Today’s Headlines and Commentary

Let’s begin with drones. As Matt noted last week, The Hill reports that the International Association of Chiefs of Police released guidelines for the use of domestic drones. Read the recommendations here.

The Washington Post tells us that a Syrian jihadist group known as—wait for it—the al-Nusra Front for the Protection of the People of the Levant has emerged as an increasingly prominent component of the resistance to the Assad regime. The group is linked to Al Qaeda. The Hill also reports here on the group.

From the Department of That’s Not Helpful: The New York Times reports that Iraq is turning a blind eye—and in some cases, directly aiding—Iran in “skirt[ing] economic sanctions.”

According to CNN’s Security Clearance blog, President Obama is reaching out to Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the growing number of “green-on-blue” attacks. Another NATO soldier was killed by an officer in an Afghan police uniform on Sunday, the blog reports. Also, President Obama told reporters today that the key to stemming insider attacks was to stick to the transition plan and hand over “vital national security operations in Afghanistan to local military and police forces.” The Hill has the story.

The Pakistani Taliban gunned down twenty-two Shiites last week, says the Times.

Reuters has this article on the restrictions placed on Gitmo defense counsel in military commissions with respect to discussing their clients’ interrogations.

Wells had this to say about the hearing last week on Guantanamo counsel access to clients who have lost their habeas cases. In the same vein, the Associated Press reports on the hearing, and on U.S. District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth’s skepticism that the “government’s restrictions on lawyers’ access to detainees at Guantanamo Bay” had merit.

Wired’s Danger Room blog has this cool piece on what 3-D printing could mean for our troops, and for 3-year-olds---read: it could turn them into cyborgs.

And, since we began with them, let’s also end with drones: Gareth Porter has a report on drones over at Truthout. The report argues that “the majority of the deaths in the drone war in Pakistan have been civilian noncombatants – not ‘militants,’ as the Obama administration has claimed,” and the “statistical tally of casualties from drone attacks in Pakistan published on the web site of the New America Foundation (NAF) has been systematically understating the deaths of large numbers of civilians by using a methodology that methodically counts them as ‘militants.’”

And, in the spirit of the gigantic upcoming hearing in the 9/11 case, I thought it was only appropriate to have a judiciary-themed Moment of Zen. Here’s the song that Military Judge James Pohl, who is not appointed forever, can never sing:

For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter, visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief, Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief, and Fordham Law’s Cyber Brief. Email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and singh.lawfare@gmail.com.