Holy Cross Senior Receives Prize for Work During Semester in Washington

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross senior Nicholas Bulens has been selected by the College’s Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies as one of two recipients of the 2006 fall semester’s Washington Semester Away program award. He will present his thesis, “Foreign Security Surveillance and Court Warrants: Can the President Have One Without the Other?,” on Nov. 29 at 4 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross.

While in Washington, D.C., Bulens interned with the Senate Judiciary Committee in the office of its Ranking Member, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Bulens conducted research on legislative matters pertinent to the federal judiciary, drafted memoranda on such Committee issues as mergers and acquisitions, and helped the committee staff prepare for hearings on upcoming legislation, including the Voting Rights Act.

Bulens’s talk will explore whether the President, under the laws and Constitution of the United States, may authorize electronic surveillance of persons within the country for foreign security purposes but without prior judicial approval.

He researched the Foreign Security Surveillance Act of 1978, the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, as well as legal texts and opinions in writing his thesis.

Bulens is a political science major and an economics minor from Weymouth. He is chair of the Judicial Council for the Student Government Association, and a member of both the Chamber Orchestra and College Democrats. After graduation, he hopes to work in a political office in either Boston or Washington, D.C., and is considering attending law school.

The prize rewards the best research paper produced in the Washington Semester Away program. Because judges deemed two papers as excellent this semester, two winners were chosen (the other is Justinas Sileikis ’07). The recipients of the prize are given the opportunity to give a public lecture at the College on their thesis. In addition the winners receive a bound copy of the theses and are presented the book award during commencement exercises.