President Obama has nominated his Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, to be the next Supreme Court Justice. If confirmed, she would fill the seat being vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens upon his retirement at the end of the 2009/2010 term. Prior to her term as Solicitor General, Ms. Kagan, in her capacity as an academic and scholar, wrote influential pieces analyzing free speech jurisprudence. In particular, Ms.

Following the Supreme Court's January 21, 2010, ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, questions have emerged about which policy options could be available to Congress. This report provides an overview of selected campaign finance policy options that may be relevant. It also briefly comments on how Citizens United might affect political advertising. A complete understanding of how Citizens United will affect the campaign and policy environments is likely to be unavailable until at least the conclusion of the 2010 election cycle.

On November 13, 2001, President Bush issued a Military Order (M.O.) authorizing trial by military commission of certain non-citizens suspected of participating in the war against terrorism. The Supreme Court struck down military commissions established pursuant to the M.O. as inconsistent with the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). To permit military commissions to go forward, Congress approved the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), conferring authority to promulgate rules that depart from the strictures of the UCMJ and possibly U.S. international obligations.

Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Congress passed the Authorization to Use Military Force
(AUMF), which granted the President the authority ?to use all necessary and appropriate force
against those ... [who] planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks? against the
United States.? As part of the subsequent ?war on terror,? many persons captured during military
operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere were transferred to the U.S. Naval Station at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for detention and possible prosecution before military tribunals.

The state secrets privilege is a judicially created evidentiary privilege that allows the government to resist court-ordered disclosure of information during litigation, if there is a reasonable danger that such disclosure would harm the national security of the United States. The Supreme Court first described the modern analytical framework of the state secrets privilege in the 1953 case of United States v. Reynolds. In its opinion, the Court laid out a two-step procedure to be used when evaluating a claim of privilege to protect state secrets.