National Security Litigation

Catalog description

Course Requirement: paper This course examines national security law as asserted and developed in U.S. federal courts. It is not a course about policy; it is a course about litigation and the law. Students will learn litigation skills in the context of national security. Conversations throughout the semester will focus on litigation strategy, and course assignments will encourage the honing of litigation skills including issue research and brief writing. We will study the role of Article III courts and will seek to understand how national security law has developed. We will review litigation challenges to the government?s security policies and programs, limits on the court?s jurisdiction, and the defenses that are available to the government. We will also study investigative and prosecutorial methods in the national security context. We will discuss whether (and if so, how) recent national security case law should be applied to other current and future national security problems. In some ways, this course resembles a curriculum of advanced civil and criminal procedure. But it is more that that. We will aim to better understand the relationship between security, liberty, justice and the law. The course will be participatory, meaning that students are expected to contribute to class discussion each week.