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October 15, 2008 Contact: Miller Lecture to address Bush legal strategy in terror warATLANTA – The Bush administration should have made better use of Congress in asserting its powers in the war on terror, says Northwestern University School of Law professor John O. McGinnis, who will deliver a lecture on the topic next week at the Georgia State University College of Law. McGinnis, the Stanford Clinton Sr. Professor of Law, says the administration should have worked with Congress to establish a framework for domestic surveillance and the detention and interrogation of terror suspects, rather than rely on the approval of courts which have become less sympathetic as the Bush era has wound down. “The administration radically underestimated the magnitude of the risk that the court would curb the president’s discretion because it misunderstood the changed legal environment for litigation in the 21st Century,” said McGinnis. “Every aspect of American life has been increasingly subject to court-made rules. As a result of this trend, even discretion in the war on terror would likely be seen through the prism of legalism that applies to domestic criminal law.” McGinnis will deliver the 43rd Henry J. Miller Distinguished Lecture from 12 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. Oct. 23 in the State Ballroom of the Georgia State University Student Center, 44 Courtland St., Atlanta. He specializes in constitutional law, international law and other areas, and was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1987 to 1991. He said he is sympathetic with the goals of the administration, but believes by working with Congress earlier, it could’ve avoided delays in war crimes trials and “the appearance of lawlessness which has sapped support at home and abroad for the administration’s reasonable objectives in its war against terrorists.” Who: John O. McGinnis, Stanford Clinton Sr. Professor of Law, Northwestern University What: 43rd Distinguished Henry J. Miller Lecture and Lunch When: 12 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23 Where: State Ballroom, Georgia State University Student Center, 44 Courtland St., Atlanta
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