The National Security Law Podcast

In this week’s episode, your devoted hosts dig into a bonanza of national security law odds-and-ends. First up is an en banc decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review involving the standing of the ACLU and the Yale Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic to litigate a claimed First Amendment right of public access in relation to FISC opinions. This may not go anyw...

Has it only been a week?  Yeesh.  Well, we are back!  In this episode, Professors Vladeck and Chesney focus on three topics: The Mueller investigation and the prospect that Mike Flynn may be charged under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The increasingly-complex saga of the withdrawn defense lawyers in the al-Nashiri military commission case at GTMO.  Habeas petitions are sprouting all over th...

We are back, one day after dropping episode 43, with an emergency podcast discussion the legal consequences of the horrific attack that occurred in New York City yesterday.  The need for the podcast flows from the President Trump’s statements to the press today regarding the possibility of taking the perpetrator to Guantanamo,  his criticisms of the criminal justice process, and statements f...

It’s been a busy week in national security law!  In Episode 43, Professors Chesney and Vladeck take on: Mueller-Time: Indictments against Manafort and Gates, and an even-more important plea deal. ACLU v. Mattis and the government’s filing in opposition to an order to show cause why ACLU should not get access to the US citizen held as an enemy combatant in Iraq. A new Benghazi case: Uni...

This week Professors Chesney and Vladeck start with a close look at  Smith v. Trump , a case that seeks a judicial ruling on whether the Islamic State really falls within the scope of the 2001 AUMF.  The case presents standing and political-question doctrine issues, and will be argued soon before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.  This leads into an update on  ACLU v. Mattis ( the attempt by ACLU...

If you were unsure about whether your hosts are geeks, this episode will help settle the question.  But before we get to what Professors Chesney and Vladeck think they know but don’t really, here’s the stuff they actually do know something about! First, the Travel Ban.  Buckle up, there’s a new nationwide TRO, out of Hawaii, enjoining enforcement of most of Travel Ban 3.0. Second...

In this week’s episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck zero in on four recent developments involving law and national security. First, they explore the Supreme Court’s decision not to review the splintered decision of the en banc D.C. Circuit in  Bahlul (in which a plurality of the Circuit concluded that it was constitutional for Congress to give military commissions the capacity to ad...

If you have ever wondered what statutes, constitutional principles, and judicial precedents come into play when the U.S. government contemplates transferring an American citizen from our military custody to the custody of another government, this is the episode for you. Building off news reports that the Trump administration is contemplating sending the as-yet-unnamed US citizen enemy combatant to...

Seriously, how did they manage not to say “posse comitatus” during this episode?  Sigh.  In this week’s episode, Professors Vladeck and Chesney do talk at length about various legal issues raised by the devastation in Puerto Rico, including the possibility of an Insurrection Act invocation.  In addition, they renew attention to the as-yet-unnamed U.S. citizen who apparently remai...

In this week’s episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck explore three big national security law developments from the past few days. First up: the news that the FISC, on two separate occasions, issued orders authorizing surveillance of Paul Manafort’s communications. Second: the news late last week that an as-yet-unnamed American citizen fighting for the Islamic State in Syria is now in...

We have a special treat in this off-cycle episode!  NSA GC Glenn Gerstell is in Austin to speak to our students here at UT, and (no doubt against his better judgment) he agreed to sit for an interview with Professors Chesney and Vladeck.  The conversation focuses in particular on the nature, operation, and criticisms of Section 702 collection authority.  As you probably know, Section 702 is schedu...

Will this year’s Supreme Court term be packed with cases relating to military courts?  In this week’s show, Professors Chesney and Vladeck explore the possibility.  The Supreme Court currently has before it an array of petitions for review involving military court questions.  The Bahlul litigation presents a complex but deeply-important set of questions relating to the ability of the m...

In today’s episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck spend time with three legal topics (before spiraling off into some ill-informed commentary on the college football season).  First, building off a report that FBI arrests of Islamic State supporters inside the US have declined significantly recently, they discuss why such a change may have occurred and what it signifies for the role of law e...

In this week’s episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck take advantage of a relatively quiet week for national security law developments in order to range across a number of topics. Being in Texas, we are all quite focused on the terrible tragedy unfolding thanks to Hurricane Harvey, and so your hosts open with a survey of various legal issues that could have arisen in the context of this eme...

Never a dull moment in 2017.  In this week’s episode, Professors Vladeck and Chesney take on four topics (well, four  relevant  topics…do try to stay with them past their musings on home runs at the Little League World Series).  First, they unpack the part of President Trump’s Afghanistan speech in which he promised to loosen “rules of engagement,” construing it as a...

In this week’s episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck make a whole series of blatantly un-Mirandized statements about some of the latest national security law developments.  First, they take up a number of questions relating to the events in Charlottesville.  Was the murder an act of “domestic terrorism”? What does federal criminal law have to say about domestic terrorism?  How...

In this bizarrely-titled episode (ok, they pretty much all have bizarre titles, Professors Vladeck and Chesney take on four national security law developments from the past week. First, they explore the district court ruling in  Salim v. Mitchell ,  in which the court rejects cross-motions for summary judgment in an Alien Tort Statute suit brought by former CIA detainees against the two psychologi...

This week’s episode certainly has a military theme.  Professors Chesney and Vladeck start off with a surprisingly (or is it disturbingly?) lengthy discussion of the writ of mandamus litigation currently pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in connection with military commission proceedings.  It’s like sitting in a Fed Courts class, except with worse jokes (doesn’t matter...

In this week’s episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck focus on two subjects: the extradition of Ali Damache and what it might portend for Trump administration counterterrorism policy, and the slate of issues surrounding the potential removal of Attorney General Sessions. The Damache case is interesting on its own terms in light of the underlying crime (a plot to kill the Swedish artist Lars...

Want a thorough backgrounder on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force ?  This is the episode for you. (This also is the episode for you if what you want, instead, is an hour of legal blather followed by five minutes of speculation about Season 7 of Game of Thrones). The “AUMF” is the key statute on which the government relies for its post-9/11 uses of force relating to terro...

In today’s episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck focus on three sets of issues.  First, they explore the D.C. Circuit’s June 30th ruling in  Jaber v. United States ,  in which the court on political question grounds affirmed dismissal of a suit seeking damages in relation to a 2012 drone strike in Yemen. If you are into the political question doctrine, well, that’s kind of scar...

Had you seen the word “limitrophe” before Justice Breyer used it in his dissent in  Herndandez v. Mesa ? Neither had Professors Vladeck and Chesney, but that doesn’t stop them from exploring the Supreme Court’s action in that cross-border shooting case, with its implications for  Bivens,  qualified immunity, and the extraterritorial application of the Fourth Amendment.  Nor...

In today’s episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck discuss the Supreme Court’s decision in Ziglar v. Abbasi in more detail than you could possibly want.  What’s that one even about, you ask? Damages for alleged violations of the Constitution arising out of the massive post-9/11 immigration sweep.  Let’s just say it was not a good result for the plaintiffs, nor for fans of ...

In this episode, Professors Vladeck and Chesney come up with a tongue-twister of a title while exploring the legal fallout from the Comey testimony last week, including discussions of (1) whether Comey’s actions were illegal (hint: they weren’t), (2) whether executive privilege attached to his conversations with Donald Trump (hint: not really), and (3) what would it look like if the pr...

In this episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck have a full plate.  The arrest of a contractor named Reality Winner (for having stolen classified information relating to Russian efforts to hack a voting-machine system and providing that information to the Intercept) provides the basis for a wide-ranging conversation about the Espionage Act, the First Amendment, and associated policy and legal issu...