Ben quotes from this morning’s Washington Post editorial on AUMF reform, the last two sentences of which assert that “Countering the jihadists with intelligence and law enforcement tools manifestly failed before Sept. 11, 2001. Congress would be wise to … Read more »
The Washington Post this morning has this editorial on AUMF reauthorization. It opens:
THE OBAMA administration’s political and legal authority to wage war against al-Qaeda has steadily eroded. Both liberal and conservative members of Congress have challenged the administration’s lack
On the Sunday talk shows, various members of Congress exhorted the United States to increase its assistance to the Syrian rebels, whether by providing them with additional (lethal) equipment, or by establishing a no-fly zone, or by entering Syria to … Read more »
Susan Landau, author of Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies (which I highly recommend), writes in with a different take than Paul’s on the WP CALEA story:
The Washington Post reported yesterday on the FBI’s
Better late than never. I have been meaning to report for some time Secretary Kerry’s announcement earlier this month — via an op-ed in the Huffington Post – that the State Department is now offering a $5 million reward for … Read more »
James Lewis had an op-ed yesterday in the WP about “Five Myths About Chinese Hackers.” The fifth myth:
5. America spies on China, too, so what can we complain about?
Chinese officials portray their country as a victim of hacking
Although most Supreme Court watchers are focused on the two gay marriage cases to be argued before the Court on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week (NB: I signed the brief submitted by former Republican officials supporting same-sex marriage in … Read more »
Both the New York Times and Washington Post are reporting that U.S. and Afghan officials have resolved the dispute over the transfer of authority over the Detention Facility at Parwan to Afghanistan. The Times reports:
On Saturday, a Pentagon spokesman
Jennifer and Steve describe the statutory proposal for next-generation terrorist threats by Bobby, Matt, Ben, and me as a “sweeping and preemptive militarization of counterterrorism” which is “not just unnecessary on current facts, but also deeply misguided—and likely counterproductive—as a … Read more »
What a useful contribution to the debate! From the Washington Post.
The Washington Post editorial page has recently been promoting development of a U.S. cyber-strategy through robust public debate. Today’s editorial continues that argument: It begins by saying that “A recent report by a task force of the Defense Science Board … Read more »
Controversy surrounding the DoJ White Paper on targeting Americans abroad has generated interest and debate about the meaning of “imminence” in the terrorism context, for purposes of self-defense and other legal doctrines. Similar debates have abounded in the context of … Read more »
Rand Paul has a triumphant blow-by-blow account of his filibuster in the Washington Post. It contains the following curious sentence that to me captures almost everything wrong with his little campaign: “I wanted to sound an alarm bell from … Read more »
The Washington Post, meanwhile, has this excellent editorial on Rand Paul’s filibuster and openness in the drone program:
AFTER SEN. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held the Senate hostage Wednesday in order to warn that American citizens could be targeted by drone
Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung have this important story in the Washington Post: “Administration Debates Stretching 9/11 Law To Go After New al-Qaeda Offshoots.” It cites unnamed Administration officials as concerned that “[a] new generation of al-Qaeda offshoots … Read more »
Several years ago, in a prescient op-ed in the Washington Post, our colleague John Bellinger argued that the September 2001 AUMF was an increasingly poor fit for the evolving threats facing the United States. It is a theme to which … Read more »
I have often asked whether the Obama administration had a strategy to confront the apparently enormous problem of cyber exploitation by the Chinese against U.S. firms. Yesterday it published the Administration Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets… Read more »
Apropos of our discussion last week about “Taming the Cyber Dragon” today’s New York Times has an extensive report on how China’s army is directly linked to hacking inside the United States. For those who want the unvarnished underlying … Read more »
Herb Lin of the National Research Council has just published an informative, brief article entitled, “Defining Self-Defense for the Private Sector in Cyberspace.” It’s a good primer on active cyberdefense. It opens:
It is the United States’ stated
John Bellinger makes note in his post below that that Obama administration faces increasing organized NGO, activist-advocacy, and European pushback on drone warfare, and he cites today’s front page NYT story by Peter Baker that this essentially reprises the campaign … Read more »
The most interesting element in Scott Shane’s interesting story on the growing pressure for a Court to vet drone strikes (which quotes Bobby several times) is that the ACLU opposes it. Shane says that Hina Shamsi of the ACLU (these … Read more »
Ben Emmerson, the Special Rapportuer for Human Rights who is conducting an inquiry into the legality of (among other things) U.S. drone strikes, and who has suggested that the United States might have committed war crimes, has told Spencer … Read more »
That is the title of an op-ed I have coming out tomorrow in the Washington Post, which is already available on line. The premise of the piece is that, contrary to President Obama’s inaugural speech claim, “war is not … Read more »
I’d like to briefly address two articles in the news today on U.S. cyber-attack strategy, one the New York Times piece that Jack already commented on and the other a Washington Post editorial. The Times reports on a “secret … Read more »
January 28, 2013: The United States signs a status of forces agreement with Niger “that clears the way for a stepped-up American military presence on the edges of the conflict in neighboring Mali,” and that portends a drone base 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 »
I have an op-ed in today’s Washington Post entitled (in the print edition) “Aiding Syria: Easier said than done” in which I describe some of the international legal obstacles to intervening in Syria. Here are a couple of excerpts:
Obama’s
I have added several new feeds to the Lawfare News Feed:
Steve has already noted (and critiqued) this Washington Post story about continued “renditions” by the United States government. The term “renditions” is used in so many ways (often, as Steve suggests, with connotations of harsh interrogation), and this article defines … Read more »
Amid all the fiscal cliff hubbub, the Senate on Friday approved, and President Obama on Sunday signed, the inelegantly if accurately named “FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012.” The new law extends its predecessor, the FISA Amendments Act … Read more »
The Washington Post has an excellent article by Sudarsan Raghavan on civilian casualties in drone strikes in Yemen and the ways in which the Yemeni government tries to mask the U.S. role in these strikes. Put this on the list … Read more »
This has nothing whatsoever to do with national security or law. But the Washington Post this morning reprinted one of my favorite editorials written in the time I worked there—a work of sheer editorial poetry. Originally entitled, “A Deep Fried … Read more »
While the Senate was making a feint at legislation yesterday, far more significant cyber news was disclosed. According to the Washington Post President Obama has signed a new Presidential Policy Directive that assigns roles and responsibilities for military and civilian … Read more »
When I wrote on Friday about the “basic counterterrorism policies that Obama continued, with tweaks, from the late Bush administration,” I meant to refer only to policies that “Obama continued” from the Bush era, and not to make a claim … Read more »
So reports NBC News, which apparently obtained a copy of Petraeus’ statement to the CIA workforce. From the NBC report’s opening:
CIA Director David Petraeus resigned Friday, citing an extramarital affair he had.
Multiple sources tell NBC News that
The Supreme Court is not the only branch of government focused on FISA. As many Lawfare readers will recall, Congress is currently considering reauthorizing Title VII of FISA, which is scheduled to expire at the end of the … Read more »
My law partner (and former CIA General Counsel) Jeff Smith and I have an op-ed in today’s Washington Post (entitled “Is It Legal to Hit Iran?” in the print edition) discussing the U.S. and international law applicable to a possible … Read more »
I’ve been less than on the ball about covering the Senate Intelligence Committee’s new anti-leak legislation. Here’s the bill text. Here’s a good summary by Steve Aftergood over at Secrecy News. Here’s a column by the Washington Post… Read more »
The Washington Post has an editorial today — entitled “Laughing STOCK” in today’s print editions — criticizing the STOCK Act’s internet publication mandate for executive branch financial disclosure forms.
Here are two key excerpts:
As its name implies, the act
In today’s Washington Post, the paper reports that the United States has missed a statutory deadline of July 1, 2012 that required the government to scan all inbound cargo containers for radioactive material prior to arrival in the US. … Read more »
This is a wonderful piece of journalism. The Washington Post‘s Ian Shapira today has a long feature on one of the CIA officers convicted in Italian courts for the kidnapping and rendition of radical Egyptian cleric Abu Omar—and … Read more »
Two short items involving drug cartel violence in Mexico and the related issue of US cooperation with Mexican authorities in counter-cartel efforts.
First, as readers presumably know, Mexico has just elected a new president: PRI’s Enrique Pena Nieto. It will … Read more »
July1 marks the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the International Criminal Court. I have an op-ed in the print edition of Friday’s Washington Post arguing that Congress should review the … Read more »
I have not linked to the reviews of my book Power and Constraint as they have appeared, but by now there are enough reviews – by Gary Schmitt in the Weekly Standard, Christopher Caldwell in the NYT, Roger … Read more »
This morning, Paul flagged a Washington Post op-ed by Senators Coats, Rubio and Burr. The trio’s piece concerns the improper revelation of national security secrets. As one example, the authors cite the recent disruption, by the CIA and a foreign … Read more »
Now sooner did I complain about the lack of editorial response to John Brennan’s speech on drones than the Washington Post has published this editorial on drone strikes in Yemen. The editorial goes on to praise Brennan’s speech and give … 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 »
Wells and I will be at Fort Meade for the KSM arraignment Saturday morning. In the meantime, I have written an oped in the Washington Post setting the stage and discussing the pivotal importance of this trial to the military … 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 »
Last October, I wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “Will Drone Strikes Become Obama’s Guantanamo?” in which I said that “the administration needs to work harder to explain and defend its use of drones as lawful … 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 »
