On Thursday, a divided Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill to renew three key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that were set to expire at year’s end.  By a tally of 11-8, the SJC voted to extend until 2013 the authorities of the federal government to obtain individual business and financial records that may be relevant to a counterterrorism [...]

In what appears to be a sudden reversal of policy, Congressional leaders on the Homeland Security Appropriations Conference Committee on Wednesday included compromise language in the FY 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations Act that would allow detainees currently held in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to be transferred to the United States for prosecution.  Members of the Defense Authorization Conference Committee [...]

The Obama Administration announced last week that it no longer plans to seek new legislation creating a framework for preventive detention of Guantanamo Bay detainees.  The move represents a departure from the plan for such legislation laid out by President Obama in his May 2009 speech at the National Archives.  In that speech, the President described a category of detainees [...]

The Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to hear Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project and a countersuit, Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder.  These cases will address whether, under the First and Fifth amendments, the “material support” for terrorism provision of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B is unconstitutionally vague.  The petitioners, which include Attorney General Holder and the Department of Justice, as well [...]

Benjamin Wittes, member of the Harvard National Security Journal Advisory Board, commented today on the Obama Administration’s decision not to seek legislation from Congress to govern the continued detention of Guantanamo detainees.  For Mr. Wittes’ views, please see his Washington Post editorial or listen to his remarks on NPR’s All Things Considered.

Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan legal resident at the center of an FBI terrorism investigation, was ordered held without bail today after pleading not guilty in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York to the charge of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2332a(a)(2).  Federal prosecutors contend that [...]

The Obama Administration announced on Wednesday its decision to heighten the standards used by Justice Department officials when they seek to invoke the state secrets privilege.  The new policy comes in response to the widely held belief that Bush Administration lawyers had abused the privilege in a number of terrorism-related suits.  Military and intelligence agency officials now must first convince [...]

Tuesday, September 8th Today a group of government leaders issued a statement discussing climate change as a national security issue and calling for a bipartisan plan to address the U.S.’s role. The group of 32 signatories – including eight former Senators, three former National Security Advisors, two former Secretaries of State, a former Secretary of Defense, and both the Chair [...]

The HLS National Security Journal was approved by Harvard Law during the summer of 2009. We will be updating the website frequently as the school year gets underway.

Welcome to the HLS National Security Journal! The Harvard National Security Journal has recently been approved as an official student journal of Harvard Law School, and its members are now undertaking the more daunting task of establishing a working online journal. NSJ will be a student-edited, faculty- and practitioner-advised, online academic journal. It will serve both as a contribution to [...]