Susan Hennessey is a third-year student at Harvard Law School, where she is an editor on the Harvard National Security Journal and a law clerk at a laboratory that develops advanced defense technologies. While at law school she has interned in the violent crimes and terrorism section of the criminal division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008. Susan can be reached at hennessey.lawfare@gmail.com and on Twitter @Susan_Hennessey.
As Wells reported this morning, the D.C. Circuit has affirmed the habeas denial in Al Warafi. Mukhtar Yahia Naji Al Warafi unsuccessfully argued that even if he was a member of the Taliban, he was entitled to protected status … Read more »
While the manhunt for one of the Boston bombing suspects was underway Friday, Susan and I wrote up this short annotated bibliography linking to pertinent resources about the conflicts in Chechnya and Kyrgzstan. Over the weekend, we took a deeper … Read more »
We’re reposting our Twitter feed of reliable sources on the manhunt that’s ongoing in Boston right now. As with last time: “This does not mean that everything they are saying will turn out to be correct. This is a fluid … Read more »
It has been widely reported that the two prime suspects in the Boston marathon bombings—one who was killed in a shootout early this morning—are ethnic Chechens. The brothers allegedly lived in Kyrgyzstan with their family before moving to the United … Read more »
The latest in “counter-surveillance” fashion” has arrived just in time for spring: a metallic hood designed to hide the wearer from drones. This is not your average tinfoil hat, reports the Guardian:
“It’s what I call anti-drone,” explains designer
Senator Paul’s nearly 13-hour filibuster over domestic drone strikes and executive authority to kill U.S. citizens included both laudable calls for transparency and increasingly absurd—even damaging and distracting—hypothetical scenarios. Here is a non-hypothetical approach to confronting citizen-terrorists: The … Read more »
Tuesday, Ben bemoaned the state of drone-themed humor in the New York Times, and followed it up yesterday morning with a tale of national security parody gone awry. Lawfare is not above the occasionally-off-color sense of humor in … Read more »
We don’t disagree with Jack that the filling in of details in the White Paper is important—and didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. But the importance Jack assigns to this aspect of the White Paper is decidedly not what has made … Read more »
Okay, everyone, take a deep breath. Chill out. The DOJ’s “White Paper” on targeted killing is no big deal. Really.
You wouldn’t know this from reading the somewhat breathless press coverage of the document, much of which offers a reasonable … Read more »
Just on the heels of the Anonymous takeover of the US Sentencing Commission website, the New York Times is reporting that its network has been subject to persistent hacking over the last four months at the hands of Chinese attackers. … Read more »
To considerable fanfare, departing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey announced this week the decision to lift the ban on woman serving in combat units. Panetta stated: “General Dempsey and I are pleased to announce … Read more »
That’s the cyber news from Mashable.com. From the site’s report—which elsewhere says the attack was intended as retaliation for the prosecution of Aaron Swartz:
The hacktivist group Anonymous hacked the US federal sentencing website early Saturday, using the page to
As readers probably already know, the Senate ended an otherwise largely legislation-light 2012 by approving a controversial five-year extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), which the House had previously passed in September. President Obama signed the reauthorization … Read more »
Friday, May 24, 2013
Coverage of President Obama’s speech yesterday is plentiful: Here are Peter Baker of the New York Times, Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller of the Washington Post, and Mark Mazzetti of the Times with an analysis of the key points of the speech. Scott Wilson of the Post also provides a rundown of the speech, and cites Ben. The Associated Press reports on lifting the transfer ban on Yemeni detainees, and Colleen McCain Nelson, Adam Entous, and Julia E. Barnes… Read more »
