Collection ‘management by crisis’: strategic targeting and interrogation at Guantanamo Bay

This article examines human intelligence collection in wartime, and offers a methodology to help determine the relative success or failure of the detainee interrogation mission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO). It surveys the relevant background on GTMO, a brief history on interrogations during World War II and Vietnam, and draws comparisons among them to be considered in potential future mass-interrogation missions. Drawing from documentary research and two dozen original interviews, it argues that, to the extent an intelligence mission was one of the purposes of transferring detainees to GTMO, the relevant metric of success is whether collectors were able to obtain more or ‘better’ intelligence from the detainees than they would have been able to in-theater. At the strategic level, then, GTMO’s value to intelligence collectors is to be assessed at the margins, rather than the absolute value of the information educed.     

Recent developments in employee benefits law

The first part of this article highlights important judicial developments involving employee benefits and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), as amended, during the latter part of 2003 and the first part of 2004, including the most significant U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit court decisions. The second part covers recent legislative and regulatory developments in employee benefits law. This article is not meant to be exhaustive, but discusses the more important developments during 2003-2004, with particular focus on issues of concern to the insurance industry.