Foundation for Defense of Democracies

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies understands that the war on terror will not be won on the battlefield alone. Few people know that better than Andrew C. McCarthy, who prosecuted the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and has become one of the nation’s leading experts on terrorism and the law, and David Rivkin, a partner at Baker Hostetler LLP and former White House official.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies understands that the war on terror will not be won on the battlefield alone. Few people know that better than Andrew C. McCarthy, who prosecuted the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and has become one of the nation’s leading experts on terrorism and the law, and David Rivkin, a partner at Baker Hostetler LLP and former White House official.

In January 2007, FDD and the National Review Institute co-founded the Center for Law and Counterterrorism (CLC), co-chaired by McCarthy and Rivkin, to examine the myriad legal issues that arise in prosecuting the global war on terror, including those associated with the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

CLC has consulted to the White House and U.S. Justice Department, and suggested solutions to the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision, which extended habeas corpus protection under the U.S. Constitution to terrorists captured on the battlefield. And CLC continues to highlight court rulings that advance or hinder U.S. progress in the war on terror.

CLC staffers are nationally renowned experts representing a broad range of ideological viewpoints. They speak regularly on major legal disputes in the war on terror, participate in litigation with national security implications, hold seminars, and testify before the U.S. Congress.