On October 14, President Obama notified Congress that he had sent “a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the … Read more »
The only true casualty of Ben’s accidental cyberattack on Lawfare was yesterday’s Headlines and Commentary post, which survived no better than an Iranian nuclear centrifuge infected with the Stuxnet virus. For those who have been jonesing, here’s your fix.
Ben … Read more »
Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman responds to the government’s argument against his cert petition in his new reply brief, available here. It opens:
The petition in this case presents in stark terms the D.C. Circuit’s failure to articulate and
The White House has issued the following statement announcing that–and why–it will not veto the NDAA:
Statement from the Press Secretary on the NDAA Bill
We have been clear that “any bill that challenges or constrains the President’s critical authorities … Read more »
Check out this post from Josh Gerstein of the Politico describing FBI Director Robert Mueller’s fears about how the NDAA conference report–even with the latest changes–will still “muddle the roles of the FBI and the military.”
Here is a letter from Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, defending and clarifying the detention provisions in the NDAA and advocating for its passage.
Dear Colleague:
One of the most important issues
At least, Adam Liptak does in a well-worth-reading column about Latif. Take that, editorial staff!
On a more serious note, here’s the money quote:
Latif is the next great Guantánamo case–whether the Supreme Court agrees to hear it or
An interesting Afghanistan habeas decision today, from the UK: Yunus Ramhmatullah v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs et ano. (Court of Appeals (Civil Division)).
In an opinion by the Master of the Rolls (i.e., David Neuberger, Baron … Read more »
You may have noticed that no new content has appeared on Lawfare for the past seven hours. On noticing this, you may have thought to yourself, “How strange of the Lawfare folks not to have any new content–and on a … Read more »
For reasons I plan to elaborate upon in this and subsequent posts, I’m not at all convinced that the conference version of the NDAA is substantially better than the House or Senate version (or that either is better than nothing)… … Read more »
New Rules of Court for the Military Commission system have been released. The 50-page document is posted here.
I’ve created concise PDF versions of the NDAA bill and the accompanying explanatory statement, cutting out all the non-detainee materials from both documents.
Section 1022 of the Conference version of the NDAA carries forward section 1032 of the Senate version, which has been widely described as a mandatory military detention provision for a subset of detainable persons who are non-citizens linked to specific … Read more »
[UPDATE (12/13/11, 9:45): A careful reader points out that in the earlier Senate bill, there were no commas after the words "United States citizens" and "lawful resident aliens of the United States". So the question is whether the addition of … Read more »
I am still digesting the new NDAA language, and I’m not yet ready to say how come out on it. It is, without question, significantly better than either the House or Senate bills. Yet some of its provisions remain deeply … Read more »
The conference report for the NDAA is now available. Subtitle D, entitled “Counterterrorism,” begins on page 653 and runs through page 685. The conferees’ explanation of their choices begins on page 158 of a separate document.
I will blog as … Read more »
We’re in a lull with NDAA news because the conference committee is still thrashing out its language. So you’ll have to hold your breath on that subject, but there’s lots of other stuff going on.
The Associated Press reports that … Read more »
Canadian forces may be largely on their way out of Afghanistan, but for a Kabul-based contingent focused on training Afghans, but the prospect that they might nonetheless in the position of capturing a prisoner raises the question of what they … Read more »
Some things are just too ridiculous to be anything other than true. From Steve Aftergood over at Secrecy News:
Open Source Works, which is the CIA’s in-house open source analysis component, is devoted to intelligence analysis of unclassified, open
A host of recent events–Iran’s shoot-down of a U.S. drone, the downward spiral in US-Pakistani relations, and rumors of peace talks between the Pakistani government and Pakistani extremist groups–combine to form the relevant backdrop for this story, in which … Read more »
Whatever else one might say about the D.C. Circuit’s jurisprudence in the Guantanamo litigation, it’s certainly been a jobs program… To that end, I thought I’d post the (just-published) final version of an essay of mine in the Seton Hall … Read more »
The New York Times’s Scott Shane this morning has a very beautifully reported feature story about domestic prisons, law enforcement, and terrorism cases. It is a rich read, including some fascinating correspondence and interviews with current and former prisoners at … Read more »
President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, has given an extended interview to NPR on the administration’s view of the NDAA’s detainee affairs provision and its threat to veto the legislation. Not a lot new in the interview, but it … Read more »
I bet you thought this would be a post about Ali Musa Daqduq. But, no, this is about Faruq Khalil Muhammad ‘Isa, who has been indicted in Brooklyn on charges of conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The indictment… Read more »
More amusing nonsense from Jon Stewart before the weekend:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Arrested Development – One-Way Train to Gitmo | ||||
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In a prior post surveying the impact of the Senate version of the NDAA bill (currently in conference negotiations), I emphasized that the Feinstein Amendment made clear that the NDAA did not alter, one way or the other, the government’s … Read more »
Happy Friday, all.
Ellen Nakashima has this lengthy (and fascinating) report on the 2008 Buckshot Yankee breach. Her report answers some, but not all of the questions surrounding this massive cyber security intrusion on the U.S. military, and discusses the … Read more »
Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post, whose reporting on cybersecurity issues (including counterespionage and offensive computer network operations) is indispensible, had an extraordinary piece yesterday concerning an episode that occurred in 2008, and the impact it had on the process … Read more »
The D.C. Circuit has decided the case of Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari, a Guantanamo habeas petitioner. The writing has been on the wall for Al Kandari since the court abruptly canceled oral arguments in his case. The unpublished per … Read more »
There’s barely a true fact in it, but it’s very funny:
First things first: Welcome aboard, Steve! Now, to business:
This afternoon, the National Security Council the “Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States” (henceforth to be known as the SIP-ELP-PVEUS, … Read more »
Thanks to Ben for the warm introduction, and to the entire Lawfare crew for letting me crash the party. I thought I’d jump into the fray on a bit of a tangent, albeit one that both directly and indirectly … Read more »
I’m delighted to announce that Stephen Vladeck of American University’s Washington College of Law is joining Lawfare as a senior contributor. Many readers already know Steve’s work, as he is one of the most prolific and thoughtful commentators on national … Read more »
Ritika’s Moment of Zen today gives rise to a Moment of Envy for me. I thought my trading card and being named “The Worst Possible Person in the World” were cool. But being named in an Anonymous video … Read more »
The Politico reports that the army has disciplined 15 people over the WikiLeaks scandal, and at least one officer “was reduced in rank for dereliction of duty” after an “internal investigation into the decisions and failures that put Pvt. Bradley … Read more »
Yesterday, a Fifth Circuit panel (King, joined by Garza and Graves) affirmed the convictions of the individual defendants in the Holy Land Foundation (“HLF”) case and also dismissed the appeal lodged by the foundation itself. Be warned; the document is … Read more »
Both of these upcoming Brookings events may interest Lawfare readers:
Hacktivism, Vigilantism and Collective Action in a Digital Age
Friday, December 09, 2011
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Radical online activism is a new public policy challenge, with groups such
…were like this one, my eccentric campaign against the paper’s factual rigor would never have begun. There’s a nit I could pick, but it certainly contains no howlers. And, in addition, it’s right.
The following is a continuation of our side-by-side comparison of the House and Senate versions of the NDAA:
The House version of the bill (Section 1039, p. 586) contains a specific prohibition … Read more »
Today is the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. Read historian Ian Toll’s New York Times op-ed on the “date which will live in infamy.”
With the conference committee trying to finalize language by the end of … Read more »
[UPDATE (12/9/11): See here for my updated assessment as to US citizens captured abroad.]
On the day that the Senate passed its version of the NDAA, I wrote a post in the morning addressing whether the bill could be read … Read more »
As the House of Representatives and the Senate head to conference on the NDAA, I thought it might be useful to analyze the similarities and differences between the counterterrorism provisions of the two versions of the bill. People sometimes talk … Read more »
A redacted version of the cert petition in the case of Hussain Salem Mohammed Almerfedi is now public.
We are grateful to Katie Bacon and the rest of the crew at the Harvard Law Bulletin for this very nice piece discussing the HLS-Brookings Project on Law and Security as well as Lawfare, and to Dean Minow for the … Read more »
Matt Waxman (who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs from 2004 to 2005) and I have written a short article for the Council on Foreign Relations expressing concern about the detainee provisions of the NDAA, based … Read more »
Lots of NDAA developments to kick start your week. The Hill reports that House-Senate conference committee talks have begun on the NDAA, and the Associated Press says that the White House has renewed its threat to veto the bill over … Read more »
A brief update for sports fans who follow the fierce international competition of, uh, Lawfare readership: Pakistan’s brief stint on the medal podium in this admittedly obscure sport seems to have come to an end. According to my Google Analytics data this … Read more »
Peter Margulies of the Roger Williams School of Law writes in with the following comments on the implications of the NDAA for extradition efforts:
September 11 made clear that “too many cooks” are not only bad for broth, but fatal
The saga of whether Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul’s counsel rightly represents him before the D.C. Circuit in his military commissions appeal continues. The government, you’ll recall from prior coverage, has challenged whether the Al Bahlul had really authorized … Read more »
Monday, May 20, 2013
As Jack posted yesterday—and as everyone is buzzing about—President Obama will give a major counterterrorism speech on Thursday at the National Defense University. The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Politico all report on the talk, and subjects that the President will likely address.
Speaking of Jack, he noted another of today’s big stories: the Washington Post’s piece on the FBI’s search, a few years… Read more »
