The LSU Law Center will offer a free symposium titled Presidential Power and Terrorism: Detention, Interrogation and Trial, with the center’s Professors John Baker, Ed Richards, and John Devlin presenting. The trio will discuss legal issues posed by detention, interrogation, and trial of terrorist suspects and how these challenge our common understanding of the rule of law.
The terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 has had profound consequences for the U.S. legal system. In previous years, reforms of the Church Committee in the 1970s pushed the U.S. toward electronic surveillance and away from human assets. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War also shifted the focus in antiterrorism efforts toward individual rights and privacy during that era.
After 9/11, these trends were suddenly reversed. Many young middle-Eastern men legally in the U.S. were seized and interrogated based on their religious status. Prisoners were captured in Iraq and Afghanistan in a conflict that did not fit the traditional definition of war recognized by the Genève Convention. The U.S. has been faced with issues regarding the legal and moral conditions for their confinement, interrogation, and trial.
Join the Law Center for this lively and informative discussion, free and open to the public. The symposium will be held Friday, November 9, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in Room 110 of the Law Center, kicking off the Center’s Reunion Weekend Celebration scheduled for November 9–10.
