"The Unauthorized Disclosure of This Effort Damages Our National Security and Puts Our Citizens At Risk."

America scratches its head and asks: Does the President have the power to circumvent an act of Congress in authorizing a warrantless eavesdropping program which seemingly indiscriminately analyzes the communications of American citizens?

Based on what we know now, the National Security Agency (NSA) was authorized by President Bush to intercept and analyze international communications of US citizens and legal residents without obtaining warrants via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, established by Congress in 1978. FISA contained exceptions for emergency situations: (1) after Attorney General review, a 72-hour window for warrantless wiretapping is available as long as notice follows and (2) 15 days of warrantless wiretapping is permissible in the event that Congress formally declares war. But the Administration’s only real arguments in defense of the NSA program are (1) Bush may circumvent FISA when it pertains to national security and (2) that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) from 2001 implicitly authorizes this expansion of federal surveillance. The second is certainly the hand the administration wants to play with, since it is grounded in actual legislation, not mere opinion. Nevertheless, it seems like a stretch to argue that AUMF implicitly authorizes what FISA explicitly forbids.

America gazes into the mirror, confused, haggard, faintly recalling simpler times. Suppose the President did have the authority to expand the NSA’s surveillance capabilities to capture overseas calls placed by US citizens. Why then was the Department of Justice drafting legislation in 2003 that could authorize this very activity?

The Washington Post reported that:

The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 -- dubbed ‘Patriot II’ by critics -- was leaked to the media in February 2003 and soon abandoned by Justice officials, who characterized it at the time as an ‘early draft’ written by staff lawyers. The proposal included several provisions that, in retrospect, would have affected the NSA's program of monitoring telephone calls and e-mails…One provision would have made it clear that the president could order wiretapping without court supervision for 15 days after Congress approved the use of military force, as it did against al Qaeda. Current law allows such spying for 15 days without a judge's approval only when Congress issues a declaration of war....Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said…the administration had considered seeking legislation authorizing the NSA program but had determined it would be impossible and could expose the highly classified program to the public. Scolinos [DOJ spokewoman] said Gonzales was not referring to the 2003 draft proposals, which she characterized as a compendium of ideas compiled by staff lawyers.

Finally, America, delirious, taking a bath, chain-smoking to relieve the stress, wonders: if the program was “narrowly focused, aimed only at international calls and targeted at al Qaeda and related groups” and contained “safeguards…to protect the civil liberties of ordinary Americans,” as the DOJ claimed in a recent press release, why then was this information concealed from all legislators except the congressional intelligence committees’ leadership? The National Security Act of 1947 stipulates that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees must be “kept fully and currently informed” about NSA surveillance activities. As the Progress Report notes, the briefing cannot be restricted to the leadership when the “primary purpose is to acquire intelligence.”

America watches the hearings and reads the DOJ “Myth v. Reality” Press Release which defends the NSA program:

In its Hamdi decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the AUMF also authorizes the ‘fundamental incident(s) of waging war.’ The history of warfare makes clear that electronic surveillance of the enemy is a fundamental incident to the use of military force.

We have listened to the enemy…and it is patching things up with its girlfriend.

This Week at the ACS--Membership Party Thursday!

Hi all—we’re ramping up to the first-ever ACS Moot Court Competition on March 4-5, and we want you to be involved! But there’s lots more coming up—read on for reports on our events and programs. As always, send us your suggestions at acs@law.columbia.edu or mp2331@columbia.edu.

MEMBERSHIP PARTY, THURSDAY FEBRUARY 2!

We’re throwing another membership party this Thursday at Amsterdam Café from 9-10, with an open bar and great food. If you’re not a member yet, you can join at the door for $10 (check or credit card). If you are a member, come on down and party for free—and bring your friends!

Afterwards, if you want to keep partying, Bar Review will be just down the street at Casbah Rouge. See you there! Got questions? Whitney Russell, war2102@columbia.edu.

FIRST-EVER ACS MOOT COURT COMPETITION--BE A PART OF IT!

The first-ever ACS Moot Court competition is coming up. Show your Columbia pride and come out to volunteer that weekend! You’ll have the opportunity to network with other ACS members from across the country, the lawyers and judges who’ll be judging, and the ACS National Staff—including Executive Director Lisa Brown, who’ll be here on Sunday! You’ll also be invited to the two weekend parties—Happy Hour on Friday and an awards reception on Saturday, featuring remarks by Jack Greenberg. It's a great opportunity to meet ACS members and learn more about the organization, especially if you want to run for the Board.

We’ll be tabling at lunch this Wednesday and Thursday to answer questions and take your signups. Questions—or want to sign up? Email April Day at april.day@gmail.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS

More events coming up later in February:
**Don’t miss the next general membership meeting on Tuesday, February 7—we’ll be talking about ACS Board elections and the Moot Court competition, plus much more
**On February 8, don’t miss Professors Damrosch, Dorf, and Edgar discussing the NSA surveillance controversy at lunch
**Stay tuned for more later in the month!

FEDERALIST SOCIETY STUDENT SYMPOSIUM

The Columbia chapter of the Federalist Society is hosting the national student symposium this year. They have a terrific slate of speakers lined up, including Judge Alex Kozinski, Ambassador John Bolton, Professor Akhil Amar, and much more. Check out http://www.columbia.edu/cu/law/fed-soc/symposium/speakers.shtml for information and registration instructions (you can attend for only $5!).

The Fœderalist Papers

When penning the Federalist Papers, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay spelled federal as fœderal.

As this spelling makes one go bug-eyed in a hurry, most current editions use the modern spelling.

Procrastinating? Here's Wikipedia's list of words that may be spelled with a ligature.

The Silent Majority, The Talking Majority

Over at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Herbert Klein believes that "the so-called silent majority supports the President" in his efforts to wiretap Americans without benefit of a FISA warrant.

Where is this silent majority? Not answering public opinion polls, apparently.

The old news is that Bush's approval rating has returned to 36%. Also old news is the now-discredited claim, made by the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, that public opinion shows "support" for the NSA's warrant-free spying program.

The new news comes from Zogby's polling. 52% of Americans surveyed responded with I agree when asked this question:

If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment?

Granted, that's a particularly biased way of phrasing that question, and considering impeachment is not impeaching.

Still, almost 1 in 3 (29%) of surveyed Republicans (76% of surveyed Democrats, 50% of surveyed Independents) and a majority of surveyed Americans answered in the affirmative.

Not happy numbers for a President on the eve of his State of the Union address.

What is the ACS?

On Thursday night, ACS founder and Georgetown law professor Peter Rubin visited Columbia and spoke on what the nomination of Judge Alito and, in a larger sense, the changing jurisprudence of the Supreme Court means to the nation. Rubin addressed the dangers inherent in a narrow reading of constitutional provisions--especially those that protect individual rights--and placed the fate of Roe v. Wade in a larger context that considers the role that human values play in the law.

Professor Rubin spoke forcefully about the consequences of formalist constitutional interpretation that reads rights-granting text in the narrowest, rather than in the broadest sense. Especially where individual rights are concerned, the promise of liberty made to every American by our written constitution includes protections of human values. "Law serves human values," Rubin insisted; insistence on "economic efficiency" or narrowly circumscribed textual exegesis metes out justice with far too stingy a hand when placed against the proud background of liberty, freedom, and equality from which we come.

The great philosopher Augustine of Hippo wrote of the constricting nature of exegesis that gives attention only to the letter of the law, and not its spirit. In giving meaning to law, he writes, the text does not alone suffice; the reader "should consider what else it signifies, nourishing the inner man by our spiritual intelligence" (A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter). The things that we value--the objects of our secular faith--shall not become real if we allow ourselves only the sterility of bare language cut down to its most minimalist, its smallest sphere of meaning. Every time our courts use the text of the Constitution as a ceiling on equality, justice, and liberty, rather than a floor, every one of us loses. Every time the courts use the narrowly-construed text of the Constitution to strike down a congressional act that increases or bolsters individual freedoms, the spirit of our nation is dealt a tremendous blow.

In the face of current history, progressives have a choice. We can compromise and accommodate by taking strategic positions far more conservative than we prefer, but close to the currently dominant political discourse. Such positions might be successful in the short term, and clearly must be occupied by a critical mass so that we can resist losing more ground.

A progressive's other choice is to take the very long view. It may be ten, twenty, or even thirty years before public opinion and Article III appointments turn away from overconstrained readings of the Constitution and destructively stingy views of individual rights and liberties. To take advantage of that historical shift, whenever it might happen, another critical mass of progressives must remain preoccupied with long term strategy, voter education, and evolutionary progressivism. That role, I believe, falls to the ACS.

Here at Columbia, our goal is to present events that inform the law school community and provoke debate on constitutional issues ranging from the expansion of executive power in the war on terror to the government’s role in alleviating poverty and racial discrimination. Last term, we welcomed Cass Sunstein, Vanita Gupta of the LDF, and Walter Dellinger as speakers, and ACS also cosponsored a debate on Intelligent Design and a brown-bag on the nomination nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Perhaps you’ve come to one or two of our events, but you’re not quite sure what the ACS is all about.

Ask me what we believe, and here’s what I’ll tell you. The ACS is nonpartisan; we seek not dominance of party, but rather pursuit of a particular view of the Constitution. We adhere to a very clear set of values that drive our law and policy work as a group of practitioners, scholars, judges, and activists deeply committed to, and optimistic about, the future of this nation. Our central values include human dignity, individual rights and liberties, and genuine equality.

First, the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. This includes the right of every person to make those decisions that lie only between an individual, her conscience, and, if she so believe, her god. Within that most intimate sphere of life where we decide whom to love and how, whether to bear children and when, and when we wish to cease our own individual pursuit of medical treatment that serves only to prolong suffering, we believe that the federal government has only a narrow role to play. Our Constitution—a Constitution for the twenty-first century—protects individual liberty within these moments, for they define the very essence and mysteries of human existence.

Our pursuit of individual rights and liberties is far-ranging and includes matters from racial justice to successfully balancing individual liberties with national security in the midst of the war on terror. While national security and international relations currently absorb the nation, and rightfully so, we can never forget that within the borders of our nation, the gap between rich and poor is ever wider; de facto segregation in our schools defines ever more sharply the contours of discrimination in the twenty-first century; and the federalism jurisprudence of the Court threatens the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act, one of this nation’s most important civil rights laws. These challenges belong to us all, and together we must share the search for effective solutions.

Genuine equality does not mean enforcement of equal results, but rather genuine equality of opportunity. Our Constitution for the 21st Century protects economic opportunity by setting rational limits to the operation of the free market, for the absolutely unrestricted free market tends to limit rather than promoting opportunity. Economic equality of opportunity also inheres in the right to collective bargaining and the right to safe workplace conditions.

In short, our Constitution—a Constitution for the twenty-first century—acts as a sword and shield to protect, jealously, the inherent worth and dignity of each individual; liberty; and equality of economic and educational opportunity. That Constitution shields every last one of our people—not only the ones whose political activity and opinions pass muster with the Executive; not only the ones who conduct their lives within a narrow compass of acceptable behavior; not only the ones who have enough money to buy opportunity for themselves alone.

Ask me who we are, and I will tell you: we are Zaid Zaid, whose State Department service prior to law school included six months in Baghdad’s Green Zone. We are Laila Hlass and Anna Arcenaux, who saw the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and swore never to let us forget; they lead now where our government has failed utterly. We are Jeff Penn, leader of the Columbia Black Law Students Association; Dynishal Gross, co-president of the Columbia OUTLaws; Young Lee, editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review; and the thirty-six competitors and sixteen editors participating in this inaugural year of the ACS National Moot Court Competition, founded here at Columbia. What unites us all is devotion to a value larger than ourselves: the inherent dignity and worth of every individual.

Whether or not you have been to any of our events before, and regardless of your party or your political persuasion, you are welcome here. To join our listserv, send a message to acs@law.columbia.edu. We’ll be hosting an open-bar membership party on February 2—come for free if you’re already a member, and if you’re not, it’s just ten dollars at the door. We’ll announce its location soon.

If you believe that law serves human values, if you believe that national security must be balanced with individual liberty, if you believe that some spheres of human existence must remain independent from the law, come go your way with us. You won't be disappointed.

This Week at the ACS: Congratulations to moot court qualifiers!

Read on for important updates and announcements about upcoming events. As always, please send comments and suggestions to acs@law.columbia.edu or to Mary Kelly at mp2331.

FIVE MOOT COURT TEAMS QUALIFY FOR NATIONAL COMPETITION

This last weekend, the eighteen CLS ACS Moot Court teams competed to see which five teams would qualify to participate in the national competition here at Columbia in March. The five qualifying teams are:

1. Cuauhtémoc Ortéga & Leanne Wilson
2. Jim Doggett & Adam Pulver
3. Craig Boneau & Nina Yadava
4. Tim Abbott & Michelle Rutherford
5. Gaurav Reddy & Kim Strawbridge

Congratulations to the finalists! And thanks to all eighteen teams for participating in this first year of the ACS moot court. Your presence gave a tremendous boost to the credibility of the national program.

Remember, ACS Moot Court is open to students in all years of law school. If you'd like to try it next year, be sure to keep an eye out for our announcements in the fall!


FED SOC TO HOST EPSTEIN, TIERNEY DEBATE OVER SPITZER, MONDAY

We have received the following invitation to a great event from the Federalist Society:

The Federalist Society invites you to a debate featuring Richard Epstein and James Tierney:
Is Eliot Spitzer good for America? The Role of State Attorneys General.

When: Monday, January 23rd
Time: 12:20 - 1:20
Where: JG 103

New York's Attorney General may be better known than its Governor. Love him or hate him, Eliot Spitzer has changed the way people view the State AG. Is his "activist" style too disruptive of business? Has he abused his power in pursuit of political ambition? Or is it just what we need to make America safe for capitalism?

Come hear --- and --- debate these questions and more.


MEMBERSHIP PARTY, FEBRUARY 2

Already a member of ACS National? Not a member yet, but interested in joining? Come to an open-bar membership party Thursday, February 2! Location TBA, but will be near the Bar Review location for that night. Free drinks and food for members, $10 for non-members who join at the door. See you there!


PARTY PLANNER WANTED!

Interested in helping to plan some cool parties for the national moot court competition in March? If you like parties, want to meet fun people, and/or are interested in running for an ACS Board position next year, this is a great opportunity for you! Contact Zahra Egal for details, zme2102@columbia.edu.

The Judge I Don't Know or The Judges I Don't Know

Permit me to warn you that:

• I'm no David Lat.
• I'm no Amy Argetsinger or Roxanne Roberts, both of whom seem to be working too much.
• I'm also, incidentally, not this Craigslist poster, though that is one of the best Missed Connections I've ever seen.
• I'm certainly not the Columbia Law School ACS member most dialed into the Alito nomination.
• In short, I'm no SCOTUS wonk.

...still, I feel that it's all right for me to have an opinion on the state of the Alito nomination.

In his odd lovesong to Joe Biden this week (NYT Select link), David Brooks opined that Biden's filibusterous Alito nomination hearings comments were said "like the last Spartan at Thermopylae... noble objection(s) before succumbing manfully to the inexorable will of fate." ...and that's where we're at. Alito's nomination will be confirmed.

For all their noble objections, could progressives have received a more palatable candidate from the Bush Administration? Let's review the options that were on the table. On July 1, the same day O'Connor announced her retirement and 2 months before Rehnquist passed away, the Washington Post published its short list of potential SCOTUS nominees:

• Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
• Janice Rogers Brown
• Edith Brown Clement
• John Cornyn
• Emilio M. Garza
• Alberto R. Gonzales
• Edith Hollan Jones
• J. Michael Luttig
• Michael W. McConnell
• Theodore B. Olson
• John G. Roberts
• Larry Thompson
• J. Harvie Wilkinson

Would any of these candidates leave progressives feeling more satisfied?

Janice Rogers Brown: Labeled Filibuster Candidate Number One by WorkingForChange, her nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals was already stalled for two years due to Democratic opposition.

After being appointed to the CA Supreme Court in 1996 (despite the State Bar of California's Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation rating her as "not qualified"), she's authored a number of decisions and dissents that are irksome even to those who barely lean left.

Trust me, you weren't going to feel any better if it were Janice Rogers Brown.

Edith Brown Clement: Profiled by the People for the American Way in Confirmed Judges Confirm Our Worst Fears, Judge Clement is the unknown of the list — granted, not a Harriet-Miers-level unknown, but a judge who has authored few notable opinions.

Maybe you suspected that former nominee Miers was a progressive in Bush regent's clothing. I did. I sure don't think the same of Clement.

John Cornyn: Senator Cornyn is the junior US Senator from Texas. The Washington Post notes:

In the Senate, Cornyn, 53, has led efforts to defend Bush's judicial nominees and to fight filibusters of nominees, writing National Review articles that label opponents as "liberal special interest groups" engaged in "vicious politics." He spearheaded the push to adopt constitutional amendments banning gay marriage and flag-burning and favors school vouchers, prayer in public schools, extending the Bush-initiated tax cuts beyond 2010 and privatizing Social Security. He opposes abortion and partial birth abortions except when a woman's life is endangered.

You'd prefer Cornyn over Alito?

Emilio M. Garza: Judge Garza was originally interviewed in 1991 for the seat eventually occupied by Clarence Thomas.

Before the Alito nomination was announced, conservative support for the nomination of Garza bordered on the offensive, arguing that Garza's ethnicity created a filibuster-proof shield, independent of his judicial record.

Garza's anti-Roe statements are more strongly worded than Alito's: "[I]n the absence of governing constitutional text, I believe that ontological issues such as abortion are more properly decided in the political and legislative arenas ...[I]t is unclear to me that the [Supreme] Court itself still believes that abortion is a 'fundamental right' under the Fourteenth Amendment..." [Source (.pdf link)]

You'd still prefer Garza?

Alberto Gonzales: Although Attorney General Gonzales might have seemed like a borderline viable SCOTUS nominee on July 1 of last year, subsequent events make his nomination too unlikely to reasonably consider.

Conservative causes generally have not been wounded by the DeLay scandal, the Abramhoff scandal, the FISA scandal, the torture scandal, and the Miers nomination debacle... but the Bush Administration has suffered. Gonzales' star is hitched to the Bush Administration's wagon. Until they dig their ratings out of the defeat-by-a-landslide-if-an-election-were-held-today area, his odds of SCOTUS nomination are only slightly higher than mine.

Edith Hollan Jones: Quoting Wikipedia is always risky business, but here goes: Some view Jones as an outspoken conservative. In her opinions, she has questioned the legal reasoning which legalized abortion, advocated streamlining death penalty cases, invalidated a federal ban on possession of machine guns and advocated toughening bankruptcy laws.

SCOTUSblog has more on her story. I encourage you to learn more about Judge Jones, but I don't think that learning more about her will make you more comfortable with her than you are with Alito.

J. Michael Luttig: To be honest with you, I thought Luttig would get the nod after the Miers withdrawl. Looks like SCOTUSblog might have shared the same opinion.

The Washington Post notes the following about Luttig:

In 2000, he dissented from a ruling by Wilkinson that upheld a Fish and Wildlife Service regulation limiting the killing of endangered wolves on private land. He also disagreed with Wilkinson in 2003, when he wrote a dissenting opinion that supported the Bush administration's position that it could designate and detain "enemy combatants" with little judicial scrutiny.

In 1998, he upheld Virginia's ban on the procedure known as a partial birth abortion — but agreed to let it be struck down after the Supreme Court struck down a similar Nebraska law in 2000.

You'd prefer him to Alito?

Michael W. McConnell: Judge/Professor McConnell's criticism of the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision probably would win him some credibility from the blue side of the Senatorial aisle.

However, in 1996, McConnell signed a statement supporting a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. "Abortion kills 1.5 million innocent human beings in America every year... We believe that the abortion license is a critical factor in America's virtue deficit."

If he still thinks that a constitutional amendment barring abortion is a good idea, his stance is several notches more severe than Alito's view.

Would you choose McConnell?

Theodore Olson: Frustrated with the split court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, then Solicitor General Olson told the Federalist Society that "U.S. courts ... have never been extended so far."

As Solicitor General during the first Bush term, Olson has been a familiar figure to SCOTUS watchers.

Now back in private practice, the Washington Post notes that Olson's choice of clients and arguments belie his conservative views:

He argued Bush's case before the Supreme Court that decided the outcome of the disputed 2000 presidential election.

His other cases have included representing Cheryl Hopwood, who argued that affirmative action in admissions at the University of Texas was a violation of the Constitution. In 1996, a federal appeals court agreed with Olson and Hopwood that the university's policy was unconstitutional. That same year, he represented the Virginia Military Institute before the Supreme Court against claims that the school's admissions policy discriminated against women and lost.

Olson was legal counsel to Reagan during the investigation of the Iran-contra affair. And he represented Jonathan Pollard, who was convicted of selling government secrets to Israel, in his failed bid for a reduction of his life sentence.

You'd choose Olson over Alito?

John Roberts: Already on the court and voting in the minority on Gonzales v. Oregon.









Larry Thompson: Corporate lawyer, former deputy Attorney General, current senior vice president and general counsel at Pepsico, current senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

You're more comfortable with this jurisprudential blank slate than you are with Samuel Alito?




J. Harvie Wilkinson: Experienced journalist, appellate judge, teacher. The Washington Post notes that "his paper trail is... immense. He has written not only legal opinions, but also books, speeches and journal articles in which he sketches a self-consciously moderate conservative philosophy."

You'd think that Wilkinson would be qualified for SCOTUS; however, it appears that he failed the Presidential Fitness test during Bush's last search for a nominee.

From this list, who would you prefer to Alito? Why?

This week at the ACS

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to all!

GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING AND DISCUSSION OF ALITO NOMINATION, TUESDAY

**Tomorrow**, Tuesday, we will meet in JG 101 at 12:20. We'll be talking about upcoming events, including the Rubin visit, an NSA surveillance panel, the membership party, and opportunities for involvement in the national ACS Moot Court competition.

After that, we'll be watching streaming video of commentary on the Alito nomination and talking about what Judge Alito's confirmation would mean to the Court and to the nation.

Lunch provided for meeting-goers.

ACS FOUNDER PETER RUBIN VISITS CLS ON THURSDAY: mark your calendar!

Supreme Court advocate and privacy-law specialist Peter Rubin, who founded the national American Constitution Society in 2001, will speak at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday in JG 106. A wine and cheese reception will follow. Stay tuned for more details, and be sure not to miss this exciting opportunity! (1Ls participating in the CLS moot court program will have plenty of time to get to the Foundation Moot Court meeting at 7:30.)

ELIMINATION ROUNDS FOR CLS ACS MOOT COURT TEAM THIS WEEK!

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the 18 CLS ACS moot court teams will compete against each other to determine which five teams will be selected to participate in the national competition to be held here at Columbia in March. The teams have worked incredibly hard to learn some very difficult legal issues, and this is their chance to put their skills to the test. Best of luck to everyone!

BLOG THIS!!!

Remember to keep your eye out for new Blog This! topics. If you love to blog, we're looking for you! Topic ideas can always be sent to Andy Bradley at ajb2135.

As always, please send your comments and suggestions to the chapter leadership at acs@law.columbia.edu or to me at mp2331.

See you soon!
Mary Kelly for the ACS leadership team

Opposed to Alito? Join the Alliance for Justice's Student Action Campaign!

Last Thursday, a number of CLS faculty joined more than 500 law professors in opposition to the SCOTUS nomination of Judge Samuel Alito.

If you're interested in joining the ranks of those publicly opposed to this nomination, make an impact by signing the Alliance for Justice law student letter to Senators Leahy and Spector.

To join as a signer, email your name and school information to studentactioncampaign@afj.org.

For more information about ways to contribute to the Alliance for Justice's judicial nomination efforts, check out their Student Action Campaign.

This Week at the ACS: Welcome Back!

Welcome back, Columbia ACS!

The President has authorized warrantless wiretapping. Judge Alito's confirmation hearings begin tomorrow. Corrupt lobbyist Abramoff has copped a plea, and his testimony reportedly will threaten several members of Congress. To say the least, we live in interesting times--and we've got some great programs and events headed your way. Here's what's coming up in the next two weeks:

**"STORMING THE COURT" ON TUESDAY: In 1992, an idealistic band of Yale law students, led by then-untested law professor Harold Koh (now YLS Dean), battled the United States Government to free hundreds of Haitian refugees held in a prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Don't miss this opportunity to hear Brandt Goldstein and Sarah Cleveland--two members of that team--tell you why Yvonne Pascal and her fellow refugees were being held, and how justice eventually triumphed. JG 101 at lunch--see you there! Cosponsored by the Human Rights Institute.

**PETER RUBIN, ACS FOUNDER, VISITS COLUMBIA: On Thursday, January 19, Peter Rubin, professor of law at Georgetown and founder of the ACS, visits Columbia. Professor Rubin is a renowned Supreme Court advocate well known for his work on behalf of the right to privacy. January 19, 6:00 p.m., JG 106; wine and cheese reception to follow.

**FIRST GENERAL MEETING of the semester will take place Tuesday, January 17, at lunch, in JG 101. Lunch provided.

**ACS MOOT COURT HEATS UP: The CLS ACS moot court team will participate in practice rounds this weekend, with elimination rounds to determine the national competition qualifiers coming up next week. Good luck to all the team members!

**BLOG THIS!: The CLS ACS Blog returns from winter break this week with a Blog This! topic on Judge Alito's nomination hearings. Watch your inboxes--and the blog--for more details.

**COMING UP LATER THIS SEMESTER: An open-bar membership party; a panel discussion on NSA wiretapping; ACS National Moot Court Competition, March 4-5; Nelson Mandela's lawyer George Bizos; and much more--stay tuned!

Welcome back to Spring Semester 2006--we hope to see you around! And don't forget--we're always interested in your ideas for events and programs. Write to us at acs@law.columbia.edu.
--Mary Kelly and the Columbia ACS leadership team