Foreign Policy Blogs

Holder Weighs in on Lieberman Bill

Last week, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I – Conn) introduced the “Terrorist Expatriation Act” –  legislation that would allow the State Department to revoke the citizenship of Americans who provide support to a foreign terrorist organization. Yesterday morning, Attorney General Eric Holder and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani discussed last week’s attempted terrorist attack in Times Square and Lieberman’s suggested legislation on “This Week.”

Holder on the Lieberman bill:

“There are potential constitutional issues with it, as I’ve seen some critics discuss. I’ve not had a chance, as I said, to review it in any great detail, but I think what people have to understand is that the system we presently have in place takes terrorists and can put them in jail for extended periods of time. We can put people in jail for the rest of their lives. We can even execute people under the law as it presently exists, and one has to wonder whether we need to go further than that.”

Find the complete transcript of the interview here.

 

Author

Alexandra Raphel

Alexandra Raphel recently returned from the hot and sandy Gulf State of Qatar, where she worked for the Brookings Doha Center, a project of the Brookings Institution. Prior to moving to Doha, she interned for the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings in Washington. Alexandra has also worked for the Iraq Study Group, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She survived four winters at the University of Chicago, where she obtained a B.A. in Political Science. She now works for a global international development firm based in Washington, D.C. and enjoys football (watching, not playing), perusing art museums, and learning to ride her bike.