Publications
Checks & Balances
Executive Privilege: A Legislative Remedy
This report focuses on one context of executive privilege: disputes over Congress’s efforts to access information from the Executive. Executive privilege is one area where the recent expansion of secrecy can—and should—be rolled back to restore our constitutional balance. A proposed statute, “Executive Privilege Codification Act,” aims to do just that, and is attached as an appendix.
Authored by: Emily Berman
– 06/21/09
Transparency in the First 100 Days: A Report Card
This report card is an effort to take stock of the Obama administration’s performance during its first 100 days in office, acknowledge and commend those actions that enhance government transparency, and insist on a correction of course when transparency is diminished.
Authored by: Liberty & National Security Project
– 04/27/09
Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror
Unchecked and Unbalanced: Power in a Time of Terror (The New Press) is an exploration of the expansion of executive power in the wake of 9/11, and provides a comprehensive analysis rooted in legal and political history of the Bush Administration’s theory of unlimited presidential license.
Authored by: Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr. and Aziz Huq
– Published 2007
Twelve Steps to Restore Checks and Balances
Executive Privilege. Extraordinary Rendition. Secret legal opinions. Warrantless wiretapping. Indefinite detention. Suspension of habeas corpus. America’s system of checks and balances is eroding, upsetting the delicate balance of power set forth in the Constitution. Twelve Steps to Restore Checks and Balances proposes specific reforms designed to keep the nation secure and free, as the Constitution’s Framers intended.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– January 2008
The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country and Why It Can Again
An exploration of the genius of the Framers and the applicability of their insights to today’s political climate by Eric Lane, a Senior Fellow of the living Constitution Fellows Program at the Brennan Center, and Michael Oreskes, Editor of the International Herald Tribune.
Authored by: Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes
– 09/18/07
Ten Things You Should Know About Habeas Corpus
This brief publication seeks to answer questions regarding habeas corpus by explaining the facts and correcting the misconceptions surrounding this hot-button issue.
Authored by: Jonathan Hafetz
– May 2007
The Secrecy Problem in Terrorism Trials
This report aims to advance this debate and, along the way, to identify areas in need of congressional action by exploring the central question at stake: How should we reconcile the competing demands of secrecy, fairness, and accurate decision-making in terrorism trials surrounding habeas corpus?
Authored by: Serrin Turner and Stephen J. Schulhofer
– 2005