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Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:55:43 GMT
Governance Studies brings together people interested in improving the performance of our national government and bettering the economic security, social welfare, and opportunity available to all Americans.
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Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:29:00 GMT
The decision to prosecute alleged 9/11 master-mind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators in a civil trial in the Southern District of New York sparks debate on how to best try terrorism suspects. Benjamin Wittes offers his views on the significance of trying terror detainees in the U.S. civilian judicial system.
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Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT
President Obama's decision not to go to Congress for help in establishing reasonable standards for the continued detention of Guantánamo detainees is a failure of leadership in the project of putting American law on a sound basis for a long-term confrontation with terrorism, writes Benjamin Wittes. It is bad for the country, for national security and for civil liberties, and represents a virtually wholesale adoption of the failed policies of his predecessor.
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Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:48:41 GMT
Attorney General Eric Holder appointed a special prosecutor to investigate CIA operatives’ alleged abuse of terrorism detainees. Benjamin Wittes says officials from both parties question the reach of the inquest, but that Holder has acted entirely appropriately.
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Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:24:05 GMT
The Obama administration is considering two different options for prosecuting Guantánamo Bay detainees in the United States. One option calls for trying detainees in several different federal courts in New York, Washington, D.C. and Virginia. The other idea is to try all such cases at a super-max prison in either Michigan or Kansas. Benjamin Wittes says resolving the many issues associated with Guantánamo Bay presents a challenge for the administration.
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Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- July 29, 2009, 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
President Obama recently announced that his administration will need at least six more months to devise a long-term plan for detainees in the military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba who cannot be tried but are considered too dangerous for release. Brookings expert Benjamin Wittes joined Fred Barbash, senior editor at Politico, in a live web chat about the challenges the Obama administration faces in closing Guantánamo.
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Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:00:00 GMT
Editor Benjamin Wittes leads an authoritative lineup of legal experts and former government officials, many of whom have served on the legal front lines of the War on Terror. Together they present an agenda for reforming the statutory law governing this new battle, balancing the need for security, the rule of law, and the constitutional rights of freedom.
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Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
President Obama seems poised to adopt the Bush administration's unilateral approach to detention. This approach has failed President Bush and it will not serve President Obama any better, write Benjamin Wittes and Jack Goldsmith. The president can still get what he needs on detention, they say, if he works from Congress's bipartisan center, releases more substantial information about the detainees he thinks cannot be set free, and speaks often about the need for stable rules to govern non-criminal detentions.
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Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Closing the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay by President Obama's January deadline is pressuring the administration to craft a new system for incarcerating terrorist suspects, possibly through an executive order. Benjamin Wittes and Colleen Peppard suggest instead a model law for terrorist incapacitation.
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Fri, 22 May 2009 10:40:59 GMT
As the national security debate continues, one question is whether the president has provided enough specifics for lawmakers to accede to his requests. There are no easy options for closing the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, according to Wittes; as commander in chief, Obama must weigh all risks to Americans.
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Thu, 21 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Last week, President Obama outlined his approach to closing the Guantánamo Bay detention center on the heels of Congress voting overwhelmingly to block the $80 million he requested to close the the prison. The speech was forward-looking, writes Brookings expert Ben Wittes, in that he maintained the need for a preventative detention system created by Congress and overseen by the courts.
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Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
American domestic law has long accepted the use of targeted killings as self-defense toward ends of vital national security that do not necessarily fall within the strict terms of armed conflict. However, the legal space for it and the legal rationales on which it has been traditionally justified are in danger of shrinking, writes Kenneth Anderson.
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Sun, 10 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Benjamin Wittes and Stuart Taylor examine how to amend American interrogation laws to balance the need to avoid the past administration's excesses against the need to get intelligence from captured terrorists. They review the post-September 11 evolution of Bush administration policies on interrogation, the experiences of the CIA and the military and the lessons to be learned from those experiences.
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Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT
More than seven years after 9/11, the government’s legal, practical and moral authority to detain suspected terrorists without trial remains a subject of fierce debate. Robert Litt and Wells Bennett say Congress could significantly ameliorate the problem by authorizing the creation of a National Security Bar, a permanent corps of security-cleared lawyers who could represent defendants in terrorism-related cases.
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Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:00:00 GMT
Event Information:
- March 17, 2009, 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
President Obama’s decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has left many thorny questions for his administration to resolve. On March 17, the Brookings Institution hosted a Judicial Issues Forum in partnership with the Progressive Policy Institute to examine these questions.
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Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT
The federal government relied heavily on immigration laws in its immediate response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, largely because they were available, flexible, and could be directed toward targets deemed immediate and urgent. In a Brookings paper, David Martin suggests how to refine immigration law’s role in counterterrorism, which have clouded a traditional American stance of openness and welcome that has been valuable to diplomacy, business and the successful integration of immigrant populations.
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Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT
For years there has been a debate about whether to create a national security court to supervise the non-criminal military detention of dangerous terrorists. However, the hard question about a national security court is not whether it should exist but rather what its rules should be and, just as important, who should make these rules. As Jack Goldsmith writes, Congress and the President, rather than the courts, must play the predominant role in crafting these rules in order to have a well-designed national security court.
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Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:40:53 GMT
Ben Wittes says that President Obama’s three executive orders on closing Guantanamo Bay and detainee treatment are more of a process than a solution for the problem. In reality, he says, it does less than many expected.
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Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT
In his second full day in office, President Obama issued three major executive orders concerning interrogation and detention in the war on terrorism. As expert Ben Wittes writes, the most eagerly anticipated order closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay is far less significant than the interrogation order, and falls short of answering the major detention-policy questions facing America today, including the fate of Guantanamo’s residents.
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Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT
President-elect Barack Obama plans to fulfill his campaign promise and issue an executive order next Wednesday directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. Benjamin Wittes joined experts in a New York Times running commentary to discuss the challenges the new administration will face in closing Guantánamo.
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Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The Obama administration will certainly terminate the military commission system, and take steps to reduce reliance on the underlying practice of long-term military detention. In this paper, Robert Chesney explores the capacities and limitations of the federal criminal justice system as it relates to terrorism, and suggests a series of steps Congress could take to make the criminal justice system a more useful tool in counterterrorism cases.
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Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT
On January 22, 2009, President Obama signed an executive order to close down the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Benjamin Wittes and his colleagues identify and describe, in as much detail as the public record will permit, the current population of detainees at Guantánamo, what the government alleges about them and what they claim about their own affiliations and conduct.
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Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The U.S. Congress has voted overwhelmingly to block the $80 million President Obama requested to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. On May 21, the president gave a national security address to discuss in greater detail his plan for closing Guantanamo. Brookings expert Ben Wittes offers a checklist of important decisions the president must make before he can shutter the detention camp.
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Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT
President-elect Obama has reiterated his campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay. As Benjamin Wittes writes, the incoming administration must create a systematic and rigorous review of the detainee population, whose handling will require wrenching choices with no easy answers.
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Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:30:00 GMT
Event Information:
- November 19, 2008, 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
The incoming administration has indicated that one of its first priorities will be to close Guantanamo Bay. The Scouting Report continued its weekly web chat with Brookings expert Benjamin Wittes, who answered questions about how President Obama can put a legal framework in place to end the clash over detainee rights. Politico's David Mark moderated.
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Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT
America’s civil litigation system begins to break down when a lawsuit requires the disclosure of secret information that could threaten the security of the nation. As a result, Congress should act now to provide federal courts with clear guidance for civil cases in which they must balance the competing demands of open justice and state secrecy, writes Justin Florence and Matthew Gerke.
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Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT
In an interview with CBS News, Benjamin Wittes discusses three possible ways the Obama administration could close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
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Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Justin Vaisse discusses how Obama and McCain approach human rights issues, from capital punishment to Guantanamo and torture. (French)
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Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Matthew Waxman examines the questions underlying the discussion of administrative detention, the possible need for new laws in combating terrorism, and how to make and review detention decisions for whom to detain.
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Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The interrogation programs of both the military and the intelligence community have been criticized at great length for being inconsistent with American values. In testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary, Benjamin Wittes examined America's interrogation policy in the war against terrorism and offered steps towards a healthier statutory environment.
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Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Benjamin Wittes discusses recent legal developments in the war on terror with Josh Patashnik of The New Republic and Andrew McCarthy, director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Six years after the September 11 attacks, America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror. It is losing not to Al Qaeda but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people. Now, in the twilight of President Bush’s administration, Benjamin Wittes offers an analysis of the troubling legal legacy of the Bush administration, the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court.
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Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT
A divided Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees have a right to seek release. Benjamin Wittes writes that many fundamental questions remain unanswered and urges Congress to enact a comprehensive legislative solution to the problem of detentions in the war against terrorism.
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Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. In recent testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Benjamin Wittes addressed the need for building an appropriate regime for detaining alien terrorist suspects seized abroad.
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Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT
The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will test President Bush's military commissions, according to Brookings Benjamin Wittes, and reveal how they work and why they fail.
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Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT
A core challenge facing the next president in the war on terror is developing a legal framework for detaining terrorists. Brookings’s experts Benjamin Wittes and Mark Gitenstein offer recommendations that balance basic protections for detainees with regularized judicial review.
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Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT
In December 2005, the New York Times reported, and President Bush confirmed, that the National Security Agency had been conducting electronic surveillance of international communications, to or from the U.S., without obeying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The disclosure ignited a wildfire of political and legal controversy, which continues to generate heat today.
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Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT
Opinion by Benjamin Wittes; The New Republic (2/22/07)