The Brennan Center Legal Series and its DC Steering Committee Members
Mortimer Caplin (Caplin & Drysdale), Edward Correia (Latham & Watkins), David Cynamon (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman), Peter Edelman (Georgetown Law), Clifton Elgarten (Crowell & Moring), Pamela Gilbert (Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca), Gail Harmon (Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg), Jim Johnson (Debevoise & Plimpton), James Joseph (Arnold & Porter), Jean Kalicki (Arnold & Porter), Susan Liss (Brennan Center for Justice), Thurgood Marshall Jr. (Bingham McCutchen), Thomas Milch (Arnold & Porter), F. Whitten Peters (Williams & Connolly), Carter Phillips (Sidley Austin), Karen Popp (Sidley Austin), Cliff Sloan (Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom), Paul Smith (Jenner & Block), Michael Waldman (Brennan Center for Justice), and Robert Weiner (Arnold & Porter)
Invite You to a Conversation on
Truth, Transparency, Privilege: What the 44th President Must Tackle
with
Thomas Milch - Partner & Chair, Arnold & Porter
Irvin Nathan - General Counsel, U. S. House of Representatives
Michael Waldman - Executive Director, Brennan Center for Justice
Liza Goitein - Liberty and National Security Project Director, Brennan Center for Justice
Emily Berman - Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice
Government transparency is vital for a well-functioning democracy. Yet the Bush administration was among the most secretive in history. Policies regarding detention, interrogation, rendition, and domestic surveillance were developed behind closed doors by a small, select group of officials. Legal memoranda purporting to justify these policies were kept under lock and key. Congressional inquiries and judicial review were thwarted by overbroad assertions of privilege. The result was a set of policies that violated both the law and our nation's shared values.
Brennan Center attorneys and special guest, Irvin Nathan, General Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, will examine various aspects of the problem of government secrecy, as well as potential solutions. They will discuss the Center's recent report on executive privilege, and its path breaking legislative proposal, which would codify, for the first time, a system to resolve competing claims of executive privilege between the Congress and the Executive.
They will also discuss the Brennan Center's Transparency Report Card, which evaluates how well President Obama has thus far lived up to his pledge to usher in a "new era of openness." From restoration of a "presumption of openness" under FOIA to overbroad assertions of the "state secrets" privilege, the report card reveals surprising patterns in the Obama administration's record of transparency.
Finally, they will discuss the Brennan Center's longstanding call, recently joined by the chairs of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry to investigate, examine, and take lessons from controversial post-9/11 counter-terrorism policies such as abusive interrogation methods, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless surveillance of Americans.
Please join us!
Friday, May 15, 2009
12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Arnold & Porter
555 12th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004
RSVP: Kindly respond by May 13, 2009 to max.scales@nyu.edu or by calling 212.992.8643.