from Guantanamo Bay last year, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio called it "the first step in the Democrats' plan to import terrorists into America."

More than a year later, Ghailani remains the only detainee… Read full post »

By Daphne Eviatar, Senior Associate, Law and Security.

Crossposted on Huffington Post.

Addressing the current threat from al Qaeda at a recent forum in New York, the Deputy Special Assistant to President Bush and former Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism warned that the United… Read full post »

  Most people don't even realize it, but an alleged al Qaeda terrorist - deemed among the most dangerous terrorists in US custody by US counterterrorism officials - has been quietly appearing in a U.S. federal court in downtown Manhattan for pretrial hearings for weeks now.  His… Read full post »

Coauthored by  Melina Milazzo

On September 16, 2007, Blackwater Worldwide (now Xe) private security contractors working for the U.S. Department of State shot dead 17 unarmed civilians and wounded 24 more in an unprovoked incident in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. Amid the political firestorm th… Read full post »

By Daphne Eviatar, Senior Associate, Law and Security

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post

I'll agree with Sen. Lindsey Graham on one thing: "Americans still wait for justice." That's the headline of a column he wrote that ran in the SunNews and other South Carolina newspapers on Monday, lamenting t… Read full post »

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that administration officials are "alarmed" by the military commission case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen seized as a 15-year-old by U.S. forces in Afghanistan who's now spent a third of his life in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Trying an alleged ch… Read full post »

The New York Times today highlights a new reportreleased by ProPublica and the National Law Journal concluding that torture and "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved by the Bush Administration and used on suspected terrorists has made it impossible to bring many of those alleged/… Read full post »

Today's report that the CIA possesses videotapes of interrogations of alleged 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh in a secret prison in Morocco is renewing attention to the government's abusive interrogations practiced in secret prisons around the world as part of its "war on terror." But U.S.off/… Read full post »