Now available in redacted form: the government’s opposition brief and the defendant’s reply in United States v. Ghailani, a criminal case arising from the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and now pending before the Second Circuit. … Read more »
Brian Foster of Covington & Burling, responds to my comments on his earlier guest post as follows:
I don’t derive a double standard merely from your sympathy for the instinct behind the Latif majority’s factual assessment. I’m focusing on the
Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal, the author of the recent book, The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay, has posted the following statement on the Facebook page associated with his new book (I have taken … Read more »
Brian Foster of Covington & Burling, who represents several Guantanamo detainees, writes in with the following comments on my defense of CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman—and the case of his former client, Adnan Latif:
I’m interested in the basis and
It took only a few minutes from the time I posted my defense of CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman last night for Marcy Wheeler (aka emptywheel) to begin tweeting bile against both Fredman and me. She used words like “criminal” and … Read more »
The quotation is apparently too sexy to resist—too sexy even to Google its speaker’s name before running with it. A single Google search would, after all, yield this article by Stuart Taylor Jr. in National Journal—an article that should … Read more »
As Ritika notes below, the United States has captured a senior al Qaeda figure (Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden), and will be bringing him to the United States for prosecution in civilian court. One … Read more »
I missed this week AEI’s panel on Zero Dark Thirty and the reality of coercive interrogation at the CIA, though I have been meaning to watch the video. I also missed Will Saletan’s excellent article Wednesday on the panel … Read more »
Ritika already posted about AEI’s panel yesterday on Zero Dark Thirty, along with a link to the video of the proceedings. Given the composition of the panel, one can hardly be surprised by overall tenor of the AEI … Read more »
Last week Ben argued that, despite the Romney Team memo on interrogation and Romney’s promise to use “enhanced” interrogation techniques, a President Romney would not change the Obama interrogation policy, “at least not in the short term,” because (I summarize) … Read more »
Jack linked yesterday to this Charlie Savage story about this internal Romney campaign draft memo urging a full-throated embrace of “enhanced interrogation”—written a year ago by Romney’s “national security law subcommittee.” The memo recommends that:
Governor Romney could pledge that
Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch writes in with the following comments in response to my recent post on Human Rights Watch’s new allegations of water boarding by the CIA:
I’m shocked that you’re shocked!
Seriously, what’s surprised me over
The New York Times has the story here about this new Human Rights Watch report concerning the handling of Libyan detainees transferred to Libyan custody after 2004. I haven’t read the report yet–by Laura Pitter–and, in general, my interest level … Read more »
Some detainee treatment news here: Attorney General Eric Holder today announced the end of a criminal investigation into the deaths of two detainees while in U.S. custody. No charges will be filed because, according to Holder’s statement, “the admissible evidence … Read more »
The Washington Post has an interesting story today announcing that the CIA has opened an internal investigation into its prepublication review process:
The CIA has begun an internal investigation into whether a process designed to screen books by former employees
The New York Times published an editorial yesterday criticizing Monday’s decision by the Second Circuit in ACLU v. Department of Justice, which held that various interrogation-related materials sought by the ACLU and other groups were exempted from Freedom of … Read more »
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent poses an interesting question: If elected, does Mitt Romney intend to revoke President Obama’s January 22, 2009 executive order on interrogation?
The order largely restricts U.S. interrogators to the techniques authorized by the … Read more »
I had not seen this statement from Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin when I posted the video of Jose Rodriguez’s interview.
Not a lot new in here, but it’s interesting to hear it all from the perspective of Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA Clandestine Service and the man who supervised the agency’s interrogation program.
Professor Blum welcomes the audience back and invites Professor Dan Meltzer to introduce John Brennan. Meltzer provides a short biography for Brennan and notes that he has been a key actor in shaping the government’s response to 9/11. He explains … Read more »
That is the title that the editors of the New York Times Magazine gave to an essay I wrote in reaction to former Vice-President Cheney’s book, In My Time. The thrust of the essay is that early Bush unilateralism was … Read more »
John Rizzo, former acting general counsel for CIA, writes in with the following in connection with Lawfare’s 9/11 10th Anniversary Project. This essay is adapted from a longer piece, entitled “9/11: Three Major Mistakes,” which … Read more »
Raffaela’s compilation of reviews of Dick Cheney’s book links to one which I think warrants a brief reply. Dahlia Lithwick takes on Cheney chiefly over interrogation, and she doesn’t pull punches:
Cheney is trying, in short, to draw us back
Judging from his new book, In My Time, former Vice President Dick Cheney probably won’t be participating in the Lawfare 10th Anniversary Project, which is devoted to acknowledging error and second thoughts. But judging from the commentary on … Read more »
The New York Time’s Charlie Savage has obtained a copy of former Vice President Cheney’s forthcoming memoir. Not a lot in his story about the book that will surprise on matters of interest to readers of this site. Here’s they … Read more »
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick has posted excerpts from the Aspen Security Forum event to which I linked on Sunday.
Check out the composition of this panel–which must of stressed all of Dahlia Lithwick’s copious social skills to keep civil.
I haven’t watched it yet, but I thought I would flag it for interested readers. The Aspen Security Forum describes … Read more »
The UK Human Rights Blog has this analysis of the British government’s detainee inquiry, which is just getting off the ground. It includes useful links to the investigation’s terms of reference and protocol documents, as well as a description of … Read more »
Guess what? Human Rights Watch still wants to prosecute former President George W. Bush for torture. You knew that already? Yeah, so did I. But just in case anyone has forgotten, the group has released a new 107-page report that … Read more »
Carrie Johnson at NPR posts (who knew that NPR reporters were blogging? This is really great stuff – add Carrie to your RSS feed) some important additional details. First, she confirms that there is still an open thread in the … Read more »
A dramatic announcement just now from the Justice Department, concerning the outcome of the Durham Investigation into CIA interrogation practices. It is unclear from the context whether that investigation continues with respect to the destruction of interrogation videotapes, though the … Read more »
Over at Opinio Juris, Deborah Pearlstein says that “it’s disheartening to see conversation already turning to old, old debates about interrogation.” Pearlstein is upset because certain people (including us) have suggested that the fact that key pieces of information leading … Read more »
David Ignatius, who typically has great sources in the CIA, writes:
The trail that led to bin Laden’s hideout in the town of Abbottabad, about 75 miles north of Islamabad, began between 2002 and 2004 with the CIA’s interrogation
…albeit less directly than the AP, that some of the key the initial strands of intelligence came out of the CIA system. The Times reports:
Last night, an official said that “detainees” had identified a few years ago the
…that, as I speculated this morning, the original leads for what became the Bin Laden operation developed in the CIA’s secret prison’s program. The report reads:
WASHINGTON — Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the
I recommend that Lawfare readers spend some time absorbing the entirety of this press briefing last night by “senior administration officials.” In particular, the following passage stands out and suggests that the full story here may–and I want to stress … Read more »
I have mixed feelings about this New York Times oped by the ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer and Larry Siems of the Freedom to Write program at the PEN American Center, who are urging that government officials during the Bush administration “who … Read more »
. . . I actually agree with this one this morning, arguing that the separation of the investigative functions of the Justice Department’s inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility is a silly anachronism. The IG is, broadly speaking, … Read more »
So here are the first two elements of the Human Rights First report card, how I would recast them, and the grades I would assign. HRF’s initial element reads:
Grade: A-Standing Firm Against Use of Torture and Detainee
I’m a little bit grouchy that the argument I made in this speech I keep linking to isn’t more a part of the debate over continuity and change between the Bush and Obama administrations than it is. It’s not just … Read more »
Ben has already commented on David Cole’s TNR essay (subscription needed) about how the Obama approach to counterterrorism differs from the Bush approach. But since David uses my own TNR essay on the subject as a foil for some of … Read more »
The Center for Constitutional Rights has issued what I think is a genuinely shocking statement on the Ghailani verdict–one which really lays bare the group’s position on terrorist trials:
CCR questions the ability of anyone who is Muslim to receive
Here is a speech by former State Department Legal Advisor John Bellinger, given a few days ago at the International Bar Association’s Rule of Law Symposium in Vancouver, Canada. John compares the Obama approach to counterterrorism with the Bush approach, … Read more »
Friday, May 17, 2013
The Department of Justice’s Inspector General released an interim report on the Department’s handling of “known or suspected” terrorists who have entered the government’s witness protection program. The report found, among other things, that information on some program participants had not been turned over to no-fly list authorities; and, that two such people could not be located—though one… Read more »
