We have a special treat in this off-cycle episode! NSA GC Glenn Gerstell is in Austin to speak to our students here at UT, and (no doubt against his better judgment) he agreed to sit for an interview with Professors Chesney and Vladeck. The conversation focuses in particular on the nature, operation, and criticisms of Section 702 collection authority. As you probably know, Section 702 is scheduled to expire at the end of December, and there is certain to be a fascinating, high-stakes Congression...
Sep 14, 2017•57 min
Will this year's Supreme Court term be packed with cases relating to military courts? In this week's show, Professors Chesney and Vladeck explore the possibility. The Supreme Court currently has before it an array of petitions for review involving military court questions. The Bahlul litigation presents a complex but deeply-important set of questions relating to the ability of the military commission system to adjudicate conspiracy charges, intermixed with procedural questions about the standard...
Sep 12, 2017•1 hr 5 min
In today's episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck spend time with three legal topics (before spiraling off into some ill-informed commentary on the college football season). First, building off a report that FBI arrests of Islamic State supporters inside the US have declined significantly recently, they discuss why such a change may have occurred and what it signifies for the role of law enforcement in counterterrorism policy. Second, they check in on the progress (ahem) of the pre-trial procee...
Sep 05, 2017•56 min
In this week's episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck take advantage of a relatively quiet week for national security law developments in order to range across a number of topics. Being in Texas, we are all quite focused on the terrible tragedy unfolding thanks to Hurricane Harvey, and so your hosts open with a survey of various legal issues that could have arisen in the context of this emergency (though, fortunately, none seem to have). Then, noting that today was the first day of class at Tex...
Aug 30, 2017•58 min
Never a dull moment in 2017. In this week's episode, Professors Vladeck and Chesney take on four topics (well, four relevant topics...do try to stay with them past their musings on home runs at the Little League World Series). First, they unpack the part of President Trump's Afghanistan speech in which he promised to loosen "rules of engagement," construing it as a pledge to further relax Obama administration policies regarding the scope of permitted targets in Afghanistan, the permissible roles...
Aug 22, 2017•52 min
In this week's episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck make a whole series of blatantly un-Mirandized statements about some of the latest national security law developments. First, they take up a number of questions relating to the events in Charlottesville. Was the murder an act of "domestic terrorism"? What does federal criminal law have to say about domestic terrorism? How does this situation compare to Monday's news of a man in Oklahoma City who sought to set off a bomb ala Timothy McVeigh? ...
Aug 16, 2017•1 hr 15 min
In this bizarrely-titled episode (ok, they pretty much all have bizarre titles, Professors Vladeck and Chesney take on four national security law developments from the past week. First, they explore the district court ruling in Salim v. Mitchell, in which the court rejects cross-motions for summary judgment in an Alien Tort Statute suit brought by former CIA detainees against the two psychologists who designed and helped implement the "enhanced interrogation techniques" program. Second, they unp...
Aug 08, 2017•1 hr 5 min
This week's episode certainly has a military theme. Professors Chesney and Vladeck start off with a surprisingly (or is it disturbingly?) lengthy discussion of the writ of mandamus litigation currently pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in connection with military commission proceedings. It's like sitting in a Fed Courts class, except with worse jokes (doesn't matter who your professor is, she or he surely was funnier than this). Then again, the topic turns out to be rather important f...
Aug 01, 2017•1 hr 1 min
In this week's episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck focus on two subjects: the extradition of Ali Damache and what it might portend for Trump administration counterterrorism policy, and the slate of issues surrounding the potential removal of Attorney General Sessions. The Damache case is interesting on its own terms in light of the underlying crime (a plot to kill the Swedish artist Lars Vilk, including the recruitment of three Americans to the conspiracy), and also because Ireland previousl...
Jul 25, 2017•58 min
Want a thorough backgrounder on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force? This is the episode for you. (This also is the episode for you if what you want, instead, is an hour of legal blather followed by five minutes of speculation about Season 7 of Game of Thrones). The "AUMF" is the key statute on which the government relies for its post-9/11 uses of force relating to terrorism, and it has been the source of controversy and debate for the better part of the past sixteen years. This wee...
Jul 17, 2017•1 hr 19 min
In today's episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck focus on three sets of issues. First, they explore the D.C. Circuit's June 30th ruling in Jaber v. United States, in which the court on political question grounds affirmed dismissal of a suit seeking damages in relation to a 2012 drone strike in Yemen. If you are into the political question doctrine, well, that's kind of scary but the important thing is that you'll enjoy the discussion. If you don't enjoy getting into the legal weeds of justicia...
Jul 11, 2017•1 hr 12 min
Had you seen the word "limitrophe" before Justice Breyer used it in his dissent in Herndandez v. Mesa? Neither had Professors Vladeck and Chesney, but that doesn't stop them from exploring the Supreme Court's action in that cross-border shooting case, with its implications for Bivens, qualified immunity, and the extraterritorial application of the Fourth Amendment. Nor does Travel Ban fatigue stop them from unpacking all the details in Trump v. IRAP, the Supreme Court's per curiam ruling partial...
Jun 28, 2017•1 hr 11 min
In today's episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck discuss the Supreme Court's decision in Ziglar v. Abbasi in more detail than you could possibly want. What's that one even about, you ask?Damages for alleged violations of the Constitution arising out of the massive post-9/11 immigration sweep. Let's just say it was not a good result for the plaintiffs, nor for fans of Bivens doctrine (poor Steve!). Next comes both an international law and domestic law analysis of the episode on Sunday when a US...
Jun 20, 2017•1 hr 16 min
In this episode, Professors Vladeck and Chesney come up with a tongue-twister of a title while exploring the legal fallout from the Comey testimony last week, including discussions of (1) whether Comey's actions were illegal (hint: they weren't), (2) whether executive privilege attached to his conversations with Donald Trump (hint: not really), and (3) what would it look like if the president decides to try to fire Bob Mueller--or even abolish the office of the special counsel. Your hosts also f...
Jun 13, 2017•1 hr 4 min
In this episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck have a full plate. The arrest of a contractor named Reality Winner (for having stolen classified information relating to Russian efforts to hack a voting-machine system and providing that information to the Intercept) provides the basis for a wide-ranging conversation about the Espionage Act, the First Amendment, and associated policy and legal issues. Naturally this also leads to previews of Jim Comey's upcoming Congressional testimony, discussion...
Jun 06, 2017•1 hr 7 min
This episode is a bit different than normal. Instead of tearing through the latest developments in the wide world of national security law, Professors Vladeck and Chesney instead provide a deep-dive overview of military commissions. The explain what that label does and does not refer to, survey the pre-9/11 history (with an emphasis on key Supreme Court decisions like Ex parte Milligan and Ex parte Quirin), identify the key issues raised by the military commission system established after 9/11, ...
May 31, 2017•34 min
It has only been a few days since Episode 19, but Steve and Bobby are worried that fellow national security law geeks won't have enough @nslpodcast to enjoy during long Memorial Day Weekend roadtrips. That, plus they want to make sure you are up to speed on two big new rulings by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, both of which went against the Executive Branch. First, the en banc Fourth Circuit today issued IRAP v. Trump, in which a majority of the Court agreed to uphold the nationwide injunc...
May 25, 2017•38 min
School's out for summer...but the National Security Law Podcast keeps trucking along. In Episode 19, we find that the suddenly-student-less professors have used their newfound free time to...wait for it...add music to their intro. And just in case that brief riff is not enough, Chesney and Vladeck do go on to discuss some actual law and policy matters. They start with the appointment of Bob Mueller as a "special counsel," and go into considerable detail on the nature and origins of that particul...
May 22, 2017•45 min
The guys came back to the office tonight for a rare evening recording session, inspired by a combination of hot-off-the-presses news about the president talking out of turn to the Russians, lack of interest in the Wizards-Celtics game, and a general inability to find another time to record this week. And what's in it for you? An extended discussion of the significance of the report earlier this evening to the effect that President Trump may have shared highly-sensitive classified information wit...
May 16, 2017•56 min
Yes Episode 16 just dropped yesterday, but given the firing of Jim Comey we felt duty bound to get back to the microphones ASAP. And so here you will find Bobby and Steve reviewing and debating the legal and policy backdrop to, and fallout, from yesterday's shocking news. Tune in for a discussion that covers the power of the president to appoint and remove the FBI Director, the implications of the firing for a variety of ongoing investigations, and much more.
May 10, 2017•33 min
In this episode, Professors Vladeck and Chesney walk listeners through a recent proposal by Rep. Adam Schiff to replace the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs with a new "consolidated" AUMF that would explicitly name the Islamic State while also tweaking current authorities in certain interesting ways. Before that, however, they find plenty of time to argue about the significance of the latest twists and turns involving Sally Yates, Mike Flynn, and Jim Comey, and to forecast the next steps in the unfolding lit...
May 09, 2017•1 hr 1 min
In this surveillance-heavy episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck dig into a raft of news about foreign-intelligence collection authorities. They open with an overview of how Section 702 collection authority works, and then unpack the recent news that NSA is dropping the "about" collection component of Upstream collection under 702. They explain it all, including the obvious and perhaps not-so-obvious reasons for this development. This leads them next to the ODNI's 2016 Transparency Report, whi...
May 03, 2017•56 min
In this episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck run through the array of potential criminal charges against Julian Assange and Wikileaks (in light of recent rumblings that DOJ has revived that possibility), and they discuss the prospects for the First Amendment objections that would surely follow. This leads into a discussion of the charges that Mike Flynn one day might face, and that in turn prompts a disagreement about what to make of the White House letter rebuffing requests for information s...
Apr 26, 2017•53 min
Listeners who are tired of listening to just Professors Vladeck and Chesney on this show can take heart! This week they are joined by special guest Matt Tait, better known online as Pwn All the Things. Matt's presence leads to an extended discussion of the Shadowbrokers dump of exploits allegedly stolen from NSA, the US government's Vulnerabilities Equities Process, and much more. Meanwhile, there's a lot happening in the realm of immigration, with a denial of cert regarding a key Third Circuit ...
Apr 19, 2017•44 min
In this episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck go deep into the weeds regarding the legal issues raised by President Trump's decision to launch missiles at the Shayrat Airfield in Syria, in the wake of the sarin gas attack in Idlib. They discuss that decision in comparison to the 2011 decision by President Obama to use airstrikes in Libya, and along the way grapple with separation of war powers issues, AUMFs, the UN Charter, and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). After that extensive discussi...
Apr 11, 2017•1 hr 3 min
In today's episode, Professors Vladeck and Chesney come to grips yet again with surveillance law and policy issues thanks to the ever-fascinating Trump/Russia story, this time accounting for the President's accusation that then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice committed a crime. After droning on and on about targeting, minimization, incidental collection, masking, unmasking, and leaking, the professors pivot briefly to Jim Comey's secret Twitter account and also the removal of Steve Bannon f...
Apr 05, 2017•1 hr 1 min
In this hour-long episode, Professors Steve Vladeck and Bobby Chesney open by unpacking the ins-and-outs of two Guantanamo military commissions cases currently seeking Supreme Court review: the al-Nashiri case (which could give the Court a chance to determine whether an armed conflict existed with al Qaeda prior to 9/11) and Bahlul (which could give the Court a chance to settle, at long last, whether the commissions can adjudicate offenses that do not count as violations of the law of armed conf...
Mar 29, 2017•1 hr
In this episode, [USperson 1] and [USperson 2] discuss whether the law was violated by [USperson 3] when [he/she] spoke to [USpersons 4-17] about alleged surveillance of [USperson 18] or perhaps various [USpersons] working for [USperson 18]'s campaign. They also discuss the appearance at [USuniversity 1] by [USperson 19] in which [he/she] did not talk about [USperson 18], but did have lots of interesting stuff to say about the "going dark" debate. [USperson 1] and [USperson 2] also dig into the ...
Mar 24, 2017•52 min
Episode 8 (about 58 minutes long) finds Professors Vladeck and Chesney discussing the legal, policy, and institutional issues raised by reports that President Trump has authorized CIA to resume control of drone operations in some circumstances, and that he also has added certain parts of Yemen and Somalia to the current list of zones of active hostilities. They also provide an update on litigation relating to the revised refugee/travel executive order. In addition, they take up the topic of "pro...
Mar 17, 2017•58 min
In this episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck live up to their new motto (see the episode title) by wading into the confusion surrounding a pair of recent presidential claims with significant national security law implications: President Trump's claim that the Obama administration wiretapped him (or his campaign), and his allegation about the "GTMO recidivism" rate as between the Bush and Obama administrations. This in turn leads to a discussion of the "Vault7" dump by Wikileaks of information...
Mar 08, 2017•49 min
