Big news out of the House Armed Services Committee: Representative Mac Thornberry (a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, I proudly note) is going to introduce a bill enhancing oversight of kill/capture operations that may be conducted … Read more »
Jens David Ohlin (Cornell) has an interesting post up at LieberCode in which he discusses a range of LOAC issues raised by CIA involvement in drone strikes. Jens raises the question whether CIA personnel involved in drone strikes can qualify … Read more »
As Jack mentioned, Dan Klaidman of the Daily Beast reported today that “the White House is poised to sign off on a plan to shift the CIA’s lethal targeting program to the Defense Department.”
Over at ForeignPolicy.com, I just … Read more »
The recent controversy about the Justice Department White Paper and the closely related Senate confirmation hearings for CIA director-nominee John Brennan have raised the profile of congressional intelligence oversight. A brief summary of some of these issues is this Politico … Read more »
Speaking of the John Brennan confirmation hearing, here’s the video, courtesy of CSPAN:
[Note: I'd originally indicated that Greg Miller wrote this second piece in the Post series, but in fact it was Karen de Young -- my apologies to Karen! For the sake of completeness, the first piece was by Greg and … Read more »
I’ve recently completed a short (10-page) draft meant to serve as a primer on key domestic law questions associated with computer network operations. The paper will be published as part of the proceedings of this past summer’s Naval War College … Read more »
I’m happy to report that I’ve recently completed drafting an article that has been much on my mind for the past few years. Beyond the Battlefield, Beyond al Qaeda: The Destabilizing Legal Architecture of Counterterrorism (Michigan Law Review, forthcoming 2013) … Read more »
Those following the Stuxnet/Flame story will be interested in this piece that just went up on the Washington Post website. In a sequel to David Sanger’s account attributing Stuxnet to an American-Israeli collaboration, today’s piece by Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller, … Read more »
By now almost everyone has read David Sanger’s fascinating New York Times story relating the behind-the-scenes story of the development and deployment of the Stuxnet virus as part of a larger classified program known as “Olympic Game.” Others, including my … Read more »
A number of sources are reporting the discovery of a complex malware toolkit, mostly described as “Flame,” which appears to have been distributed in a targeted fashion to infect computers in Iran in particular, though also throughout the Middle East. … Read more »
[UPDATE: If one looks at the draft NDAA provisions approved by the HASC Emerging Threats Subcomittee (Chairman Mac Thornberry, Hook ‘Em), there is at section 942 a provision calling for quarterly reporting to SASC and HASC of DOD’s significant cyberspace … Read more »
How should we understand CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston’s speech at Harvard Law School the other day? It is not, like earlier speeches by senior administration lawyers and counterterrorism officials, an effort to spell out the legal framework in which … Read more »
My old colleague Daniel Klaidman from days of yore at Legal Times writes in with a guest post on CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston’s speech at Harvard Law School. Klaidman, now of Newsweek and the Daily Beast is the … Read more »
Yesterday’s speech by CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston has generated criticism from Deborah Pearlstein, on Opinio Juris. I want to address a couple of the points she raises.
Deborah first addresses Preston’s comments relating to the domestic law authority of … Read more »
CIA General Counsel Stephen is giving the following remarks today at Harvard Law School:
Remarks of
The Honorable Stephen W. Preston
General Counsel
Central Intelligence AgencyHarvard Law School
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012“CIA and the Rule of
On today’s episode of the podcast, Bobby discusses his encyclopedic new Title 10/Title 50 article with Jack. The article, “Military-Intelligence Convergence and the Law of the Title 10/Title 50 Debate,” has just been published in the Journal of … Read more »
Daniel Klaidman at Newsweek, whose forthcoming book on the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism policies promises to be must-read material, reports that the decision has been made to go public with some form of defense of the legality of the al-Awlaki strike. … Read more »
Back in May, I noted that the House version of the NDAA contained a very interesting section addressing “military activities” in cyberspace. Section 962 of that bill would have “affirmed” that DOD may conduct military activities in cyberspace (including clandestine … 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 »
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Samir Khan, a 25-year old U.S. citizen from North Carolina, was killed in the same drone strike that targeted Anwar al-Aulaqi. According to Foreign Policy, Khan “helped create the media architecture of … Read more »
I join Ben in welcoming Marty Lederman back to blogging. His initial post–parsing both international and domestic legal issues relating to the UBL operation–is typically thorough and insightful (not to mention generally correct). Because it is a long post, … Read more »
Josh Rogin has an intriguing post up over at the Cable, detailing an interview with HPSCI Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) concerning the ongoing debate regarding whether to arm the Libyan rebels. There is much worth comment here, but I’ll confine … Read more »
[FINAL UPDATE: Please disregard this original post, and instead look to my summary of the actual bill posted on 9/29/10]
[update: some have suggested to me that my impression of the bill will be different once I see the … 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 »
