National Security Cases in Federal Court – 6711

The objective of this two credit seminar is to use structured readings, class discussions, and student presentations to give its participants a thorough grounding in the unique investigative and legal tools that are used in the investigation and trial of a criminal national security case in federal district court. After analyzing the main statutes in the field, such as material support to a foreign terrorist organization, topics covered will include the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as an investigative tool; the extraterritorial application of U.S. criminal laws, and the legal structure applicable to U.S. law enforcement agents when they are working outside the United States; the challenges posed by the existence of classified information that may be relevant to a criminal case and whether the Classified Information Procedures Act adequately remedies those challenges; the choice between military commissions and federal criminal trials for terrorism defendants; and a critical examination of the various legal rationalizations that have been advanced for the detention of terrorism suspects.Class participation is important to a thorough and educational examination of these issues. Students’ grades will be based one-third on class participation, and two-thirds on the writing of a paper, approximately twenty pages long, and that paper’s presentation and defense to their fellow seminar participants. Topics for the paper/presentation can be of the students’ choosing (with the instructor’s approval), or can be selected from a list to be provided by the instructor.Participants in the seminar must either have completed Criminal Procedure or be willing to read, before the first seminar session, a set of readings chosen by the instructor on the topics of search and seizure, the Fourth Amendment’s warrant clause and its exceptions, and the exclusionary rule.