Above the Law, or Beneath It: How National Security Law Subverts Accountability and Weakens Democracy

Lecture 1:  Anatomy of a National Security Lawsuit 

An unremarkable Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking the release of a few dozen pages of records from the Guantanamo Bay prison illuminates some of the major themes of national security law: wildly inflated claims of harm; demands for judicial deference to the “expertise” of Executive Branch lawbreakers; and the use of secrecy as a proxy for impunity.