As readers know, last Thursday the Senate approved Senator Feinstein’s amendment to the NDAA, regarding the domestic detention of citizens and lawful permanent residents.
That wasn’t all. Now, after further debating and voting, the Senate’s updated bill also conditions the … Read more »
Finally, the administration has spoken clearly, directly, and with direct references to consequences–a veto–about the detainee provisions of the NDAA. The White House’s Statement of Administration Policy on the Senate version of the DNA has none of the problems … Read more »
I was just reading a piece by Adam Serwer (Mother Jones) regarding the NDAA detainee provisions, and came across this pithy line from Ben:
“If Congress is going to take the president seriously, it has to believe the president is
The AP’s Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman have a long story out today, focused on the NYPD’s Intelligence Division & Counter-Terrorism Bureau. The story paints NYPD as having developed an unchecked intelligence-collection capacity over the past decade, emphasizing (i) … Read more »
…and guess what? This post is not about any gross factual errors in either of them concerning the legality of detention. Perhaps that’s because neither editorial really deals with the legality of detention, but never mind. I’ll take factually decent … Read more »
No sooner had I finished my last post than I came across this elegant little argument from Adam Serwer:
I think Wittes is right that the original AUMF contained no . . . temporal or geographic constraints. What the AUMF
Last week the AP published a rather breathless piece titled “AP Exclusive: US military holds terror suspects in secret jails for weeks without charge.” That certainly got my attention. From the title, one would assume that the black sites somehow … Read more »
I have now had the chance to go over a transcript of Thursday’s House Armed Services Committee hearing on detention policy, at which Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III both testified. Video of … Read more »
Adam Serwer has a very thoughtful piece on yesterday’s House Armed Services Committee hearing, which I could not attend. Like me, Adam has come to the conclusion that there is quite a bit of common ground between the Obama administration … Read more »
An interesting debate has broken out among liberals about the possibility of President Obama’s issuing a signing statement on the Guantanamo restrictions. Adam Serwer writes,
There’s a pretty clear ethical dilemma here for liberals. One signing statement doesn’t turn
For the past several months, the Obama administration has been in a weird limbo about Guantanamo. On the one hand, it has barely lifted a finger to effectuate its declared policy of closing the facility–afraid of the politics of the … Read more »
The shape of the pending GTMO transfer ban has morphed yet again. Again Adam Serwer has the update. The long and short of it is that the pending National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 (NDAA FY11) apparently … Read more »
Adam Serwer has a goodcatch on this one. As we’ve noted before, the pending omnibus spending package contains a wholesale prohibition on transfers of detainees from GTMO to United States territory. Or at least it did. Adam notes that … Read more »
Sen. Lindsey Graham has called for a halt to transfers from Guantanamo in light of the recidivism rate reported by the Director of National Intelligence. A few thoughts on this general subject:
First, we have a wholly underdeveloped political vocabulary … Read more »
Responding to my earlier post on Buck McKeon’s detention bill, Adam Serwer says the following, on which I cannot improve:
I still maintain that there’s less difference between Republican and administration priorities than there appears to be, and
I certainly agree with Adam Serwer’s point in this post that it will be mindless and destructive if Republicans really tried to prevent transfers from Guantanamo. Along the way, however, Adam makes the following point which warrants a brief … Read more »
Adam Serwer has a very interesting response to my post a few days back about charging KSM and friends in both Article III courts and military commissions. He says he wouldn’t oppose the idea, but he doesn’t “think the … Read more »
Ok, this exchange is funny–in a macabre, morbid sort of way. It’s also deadly serious. Foreign Policy magazine has published 14 suggestions for President Obama by 14 prominent people concerning how the President can get his mojo back. One of … Read more »
Here’s a suggestion for the New York Times editorial page: Hire Adam Serwer. He’s a liberal blogger over at the American Prospect who is everything the New York Times editorial page is not: consistently thoughtful and open to engagement, respectful … Read more »
Adam Serwer of the American Prospect has a typically thoughtful post on the government’s Al Aulaqi brief, notable for his taking the government’s arguments seriously even in dismissing them. His rather nuanced bottom line is the following:
I think it’s
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Carol Rosenberg wrote about yesterday’s arguments in the 9/11 hearings on defense counsel’s request for access to the Red Cross’s reports of its interviews with the five accused. That’s in the Miami Herald.
Yesterday’s House intelligence committee hearing with top intelligence agency and DOJ officials drew a big crowd and much news: Wired explains the DOJ’s efforts to conceal the NSA’s role… Read more »
