Targeting the Foreign Born by Race and Nationality: Counter-Productive in the War on Terrorism

Times of emergency may justify certain restrictions on liberties, but the nature of the terrorist challenge calls for a much more measured and nuanced response. Al Qaeda is said to have cells operating in as many as sixty countries. Furthermore, Al Qaeda is best described as a decentralized network of extremist Islamic groups and individuals rather than a unified military organization. To reduce or eliminate the threat they pose requires the cooperation of the governments, police officers, and individual citizens in the countries where Al Qaeda linked individuals and groups operate. Such help is necessary to obtain intelligence, arrest, capture, prosecution, and extradition of alleged terrorists, not to mention to cut off their funds and to confiscate their arms and other assets. The thesis of this article is that to the extent the United States discriminates against or otherwise unfairly treats Arabs and Muslims living here or wishing to visit here, the more difficult it will be for the United States to get the help we so desperately need not only in the United States, but also in Arab and Muslim countries and communities throughout the world

The Death Penalty--An Obstacle to the War against Terrorism ?

September 11 seared our collective memory perhaps even more vividly than December 7, 1941, and has evoked a natural demand both for retribution and for measures to keep us safe. Given the existing statutory and judicial authority for capital punishment, the U.S. Government has to confront the issue whether to seek the death penalty against those who are linked to the suicide attacks or to the organization that sponsored them or both. Meting out the death penalty to international terrorists involves difficult moral, legal, and policy questions. The September 11 crimes were not only domestic crimes, but also international ones. The magnitude of these crimes, the killing of over 3,000 innocent people, cries out for redress. Yet most countries in the world, including nearly all our closest allies, have abolished capital punishment. None of the four currently operating international criminal tribunals is authorized to give a death sentence. In addition, the advent of the suicide bomber turns the deterrence justification for the death penalty inside out. Might the death penalty help create martyrs rather than discourage similar attacks? Could our imposing the death penalty increase support in the Islamic world for al Qaeda and other extremist groups? Furthermore, to what extent as a matter of constitutional law and policy, should a secondary actor, one who did not kill, but who was a member of a terrorist conspiracy, be subject to the death penalty? This Article examines these questions in the context of the Zacarias Moussaoui case, the supposed twentieth hijacker, who, on September 11, 2001, had been held in custody for twenty-six days

An Examination of Business Process Reengineering Techniques and Their Contribution to Process Improvement

The Department of Defense\u27s Corporate Information Management Initiative is part of an effort to achieve savings through specified programs focused on business process improvement A major process improvement methodology being used by the DoD is Business Process Reengineering (BPR). BPR offers the possibility for a fundamental rethinking and radical redesigning of DoD business processes, but there has been little systematic study of the effectiveness of the various techniques used in BPR projects. This study evaluates whether organizations conducting BPR efforts using five specific techniques (strategic planning, activity modeling, activity based costing, benchmarking, and simulation) achieve improvement in critical process performance measures. The survey was sent to two Air Force sample groups. The first group consisted of respondents to the Defense Information Systems Agency 1994 Business Process Reengineering Survey, and the second group consisted of members of the Air Force Institute of Technology Information Resource Management e-mail list. The survey resulted in a small sample of cases that were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results of the survey indicate a surprisingly high success rate for BPR projects. Reliability analysis of the survey data was conducted and conclusions and recommendations for further research are presented

Sow What You Reap? Using Predator and Reaper Drones to Carry Out Assassinations or Targeted Killings of Suspected Islamic Terrorists

This article explores whether targeted killing of suspected Islamist terrorists comports with international law generally, whether any special rules apply in so-called “failed states,” and whether deploying attack drones poses special risks for the civilian population, for humanitarian and human rights law, and for the struggle against terrorism. Part I of this article discusses the Predator Drone and its upgraded version Predator B, the Reaper, and analyzes their technological capabilities and innovations. Part II discusses international humanitarian law and international human rights law as applied to a state’s targeting and killing an individual inside or outside armed conflict or in the territory of a failed state. Part III analyzes the wisdom of carrying out targeted killing drone attacks, even if otherwise legal, against the Taliban, al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations that have embraced suicide bombing

Deterministic entanglement and tomography of ion spin qubits

We have implemented a universal quantum logic gate between qubits stored in the spin state of a pair of trapped calcium 40 ions. An initial product state was driven to a maximally entangled state deterministically, with 83% fidelity. We present a general approach to quantum state tomography which achieves good robustness to experimental noise and drift, and use it to measure the spin state of the ions. We find the entanglement of formation is 0.54.Comment: 3 figures, 4 pages, footnotes fixe

Long-lived mesoscopic entanglement outside the Lamb-Dicke regime

We create entangled states of the spin and motion of a single $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ion in a linear ion trap. The motional part consists of coherent states of large separation and long coherence time. The states are created by driving the motion using counterpropagating laser beams. We theoretically study and experimentally observe the behaviour outside the Lamb-Dicke regime, where the trajectory in phase space is modified and the coherent states become squeezed. We directly observe the modification of the return time of the trajectory, and infer the squeezing. The mesoscopic entanglement is observed up to $\Delta \alpha = 5.1$ with coherence time 170 microseconds and mean phonon excitation \nbar = 16.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Revised version after editor comment

Enter at Your Own Risk: Criminalizing Asylum-Seekers

In nearly three years in office, President Donald J. Trump’s war against immigrants and the foreign-born seems only to have intensified. Through a series of Executive Branch actions and policies rather than legislation, the Trump Administration has targeted immigrants and visitors from Muslim-majority countries, imposed quotas on and drastically reduced the independence of Immigration Court Judges, cut the number of refugees admitted by more than 80%, cancelled DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and stationed Immigration Customs and Enforcement (“ICE”) agents at state courtrooms to arrest unauthorized immigrants, intimidating them from participating as witnesses and litigants. Although initially saying that only unauthorized immigrants convicted of serious crimes would be prioritized for deportation, the Trump Administration has implicitly given ICE officers carte blanche to arrest unauthorized immigrants anytime, anywhere, creating a climate of fear in immigrant communities. Particularly disturbing is the targeting of asylum-seekers, employing the criminal justice system and the illegal entry statute in the “zero tolerance policy.” Under this policy, children, including toddlers, are seized and languish for months and years separate from their families, many of whom are seeking asylum. Directly contrary to federal statute and international law, another policy makes anyone who enters the country without inspection ineligible for asylum. Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s second Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), ordered asylum applicants to await the lengthy processing of their claims in cartel-ruled border areas of Mexico, with no realistic safe shelter and deprived of all meaningful opportunity to exercise their statutorily-guaranteed right to access to counsel—a necessity, given today’s convoluted asylum law. Trump’s first Attorney General, Jefferson Sessions, largely disqualified as grounds for asylum even the most brutal and terroristic persecution of women and violence perpetrated by inescapable quasi-state gang actors. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) officers mislead asylum-seekers at the southern border, telling them they don’t have the right to apply for asylum or saying yes, they may apply, but admitting only a minute fraction of those who present themselves for processing at ports of entry. President Trump’s Administration refuses to grant parole or reasonable bond even to those asylum-seekers who establish a credible fear of persecution, frequently resulting in long-term detention, and forcing on detained asylum-seekers the Hobson’s choice of lengthy incarceration in terrible conditions in the United States or the risks of persecution and death in their countries of origin. International law prohibits using the criminal justice system or prolonged administrative detention to deter and discourage bona fide asylum-seekers from asserting and proving their claims. We suggest two remedies: Federal courts should enforce article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention (1) by prohibiting criminal charges of unlawful entry against bona fide asylum-seekers until they complete the asylum application process and are denied asylum; and (2) by requiring parole or reasonable bond for asylum-seekers who pass fair credible fear interviews. The article argues that bona fide asylum-seekers should be kept in detention only for a short period, if at all, to determine whether they have a credible fear of persecution. Article 31 of the Refugee Convention, made binding on the United States through our accession to the 1967 Refugee Protocol, generally prohibits “impos[ing] penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees . . . where their life or freedom was threatened.” “Penalties” clearly must include not only criminal prosecution and prison, but also prolonged immigration detention and the seizure of children from parents without good cause, for “deterrence” purposes. We argue also that customary international law and human rights treaties support the recommended remedies and stand squarely against the Trump Administration’s policies. Federal courts may utilize customary international law directly or through the Charming Betsy canon. Not only do the Trump Administration’s harsh immigration policies and practices violate international law and American values, but also foretell a government tending toward exclusion, racism, nationalism, parochialism, authoritarianism, and disregard of the rule of law. The parallels between the Trump Administration and Hungary’s autocratic, essentially one-party, state, are chilling. See Patrick Kingsley, He Used to Call Victor Orban an Ally. Now He Calls Him a Symbol of Fascism, N.Y. Times (Mar. 15, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/world/europe/viktor-orban-hungary-ivanyi.html (on file with the Columbia Human Rights Law Review). Federal courts, however, have both the authority and the responsibility to enforce the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Refugee Protocol as well as international human rights norms to protect asylum-seekers from criminal prosecution and from prolonged detention. The Framers of the United States Constitution and its key amendments envisioned that federal courts would apply treaties as the rule of decision to protect foreigners and would serve as a check upon an Executive that tramples on individual rights, particularly the rights of a vulnerable minority. Given the outlandish behavior of this Administration, federal courts must live up to that vision

A novel drug management system in the Febuxostat versus Allopurinol Streamlined Trial:A description of a pharmacy system designed to supply medications directly to patients within a prospective multicenter randomised clinical trial

Background: Trials of investigational medicinal products are required to adhere to strict guidelines with regard to the handling and supply of medication. Information technology offers opportunities to approach clinical trial methodology in new ways. This report summarises a novel pharmacy system designed to supply trial medications directly to patients by post in the Febuxostat versus Allopurinol Streamlined Trial.Method: A bespoke web-based software package was designed to facilitate the direct supply of trial medications to Febuxostat versus Allopurinol Streamlined Trial participants from a pharmacy based in the Medicines Monitoring Unit, University of Dundee.Results: To date, 65,467 packs of medication have been dispensed using the system to 3978 patients. Up to 238 packs per day have been dispensed.Conclusion: The Medicines Monitoring Unit Febuxostat versus Allopurinol Streamlined Trial drug management system is an effective method of administering the complex drug supply requirements of a large-scale clinical trial with advantages over existing arrangements. A low rate of loss to follow-up in the Febuxostat versus Allopurinol Streamlined Trial may be attributable to the drug management system.</p