Executive privilege is the power of the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch of the United States Government to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of information or personnel relating to the executive. The power of Congress or the federal courts to obtain such information is not mentioned explicitly in the United States Constitution, nor is there any explicit mention in the Constitution of an executive privilege to resist such requests from Congress or courts. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled this privilege may qualify as an element of the separation of powers doctrine, derived from the supremacy of the executive branch in its own area of Constitutional activity.
Jeremy Dean Hinzman was the first American Iraq War resister/deserter to seek refugee status in Canada.
Sibel Deniz Edmonds is a former contract translator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the founder and editor-in-chief of the independent news website NewsBud.
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz after U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush and were coordinated through the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.
Abdullah Kamel Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari is a citizen of Kuwait, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
A national security letter (NSL) is an administrative subpoena issued by the United States government to gather information for national security purposes. NSLs do not require prior approval from a judge. The Stored Communications Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, and Right to Financial Privacy Act authorize the United States government to seek such information that is "relevant" to authorized national security investigations. By law, NSLs can request only non-content information, for example, transactional records and phone numbers dialed, but never the content of telephone calls or e-mails.
Richardson v. Perales, 402 U.S. 389 (1971), was a case heard by the United States Supreme Court to determine and delineate several questions concerning administrative procedure in Social Security disability cases. Among the questions considered was the propriety of using physicians' written reports generated from medical examinations of a disability claimant, and whether these could constitute "substantial evidence" supportive of finding nondisability under the Social Security Act.
Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698 (1971), was Muhammad Ali's appeal of his conviction in 1967 for refusing to report for induction into the United States military forces during the Vietnam War. His local draft board had rejected his application for conscientious objector classification. In a unanimous 8-0 ruling, the United States Supreme Court reversed the conviction that had been upheld by the Fifth Circuit.
Al Odah v. United States is a court case filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsels challenging the legality of the continued detention as enemy combatants of Guantanamo detainees. It was consolidated with Boumediene v. Bush (2008), which is the lead name of the decision.
Falbo v. United States, 320 U.S. 549 (1944), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a draft board's alleged error in classifying a Jehovah's Witness as a conscientious objector rather than a minister of religion is no defense to the board's order to report for national service; post-reporting review of the classification is sufficient due process.
Gonzales v. United States, 348 U.S. 407 (1955), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a Jehovah's Witness was denied fair hearing because of failure to supply him with materials in his record.
Witmer v. United States, 348 U.S. 375 (1955), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a draft board's rejection of Jehovah's Witness claim of conscientious objector status as lacking sincerity.
Holmes v. United States, 391 U.S. 936 (1968), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for writ of certiorari to a Jehovah's Witnesses minister who asked the Court to decide whether a draft of men into the Armed Forces in times of peace is constitutionally permissible. The minister argued that, in the absence of a declaration of war, a draft was not authorized and was equivalent to involuntary servitude.
Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division, 450 U.S. 707 (1981), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that Indiana's denial of unemployment compensation benefits to petitioner violated his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, under Sherbert v. Verner (1963).
A war resister is a person who resists war. The term can mean several things: resisting participation in all war, or a specific war, either before or after enlisting in, being inducted into, or being conscripted into a military force.
Department of Justice v. Landano, 508 U.S. 165 (1993), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Government is not entitled to a presumption that a source is confidential within the meaning of Exemption 7(D) of the Freedom of Information Act whenever the source provides information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the course of a criminal investigation.
Thomas Glenn Jolley was an anti-Vietnam War protester who renounced his U.S. citizenship in Canada. His move made him one of a small number of former Americans who voluntarily made themselves stateless as a form of political protest. Soon after his renunciation, Jolley crossed back into the U.S. and began working in Florida. A U.S. federal court ruled that he was deportable, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service could not actually deport him to Canada because he had lost his Canadian landed immigrant status. He died in Asheville, North Carolina at the age of 70.
Conscientious objection in the United States is based on the Military Selective Service Act, which delegates its implementation to the Selective Service System. Conscientious objection is also recognized by the Department of Defense.
