Juliette Kayyem
Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Lecturer in Public Policy (on leave), Harvard Kennedy School
Faculty Co-Chair (on leave), Dubai Initiative
Experience
Juliette N. Kayyem is on leave from her position as a lecturer in Public Policy and a member of the Belfer Center's board of directors. She has been nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Programs in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Prior to that, she has served as Massachusetts' undersecretary for homeland security. She also served as co-faculty chair of the Dubai Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, a program with the Dubai School of Government. Ms. Kayyem has been a resident scholar at the Belfer Center, serving most recently as Executive Director for Research where she oversaw the Center's substantive activities in international security, environment, and energy policy. She is an expert in homeland security and terrorism, with a particular focus on the intersection of democracy and counter-terrorism policies. She teaches courses on law, homeland security, and national security.
Ms. Kayyem has an extensive background in terrorism and national security affairs. From 1999-2000, she served as former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt's appointee to the National Commission on Terrorism, a congressionally-mandated review of how the government could better prepare for the growing terrorist threat. Chaired by L. Paul Bremer, that Commission's recommendations in the year 2000 urged the nation to recognize and adapt to the growing tide of terrorist activity against the United States. Before that, she served as a legal adviser to then Attorney General Janet Reno, where she worked on a variety of national security and terrorism cases. In that capacity, she oversaw the government's review of its classification procedures regarding secret evidence. Ms. Kayyem began her legal career as a trial lawyer, litigating cases throughout the United States on behalf of the Justice Department. She has also worked in death penalty appeals cases on behalf of Alabama death row inmates and, before going to law school, as a journalist in South Africa.
She is co-author of Preserving Liberty in an Age of Terror (MIT Press, 2005) and co-editor of First to Arrive: State and Local Responses to Terrorism (MIT Press, 2003), as well as the author of numerous journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. She testifies frequently before Congress and serves on the board of advisers to a number of governmental and private institutions. In 2002, she was named a “hero for our times” by the Boston Phoenix. She has been the subject of numerous profiles from Index Magazine, to the Boston Globe, to Vanity Fair magazine.
Ms. Kayyem is also a national security analyst for NBC News.
A 1995 graduate of Harvard Law School, she lives in Cambridge with her husband, David Barron, a Harvard law professor, and their three children.
November 7, 2006
No Closure in Iraq
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Iraqis may have been free to blame the atrocities of the last 30 years on one man and his entourage, without ever fully coming to terms with the legacy of their own past. But, that has not been the case. Whether the sectarian violence is a civil war or not, no solace will be gained for a nation suffering under an entirely different form of hatred — not from one man, but from their own people.
August 13, 2006
Engage 'Them'
Op-Ed, Philadelphia Inquirer
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
The "war on terror" has always been a misnomer. It assumes that the terrorist threat can somehow be "eradicated" through the mechanism of war — through military action using bombs, guns and bullets. War may be the short-term answer to an immediate threat; it is not the answer to the long-term crises.
August 12, 2006
What Not to Take From Britain's Success
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
There is much to learn from the British: their reticence about disclosing details, their clear expertise in human intelligence, their non-hysterical reaction to very real threats. But how we deal with our immigrant and domestic populations is certainly not one of them.
July 29, 2006
A Lebanon My Mother Never Saw
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
The Lebanon we see is the Lebanon we remember, the one we don't visit.
June 29, 2006
The Forgotten Homeland: A Century Foundation Task Force Report
Report
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Nearly five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, has the government adequately protected its citizens against terrorism and catastrophic disaster?
September 22, 2005
Limiting Secrecy under the Patriot Act
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In the next week or so, Congress is expected to vote on a bill to renew certain expiring sections of the Patriot Act. The debate over this law is a crucial conversation for our country and for how we protect both the security and privacy of a free citizenry.
September 12, 2005
Appointments That Disappoint
Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
At the very least, Congress should reconsider its position of "once approved, always approved."
September 2005
Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror
Book
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Since September 11, 2001, much has been said about the difficult balancing act between freedom and security, but few have made specific proposals for how to strike that balance. As the scandals over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the "torture memos" written by legal officials in the Bush administration show, without clear rules in place, things can very easily go very wrong.
July 28, 2005
A War by Any Other Name
Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
It was President Bush himself who insisted on calling it a global war on terror. He wanted to indicate that this was not just another piddling law enforcement action, but an all-out, full-scale military response to Sept. 11 that would involve U.S. troops around the globe. But now, apparently, a decision has been made that the language of war isn't working for him anymore. So in recent days, the "global war on terror" has been shelved in favor of the "global struggle against violent extremism."
July 10, 2005
Tortured Arguments: The Rules Are for Us, Not the Terrorists
Op-Ed, Washington Post, Sunday Outlook
By Juliette Kayyem, Member of the Board (on leave), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Like every other country, the United States has, in the name of security, made mistakes that we admit only later. What separates us from those regimes we abhor isn't that we never act cruelly. It's that we reject, rather than defend, our departures from our ideals and we actively seek to prevent such abuses from happening again.
