This report from today’s Wall Street Journal is fascinating. It involves the decision of a Magistrate Judge to deny a government application for a search warrant in which the government proposed to install surreptitious software on the target computer (putatively … Read more »
The WSJ has a story (behind paywall, I think) about the CIA “expanding its role in the campaign against the Syrian regime by feeding intelligence to select rebel fighters to use against government forces.” The point of the CIA aid … Read more »
Following up on Wells’ post, I increasingly think that the shift in drone authorities from CIA to DOD first reported by Dan Klaidman might not amount to much in substance, and that any proposed changes face many hurdles in … Read more »
So reports the Wall Street Journal:
A son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and longtime suspected member of al Qaeda has been captured by U.S. officials, who are preparing to bring him to the U.S. to face charges, according to three
John Yoo has a piece in the WSJ which argues that the real problem with the White Paper is that it extends due process protections to enemy combatants on the battlefield, thereby threatening to diminish due process at home:
The
(Updated and extended.) The White Paper’s reference to imminence has occasioned some heated rhetoric about the Obama administration stretching the notion beyond all possible ordinary meaning or bounds, etc. But it’s worth bearing in mind that there’s nothing new in … Read more »
Jack and Ben have already flagged their entries in a Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law series on national security challenges for the second Obama term (Hoover is adding one essay per day, all very short opinion … Read more »
We end the evening with this procedural nugget from Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal: in Hamdan II, the deadline for the United States to seek en banc review from the D.C. Circuit, or a writ of … Read more »
The WSJ reports that U.S. banks “are pressing for government action to block or squelch what Washington officials say is an intensifying Iranian campaign of cyberattacks against American financial institutions.” The banks are asking the USG to use diplomatic pressure, … Read more »
University of Pennsylvania law professor David Skeel has an important opinion piece in the December 28, 2012 Wall Street Journal on the role of religion in the US military, “The Military Balance of Faith and Freedom: A West Point cadet … Read more »
The Wall Street Journal has an article today, titled “U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens.” It reports:
The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for
Just after the election, I wrote:
As we have often discussed on this blog, and as Bobby has best documented, terrorist organizations that threaten the United States are increasingly difficult to fit under the AUMF rubric. This raises the
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Stuxnet, the virus that targeted Iran’s uranium enrichment program and that is generally thought to have been created jointly by the United States and Israel, also infected the computer systems of energy … Read more »
Eric Posner has a piece in Slate which argues – based on this report in the WSJ about the ever-thinner forms of consent by Pakistan to USG airstrikes in that country – that the United States is making a mockery … Read more »
This remarkable Wall Street Journal story came out over Yom Kippur, so I’m late in commenting on it. But it’s worth everyone’s attention. It opens:
About once a month, the Central Intelligence Agency sends a fax to a general at
This op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal is part of the Administration’s push for comprehensive cyber legislation. Here’s a taste of his views:
It doesn’t take much to imagine the consequences of a successful cyber attack. In a future conflict,
The Wall Street Journal and Ars Technica report on some very intersting results of a FOIA request for information on the “national security letters” that the FBI sends to tech companies to get information on users. These letters have provoked … Read more »
The scope of the leak investigations announced by Attorney General Holder yesterday remains unclear. Holder appointed U.S. Attorneys Ronald Machen and Rod Rosenstein to “direct[]separate investigations currently being conducted by the FBI.” But he did not say what those investigations … Read more »
Raff has noted in recent posts some of the conservative opposition to the U.N. Law of the Sea Convention. But the treaty is supported by many senior Republican officials. Last Thursday all of the living Republican Secretaries of State – … Read more »
It is surprising to me that neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times nor the Wall Street Journal has yet to run an editorial reacting to John Brennan’s extensive and thoughtful speech on drones last week.
A senior … Read more »
The WSJ reports that Google is returning to China after its confrontation with the Chinese over Chinese censorship and alleged Chinese hacks into its computer systems led it to shut down its Chinese site, Google.cn, and direct visitors to its … Read more »
Earlier this year, Judge Walton denied a pair of motions to dismiss in the civil suit filed by Moe Davis against the Librarian of Congress and the Director of the Congressional Research Service (“CRS”). Davis, who previously served as chief … Read more »
Walter Russell Mead argues (via Instapundit) that as a result of the Libya intervention, the world may be “farther from enshrining the duty to protect in international law than we were six months ago.” His reasoning:
Thanks to what
Julian Barnes and Evan Perez have an interesting piece today in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that at least some military officers are increasingly concerned about the lack of a clear option for detaining terrorism suspects (other than prosecution). This … Read more »
A series of articles over the past few days have discussed plans for the CIA to operate armed drones in Yemen, where U.S. armed forces already have been using lethal force against AQAP targets (cruise missiles, missiles from piloted aircraft, … Read more »
Hot on the heels of a National Security Council debate last Thursday concerning whether to reduce the pace or scope of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan (reported by the Wall Street Journal here; please do click through and read … Read more »
[See here for an updated analysis, after reading the original below]
In the summer of 2009, the Wall Street Journal broke a story about (i) a never-consummated CIA plan to develop a capacity to use small teams to capture or … Read more »
Evan Perez of the Wall Street Journal has this very interesting piece reporting that “New rules allow investigators to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning, significantly expanding exceptions to the instructions that have governed … Read more »
According to Julian Barnes at the Wall Street Journal, the White House has confirmed that (a) Article 75 of Protocol I does not apply in the Non-International Armed Conflict with al Qaeda as customary international law, but (b) the … Read more »
Glenn Greenwald has an interesting response to my post on the patriotism of American media, but he exaggerates the significance of the media’s patriotic bent, and he misses some important points.
To begin with the obvious, American journalists regularly publish … Read more »
During my 2003 confirmation hearings to be the head of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, one Senator showed up to ask me one or two perfunctory questions. This was a time when relatively few people knew what OLC did or … Read more »
David Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey have this oped in today’s Wall Street Journal. As it is behind a paywall, I will maximize my fair use rights to bring its argument to the attention of Lawfare readers. The oped … Read more »
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Leading the news: President Obama speaks today at the National Defense University on counterterrorism policy. Many are previewing the speech, including John. According to the New York Times’s Charlie Savage and Peter Baker, Obama will announce more stringent targeting criteria for non-battlefield strikes. This approach will govern the use of force against both citizens and non-citizens.
Here are the Washington … Read more »
