Joseph Nunn is a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. He focuses on issues surrounding the domestic activities of the U.S. military, including the Insurrection Act, the Posse Comitatus Act, National Guard deployments, and martial law. His work advances policies that allow the president to respond to emergencies without sacrificing the separation of powers or Americans’ constitutional rights.
Nunn is the coauthor of “An Army Turned Inward: Reforming the Insurrection Act to Guard Against Abuse” (Journal of National Security Law and Policy, 2023) and author of the Brennan Center reports Limiting the Military’s Role in Law Enforcement (2024) and Martial Law in the United States (2020). He regularly comments for television, radio, and print media on issues relating to domestic deployment and military participation in law enforcement. His writing has been featured in publications including Democracy Journal, Lawfare, Slate, The Hill, and Just Security, and he has been interviewed for PBS NewsHour, the Associated Press, The Economist, Rolling Stone, and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, among others.
He is a graduate of University of Chicago Law School and Tulane University.