Speaking the Law
Speaking the Law

Author: Kenneth Anderson

Publisher: Hoover Institution Press

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 0817916563

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When Barack Obama came into office, the strategic landscape facing the United States in its overseas counterterrorism operations was undergoing a shift. Even before the rise of drones necessitated the articulation of legal doctrine, the Obama administration had to explain itself. In Speaking the Law, the authors offer a detailed examination of the speeches of the Obama administration on national security legal issues. Viewed together here for the first time, the authors lay out a broad array of legal and policy positions regarding a large number of principles currently contested at both the domestic and international levels. The book describes what the Obama administration has said about the legal framework in which it is operating with respect to such questions as the nature of the war on terrorism, the use of drones and targeted killings, detention, trial by military commission and in federal courts, and interrogation. The authors analyze this framework, examining the stresses on it and asking where the administration got matters right and where they were wrong. They conclude with suggestions for certain reforms to the framework for the administration and Congress to consider.

Power Without Constraint
Power Without Constraint

Author: Chris Edelson

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres

Published: 2016-05-11

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0299307409

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As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama criticized the George W. Bush administration for its unrestrained actions in matters of national security. In secret Justice Department memos, President Bush’s officials had claimed for the executive branch total authority to use military force in response to threats of terrorism. They set aside laws made by Congress, even criminal laws prohibiting torture and warrantless surveillance. Candidate Obama promised to restore the rule of law and make a clean break with the Bush approach. President Obama has not done so. Why? In a thorough comparison of the Bush and Obama administrations’ national security policies, Chris Edelson demonstrates that President Obama and his officials have used softer rhetoric and toned-down legal arguments, but in key areas—military action, surveillance, and state secrets—they have simply found new ways to assert power without meaningful constitutional or statutory constraints. Edelson contends that this legacy of the two immediately post-9/11 presidencies raises crucial questions for future presidents, Congress, the courts, and American citizens. Where is the political will to restore a balance of powers among branches of government and adherence to the rule of law? What are the limits of authority regarding presidential national security power? Have national security concerns created a permanent shift to unconstrained presidential power?

National Security and Double Government
National Security and Double Government

Author: Michael J. Glennon

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-11-15

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0190668474

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Why has U.S. security policy scarcely changed from the Bush to the Obama administration? National Security and Double Government offers a disquieting answer. Michael J. Glennon challenges the myth that U.S. security policy is still forged by America's visible, "Madisonian institutions" - the President, Congress, and the courts. Their roles, he argues, have become largely illusory. Presidential control is now nominal, congressional oversight is dysfunctional, and judicial review is negligible. The book details the dramatic shift in power that has occurred from the Madisonian institutions to a concealed "Trumanite network" - the several hundred managers of the military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement agencies who are responsible for protecting the nation and who have come to operate largely immune from constitutional and electoral restraints. Reform efforts face daunting obstacles. Remedies within this new system of "double government" require the hollowed-out Madisonian institutions to exercise the very power that they lack. Meanwhile, reform initiatives from without confront the same pervasive political ignorance within the polity that has given rise to this duality. The book sounds a powerful warning about the need to resolve this dilemma-and the mortal threat posed to accountability, democracy, and personal freedom if double government persists. This paperback version features an Afterword that addresses the emerging danger posed by populist authoritarianism rejecting the notion that the security bureaucracy can or should be relied upon to block it.

Duty
Duty

Author: Robert M. Gates

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2014-01-14

Total Pages: 673

ISBN-13: 0307959481

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From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vivid account of serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House, he thought he’d long left Washington politics behind: After working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happily serving as president of Texas A&M University. But when he was asked to help a nation mired in two wars and to aid the troops doing the fighting, he answered what he felt was the call of duty.

The NSA Report
The NSA Report

Author: President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, The

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-03-31

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1400851270

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The official report that has shaped the international debate about NSA surveillance "We cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly 'trusting' our public officials."—The NSA Report This is the official report that is helping shape the international debate about the unprecedented surveillance activities of the National Security Agency. Commissioned by President Obama following disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, and written by a preeminent group of intelligence and legal experts, the report examines the extent of NSA programs and calls for dozens of urgent and practical reforms. The result is a blueprint showing how the government can reaffirm its commitment to privacy and civil liberties—without compromising national security.

Before the Oath
Before the Oath

Author: Martha Joynt Kumar

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2015-06-30

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 142141659X

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"Having watched from a front row seat as many incumbent and electoral campaign presidential teams managed administration transitions, Martha Kumar was struck by how productively the Bush and Obama teams worked together to effect a smooth transition of power in 2008. She has reflected upon what made the transition so effective, and wonders if it could be a model for future incoming and outgoing administrations. This book focuses on the preparations made by President Bush's transition team as well as those by Senators Obama and McCain as one administration exited and the other entered the White House. Using this recent transition as a lens through which to examine the presidential transition process, Kumar simultaneously outlines the congressional legislation that paved the way for this distinctive transition and interweaves comparative examples from previous administrative transitions going back to Truman-to-Eisenhower. She evaluates the early and continuing actions by the General Services Administration to plan and set up transition offices; the work on financial disclosure issues handled by the Office of Government Ethics; and the Office of Management and Budget's preparatory work. In this fascinating historical and contemporary vivisection of presidential transitions, Kumar maps out, in the words of former NSA advisor General James L. Jones, the characteristics of a smooth "glide path" for presidential campaign staffs and their administrations"--

Buying National Security
Buying National Security

Author: Gordon Adams

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-02-11

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1135172927

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Examines the planning and budgeting processes of the United States. This title describes the planning and resource integration activities of the White House, reviews the adequacy of the structures and process and makes proposals for ways both might be reformed to fit the demands of the 21st century security environment.

Kill or Capture
Kill or Capture

Author: Daniel Klaidman

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2012-06-05

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0547547781

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“Divulge[s] the details of top-level deliberations—details that were almost certainly known only to the administration’s inner circle” (The Wall Street Journal). When he was elected in 2008, Barack Obama had vowed to close Guantánamo, put an end to coercive interrogation and military tribunals, and restore American principles of justice. Yet by the end of his first term he had backtracked on each of these promises, ramping up the secret war of drone strikes and covert operations. Behind the scenes, wrenching debates between hawks and doves—those who would kill versus those who would capture—repeatedly tested the very core of the president’s identity, leading many to wonder whether he was at heart an idealist or a ruthless pragmatist. Digging deep into this period of recent history, investigative reporter Daniel Klaidman spoke to dozens of sources to piece together a riveting Washington story packed with revelations. As the president’s inner circle debated secret programs, new legal frontiers, and the disjuncture between principles and down-and-dirty politics, Obama vacillated, sometimes lashed out, and spoke in lofty tones while approving a mounting toll of assassinations and kinetic-war operations. Klaidman’s fly-on-the-wall reporting reveals who had his ear, how key national security decisions are really made, and whether or not President Obama lived up to the promise of candidate Obama. “Fascinating . . . Lays bare the human dimension of the wrenching national security decisions that have to be made.” —Tina Brown, NPR “An important book.” —Steve Coll, The New Yorker

Counter-Terrorism from the Obama Administration to President Trump
Counter-Terrorism from the Obama Administration to President Trump

Author: Donna G. Starr-Deelen

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-11-14

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13: 3319697579

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Following up on Donna Starr-Deelen's previous book Presidential Policies on Terrorism: From Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama (Palgrave, 2014), this book compares and contrasts the approach of the Obama administration with the Trump administration regarding national security and counter-terrorism. It provides an overview of counter-terrorism in the Obama era and then moves to the rise of ISIS and the Syrian civil war, ending with an analysis of the new Trump administration's national security policies.