Torturing Executive Power

The treatment of captives in America's struggle against al Qaeda and the Taliban has placed an emotional spotlight on presidential war powers not seen since the Vietnam conflict. Much sound and fury has been directed at memoranda leaked to the media, in which the President's legal advisers take broad views of the independent presidential power to combat terrorism, and in particular of the President's power to imprison and question enemy fighters. Ramsey attempts to evaluate the presidential power aspects of the memoranda from the perspective of someone who has participated in the development of the academic theory of executive power in foreign affairs.