April 28, 2009: Justice Department Official: Principled Legal Framework Essential for Combating Terrorism

Todd Hinnen, the deputy assistant attorney general for law and policy in the Justice Department’s national security division, discusses his team’s focus on the nation’s security needs at a presentation at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Hinnen says his team does the “30,000 foot level strategic thinking, policy development, and legal analysis” for the Justice Department’s national security work. Hinnen believes that developing an appropriate, long-term legal framework is “essential to effectively combating terrorism for reasons that are both principled and pragmatic.” Hinnen tells the gathering: “It is essential on grounds of principle because the law has defined this nation, a nation of laws, since its founding.… It would be a Pyrrhic victory if, in our struggle to preserve this country against the threat of international terrorism, we sacrificed so central a part of what this country stands for and why it has been a model for the rest of the world. It is essential on grounds of pragmatism because a lawless response to terrorism—one for instance that includes torture, black site prisons, and indefinite detention without due process—undermines our moral credibility and standing abroad, weakens the coalitions with foreign governments that we need to effectively combat terrorism, and provides terrorist recruiters with some of their most effective material.” [Think Progress, 4/28/2009]