(19.Oktober) Ideally, Obama would like to do away with the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, a law passed within days of the 9/11 attacks, and replace it with more targeted versions to allow action against new al-Qaeda related groups in the Middle East and Africa and other threats as they arise. His goal, the president said in a May speech, is to ”refine, and ultimately repeal” the existing authority.

Repeal of the AUMF could allow other detainees imprisoned under its terms to refile habeas corpus petitions that the government had successfully quashed.