News
NBC News: Does the Teixeira case mean the national security clearance system is broken?
Assignment
No new assignment. Finish the assignment from last class.
Archives for Uncategorized
Day 14 – Feb 28
Class is in person – computer day means we talk about computers.
News
Al Jazeera English: US judge says 9/11 families not entitled to Afghan bank funds
Netanyahu said to huddle repeatedly with military brass over possible attack on Iran
China refuses to condemn Russia’s Ukraine invasion during G20 deadlock
What is China’s peace proposal on how to end Ukraine war?
Assignment
This is computer and Internet day! We have several chapters that deal with cyber operations and surveillance. You need to have a basic understanding of how the systems work to think clearly about the problems. I wish I could make the Supreme Court justices go through the material that we will review.
The Internet: 1997 – 2021 – One minute visualization of the growth of the Internet
Unit: Computers and the Internet – This is a series of Khan Academy videos that introduce the basics of computers and the Internet. I assume most of you have used Khan Academy lessons during K-12 and perhaps college. These are short, simple, and entertaining. Should take less than 90 minutes total to watch them all.
I will expand on these materials in class.
Day 13 – 23 Feb
News
Putin suspends Russian involvement in nuclear arms pact over Ukraine tensions
Biden hails ‘rock solid’ Nato as Putin blames West for Russia’s war
What is the future of the internet? Don’t ask the Supreme Court– The problem with cyberlaw in the courts.
Assignment
Given current events, we are going to read Chapter 15 for class on Thursday.
Also review:
Read Chapter 15 – Nuclear War – no slides – this is a discussion class
Duck And Cover (1951) Bert The Turtle – This is an example of what we saw in school when I was a kid. This is the modern version: https://www.ready.gov/nuclear-explosion
No US missile defense system proven capable against ‘realistic’ ICBM threats: Study
All intercontinental missiles are hypersonic, i.e., they travel at several times the speed of sound. What is in the press as hypersonic missiles are ones that stay low in the atmosphere, rather than going into space and coming down, making them much harder to detect and shoot down.
What Happens When a Nuclear Bomb Hits”
Nuclear Winter May Bring a Decade of Destruction
How a small nuclear war would transform the entire planet
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Long Term Health Effects
Long-term radiation (a few years) effects are low, as is residual radiation, at least for air burst bombs. Bombs that explode at ground level put a lot more dirt into the atmosphere and may leave more residual radiation, but we have no experience with this.
Union of Concerned Scientists, Close Calls with Nuclear Weapons (Apr. 2015) – summary
Resource document, you do not need to read for class.
Blundering into a nuclear war in Ukraine: a hypothetical scenario
CRS: Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons. Updated March 7, 2022
This is a clear guide to tactical versus strategic nuclear weapons prepared for Congress. Read pp 25-32 – Russian Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons after the Cold War to get a sense of the Ukraine problem. Is this a meaningful distinction?
Resources
Day 12 – 16 Feb
News
Assignment
Find a story about the Ukraine war that highlights a potential violation of the UN charter or the law of armed combat – jus in bello – and email it to me by Wednesday night so I can compile them for class.
Ukraine war day. Study the note in the Supplement and look at the Ukraine war news sites.
The Ukraine War and the Crime of Aggression: How to Fill the Gaps in the International Legal System
Day 10 – Feb 9
News
Chinese spy balloon contained technology to monitor communication signals, US says
Assignment
Finish the materials from last class.
Slides for Chapter 7 – revised
Slides for Chapter 8 – revised
We are going to hold the Ukraine war until next class.
Day 8 – 2 Feb
News
Not today, I do not want to get bogged down.
Assignment
Finish Chapter 5
Slides for Chapter 5 – Revised (I clarified some slides in today’s section and add some to better illustrate the DFE)
Day 7 – 31 Jan
News
Access to sophisticated computer chips is a primary battleground in national security law. This podcast discusses the chip war between the US and China, and why chips are the key strategic value of Taiwan. In a related story, the two key countries that build the equipment to make chips have agreed to not sell to China: Japan, Netherlands Agree to Limit Exports of Chip-Making Equipment to China
Assignment
Finish Chapter 4
Slides for Chapter 4 from last class. Slightly revisions in the slides we did not cover last class.
Read Chapter 5 over the weekend. This will carry us through the next class as well.
Slides for Chapter 5 – Revised
Day 6 – 26 Jan
Moodle Attendance
There are three options to choose for attendance status: present, corrected, and absent. Moodle auto-populated the point allocation for each, giving “present” 2 points, “corrected” 1 point, and “absent” 0 points.
As the “corrected” status is merely used for administrative purposes, and functionally serves the same purpose as “present,” the point allocations for both “present” and “corrected” have been set to 1.
News
Breaking news – Biden Announces Abrams Tanks to be Delivered to Ukraine
Great resource – The Modern War Institute (West Point)
The trillion-dollar coin scheme, explained by the guy who invented it
Debt Ceilings, Bombs, Cliff and the Trillion Dollar Coin
Assignments
Slides for Chapter 4 – revised
Carry over the assignment from last class (day 5)
Day 5 – 24 Jan
News
Students and Experts Agree: TikTok Bans Are Useless
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test Is a Smashing Success
BBC: Ukraine war: Germany won’t block export of its Leopard 2 tanks, foreign minister says.
Presidental emergency powers and the debt crisis
The debt limit catch-22: Will Congress hand Biden its power of the purse?
Biden Can Raise the Debt Ceiling Without Congress
Assignment
We will finish discussing Chapter 3. Slides for Chapter 3 – revised
Read Chapter 4. I have introduced most of the issues in Chapter 4 as we went through Chapter 3. That should allow us to cover the material more efficiently. We will not finish this chapter in one class, but we will go as far as we have time. Some of the early issues in the chapter make more sense after you have read the latter part of the chapter.
Read the supplement pp. 2-7. There is an edited excerpt from U.S. House of Representatives v. Mnuchin which finds that Congress does have standing to bring a challenge to a violation of congressional limitations on the use of appropriated money. There is also a note on the final disposition of Trump v. Sierra Club, which ends in limbo when the Biden administration ended the state of emergency and asked the Supreme Court to remove the case from its docket.
Slides for Chapter 4 – revised
Day 4 – 19 Jan
News
How China planted an FBI mole who was discovered only after gutting the CIA’s vast spy network
Assignment
Finish reading Chapter 3.
Slides for Chapter 3 – revised
Slides posted before class are always subject to revision. If I revise them, I will post the revision before class so you can download it for your notes. Revisions are usually minor, just things I find as I am preparing for class. I am going to try to post slides a few days before class so you can use them to guide your readings.
Posted slides do not include polling slides or copyright images used for decoration.
Resources
Day 3 – 17 Jan
News
Open-source intelligence is piercing the fog of war in Ukraine
Assignment
Read Chapter 3, to B. The Commander in Chief’s War Powers. p 55.
Day 2 – January 12
News
Computer breakdown sows chaos across US air travel system
Don’t panic. It might not be a cyberattack.
I survived Guantánamo. Why is it still open 21 years later?
Assignment
Finish discussion of Chapter 1
Read Chapter 2. It is a short read, but it raises fundamental issues about the structure of the US government. Be prepared to discuss.
Resources – Source of national security powers
Constitutional Powers
Congressional Powers
Presidential Powers
Ambiguous Powers
Day 1 – 10 Jan
First Day Assignment
National security law is not a bar course and some important parts are not even law in the sense of something that can be enforced or challenged in the courts. It’s administrative law, but with guns and nearly complete deference from the Supreme Court.
Read Chapter 1 of the text. Read the first 6 pages of President Reagan’s National Security Strategy from 1986, the height of the Cold War: National Security Decision Directive 238, Basic National Security Strategy, Sept. 2, 1986
Over the weekend, think about what you are worried about as national security legal problems and what you are interested in learning about in national security law. Send me an email – richards@lsu.edu – by Sunday night so I can make a list to discuss in class.