No one seriously claims that the Supreme Court’s 1872 decision in United States v. Klein is a model of clarity. Justice Field’s opinion for the Court is as enigmatic as it is intriguing, providing the only pre-2008 example of a Supreme Court decision invalidating an Act of Congress for unconstitutionally depriving the federal courts of jurisdiction. The million dollar question, of course, is why the Court so ruled, and no amount of scholarship, no matter the quality of the analysis or the intellectual abilities of the author, has managed to settle the issue to any meaningful degree.
Category: Vol. 5 No. 1
The War on Terror 10 Years On | A decade after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, JNSLP takes a look at key elements of the ensuing War on Terror, including intelligence collection, law enforcement and counterterrorism, counterintelligence, the legacy of US vs. Klein, SHIELD, civil liberties, leaks, and the role of the judiciary.
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
Spies Without Borders: International Law and Intelligence Collection
To the surprise of many, it turns out that Canada’s chief security intelligence agency – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) –may not legally collect covert intelligence abroad. That is at least one interpretation of a Canadian Federal Court decision issued in October 2007, but only released publicly in 2008. At issue was whether the… Continue reading Spies Without Borders: International Law and Intelligence Collection