Article
Article [pdf]
Letters & CommentsStephanie Blum
Stephanie Cooper Blum currently works as an attorney for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Department of Homeland Security. She defends the TSA against employment discrimination complaints and challenges to adverse personnel actions before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and federal court. Between 2000 and 2003, she worked as a law clerk for three federal judges. Ms. Blum holds a JD from the University of Chicago Law School and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Yale University. She is currently completing her master’s degree in homeland security studies from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security and is expected to graduate in December 2008. This article is adapted from a chapter in her book The Necessary Evil of Preventive Detention in the War on Terror: a Plan for a More Moderate and Sustainable Solution to be published by Cambria Press in the fall of 2008. Ms. Blum can be reached at scooper@aya.yale.edu.
Preventive Detention in the War on Terror: A Comparison of How the United States, Britain, and Israel Detain and Incapacitate Terrorist Suspects
ABSTRACT:
After September 11, 2001, the Administration decided to detain individuals suspected of being members or agents of al Qaeda or the Taliban
as enemy combatants and hold them indefinitely for the duration of the war on terror.
The rationale behind this system of preventive detention is to incapacitate suspected terrorists and facilitate interrogation.
While the need for preventive detention is legitimate, the Administration asserts that its decision-making process to label individuals
as enemy combatants should exclusively reside within the executive branch, thereby bypassing the checks and balances that comprise America’s democratic system.
Israel and Britain have been dealing with terrorism for decades, and both countries have shown that democracies facing comparable terrorist threats
can implement preventive detention policies that are not based on unilateral executive usurpation of power.
This article explores whether any insights can be gleaned from Israel’s and Britain’s forms of preventive detention
in order to make a recommendation to the next Administration.
Read full article.
SUGGESTED CITATION:
Blum, Stephanie Cooper. “Preventive Detention in the War on Terror: A Comparison of How the United States, Britain, and Israel Detain and Incapacitate Terrorist Suspects.” Homeland Security Affairs IV, no. 3 (October 2008)http://www.hsaj.org/?article=4.3.1