David Kris To Be Nominated to Head National Security Division of DOJ:
According to the Legal Times Blog, President-Elect Obama is planning to nominate David Kris as the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division. If that's true, it's terrific news. Kris is a lawyer's lawyer and one of the world's foremost subject-matter experts in national security law. He literally wrote the book, or at least co-wrote it: His treatise, National Security Investigations and Prosecutions, is an extremely impressive work. Plus, Kris has a great deal of practical experience in the area: He was the Associate Deputy Attorney General from 2000 to 2003, where he supervised the government's implementation of FISA and represented DOJ at the National Security Council. If someone asked me who I thought should head the DOJ's National Security Division, I would probably have named David Kris. Bravo to President-Elect Obama for such an inspired pick.
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode /att/alharamainorder10509.pdf
I can urge Kris's speedy confirmation, but I cannot channel him.
Why?
My take was that it seems reasonably well grounded (but again, not my area), but that between the lines he feels the feds are selling BS, and he is a bit tired of it. It seems inescapable that once he officially reviews the document in camera, the plaintiff's case is going to get a huge boost, so the feds should feel the pressure, but either don't or don't care. I'm not one to leap to argue ineptitude on behalf of the feds in such an important case, but are they missing something? Or maybe they counting on a political hail Mary to make it go away, like the phone companies.
Yes, I think Judge Walker was more than "a bit" tired! But I don't know enough about the context of that proceeding to have a very informed opinion about it, unfortunately.
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