United States v. Bin Asman (D. Md.)

* United States v. Haniffa Bin Asman (D. Md. Oct. 30, 2008)

A judge today imposed a 37-month sentence on Haniffa Bin Asman for conspiracy to provide material support to the Tamil Tigers (in the form of various weapons and other forms of military equipment).  Details appear here.

ACLU v. DoD (D.D.C. Oct. 29, 2008)

* ACLU v. Dep’t of Defense (D.D.C. Oct. 29, 2008)

Judge Lamberth has granted summary judgment dismissing a FOIA request seeking disclosure of unredacted CSRT transcripts for the 14 High-Value Detainees at GTMO (KSM, etc.) and all records provided by the CSRT Recorder to the Tribunal in their cases.  The full opinion appears here.

Judge Leon on the meaning of “enemy combatant”

* Boumediene v. Bush (D.D.C. Oct. 27, 2008)

Judge Leon has not yet issued a written ruling regarding the substantive scope of military detention authority in connection with his review of habeas petitions arising out of GTMO, but Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports that he did today issue an oral ruling to the effect that he intended to adopt the CSRT definition of an “enemy combatant” for this purpose.  The details appear below.

United States v. Al Kassar (S.D.N.Y.)

* United States v. Monzer Al Kassar, et al. (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 14, 2008)

Judge Rakoff has rejected an array of arguments seeking dismissal of an indictment charging three defendants with a conspiracy to provide arms (including SAMs) to the FARC.  Among other things, the opinion:

– rejects an outrageous government conduct challenge based on the use of a sting

– rejects the argument that the arms sale did not have a sufficient link to the United States to satisfy due process requirements (see also n. 7 specifically rejecting objections to extraterritorial application of 2339B – I’m not sure, but this may be the first time a court has expressly addressed that important question)

forthcoming scholarship

* forthcoming scholarship

“Terrorism and Profiling: Shifting the Focus from Criteria to Effects”

Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 29, No. 1-9, 2007

DAPHNE BARAK-EREZ, Tel Aviv University – Buchmann Faculty of Law
Email: barakerz@post.tau.ac.il

The article evaluates the proposal made by Heymann and Kayyem in their book Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror to replace the practice of ethnic profiling by nationality-based profiling. It argues that in many circumstances this proposed alternative is not less offensive than ethnic profiling, especially when there is high correlation between ethnicity and nationality, and that at the same time it is does not prove to be an effective alternative in many other circumstances, especially in the context of immigration countries. Ultimately, the article proposes a shift in the focus of the debate on profiling from the controversy around the legitimate criteria for profiling to the context in which profiling is used and the kind of decisions to which it applies. The argument in this regard is that profiling is criticized also because it was used in the context of decisions with long-lasting effects on people’s lives – for the purpose of completely denying people an entrance to a country or for detaining them (in the Korematsu example). Therefore, rather than focusing only on the question of the criteria used for profiling, it would be better also to ensure that profiling is used only with regard to enforcement decisions that do not have long-lasting effects on the lives of innocent people.

In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation

* In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation (D.D.C. Oct. 8, 2008)

Judge Urbina’s written ruling in connection with the Uighur detainees at GTMO appears below.

uighur detainees ordered released into US; forthcoming scholarship

1. Judge Urbina gives government until Friday to release Uighur detainees at GTMO into the US

Judge Urbina today ordered the government to release into the U.S. a group of Uighur detainees held at GTMO.  The government no longer categorizes the men as enemy combatants, but will not repatriate the men to China out of concern for how they would be treated there and has not yet been able to persuade a third country to accept them.