Anthony Clark Arend

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
January 07, 2011

Statement by the President on H.R. 6523
Today I have signed into law H.R. 6523, the “Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011.”  The Act authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, for military construction, and for national security-related …

ABC News reports:
President Obama may formally object to a provision that would prohibit the use of any funds to transfer detainees from the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay to the United States for any purpose.
The provision — attached to the Defense Authorization bill — would be a critical blow to the president’s stated goal of trying some …

The AFP reports:
US lawmakers have effectively blocked President Barack Obama’s efforts to close the controversial terror prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by approving a Pentagon budge that forbids spending money on the move.After months of wrangling, both the House and Senate Wednesday approved a 725.9-billion-dollar defense spending plan for the fiscal year that began October …

Dafna Linzer over at ProPublica is reporting this evening:
The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.
The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be …

I find that I frequently do not agree with David Rivkin and Lee Casey on national security law issues. But I find myself agreeing with a few points raised by their recent op ed in the Wall Street Journal. They write:
Trying captured al Qaeda, Taliban, or allied terrorists in United States civilian courts is a bad idea. The near-acquittal of …

I am troubled by the title of a post by Dave Ingram over at the Blog of Legal Times. It reads: “2nd Circuit Is Back in Democrats’ Hands.” The post goes on to elaborate:
Though President Barack Obama lags behind his predecessor, George W. Bush, in nominating judges and getting them confirmed, he may take consolation in solidifying Democratic …

Yes! It seems to me that the answer to the question is an obvious one. Indeed, if one goes back to the torts that were considered violations of the “law of nations” in 1789, when the Alien Tort Statute was adopted as part of the Judiciary Act, all of them could be done by individuals. The Supreme Court in Sosa …

Sam Stein over at The Huffington Post reports:
Justice Stephen Breyer, in a rare television interview, said that he would attend the president’s upcoming State of the Union address, and those thereafter. As for why, however, the reasoning was a bit surprising. It is important, Breyer explained, that in a visual society, people see that judges play …