Tag: Executive Power

Executive Branch Self-Policing in Times of Crisis: The Challenges for Conscientious Legal Analysis

Presidential advisers, both Democratic and Republican, long ago discovered ways to magnify presidential power at the cost of legal principles and the system of checks and balances. This essay briefly considers the limits to executive branch capacity to provide reliable legal and constitutional analysis in times of emergency, including covert military
operations.

Military-Intelligence Convergence and the Law of the Title 10/Title 50 Debate

Leon Panetta appeared on PBS Newshour not long after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency at that time, and during the course of the interview he took up the question of the CIA’s role in the attack.

Constitutional Pathology, the War on Terror, and United States v. Klein

Many labels have attached to United States v. Klein, the venerable Reconstruction era Supreme Court decision that established some undefined limits on congressional control over federal law and federal courts. It has been called “opaque,” “deeply puzzling,” “disjointed,” “Delphic,” “generally difficult to follow,” “exaggerated,” and “dead wrong.” Klein is a case of substantial significance, although… Continue reading Constitutional Pathology, the War on Terror, and United States v. Klein