Clarifying legal status of defense contractors requires new law, which hasn’t happened

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brought an explosion in the use of contractors to do things previously limited to government employees. They conducted interrogations and carried high-power weapons to guard buildings and convoys. There were cases of deaths and beatings at their hands. Barack Obama pledged that he would clarify the law to ensure that all contractors would be subject to American law.

The key change needed was to extend the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Enforcement Act to contractors who work for the CIA, the State Department, or any other agency that might send people into a war zone. Today, the act applies only to Department of Defense contractors. If those contractors commit a felony, from stealing to murder, they are subject to American courts. That's not the case for contractors who work for other agencies.

There has been no progress on extending the act, however.

Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, called such a change a "baby step" but one that is needed more today than before.

"As the military has pulled back from places like Iraq, we've turned security over to the State Department and they make huge use of private contractors," Tiefer said. "There's more of them and yet they are not clearly under American jurisdiction."

Fulfilling this promise is straightforward. Legislation needs to pass in the House and the Senate for Obama to sign. That has not happened, and so we rate this Promise Broken.