The major debates about balancing democratic freedoms with security - from the Patriot Act to recent Supreme Court decisions on detention powers to what constitutes torture - have provided very little guidance on long-term legal strategies necessary to confront ongoing national security threats. To address this deficiency, the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Law School convened a bi-partisan group of experts to consider the challenges ahead and how to design our laws to preserve both our security and our democratic way of life.

The final report of the Long-Term Legal Strategy Project for Preserving Security and Democratic Freedoms in the War on Terrorism includes analysis and specific legislative recommendations to deal with the thorniest - and most profound - legal challenges of this new era, including:

• Is targeted killing ever acceptable? Against whom?
• When can coercion be used in interrogation - and who decides?
• After the Supreme Court cases, when is detention allowable? When should it be?
• Should the government infiltrate religious and political groups?
• What exactly do we mean by 'profiling?' When should it be allowed?
• Should government collect bio-metric information to identify citizens?
• What standards should the government use for using information on citizens from private databases?

The project was directed by Harvard Law Professor Phil Heymann and Juliette Kayyem of Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The Project's Board of Advisors includes high-level security, military and legal experts.