Today's Headlines and Commentary

Raffaela Wakeman
Thursday, June 30, 2011, 9:49 AM
A slow news day in the department of Hard National Security Choices. The Washington Post is reporting that White House counterterrorism chief John O. Brennan, speaking at SAIS, unveiled President Obama's national strategy for counterterrorism.

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A slow news day in the department of Hard National Security Choices. The Washington Post is reporting that White House counterterrorism chief John O. Brennan, speaking at SAIS, unveiled President Obama's national strategy for counterterrorism. He called it "neither...a wholesale overhaul, nor a wholesale retention, of previous policies." The LA Times is also covering this story. Today's New York Times editorial focuses on recent cybersecurity breaches. Tim Arango of the Times reports that monthly combat deaths in Iraq are at a 3-year high. The Washington Post's Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung report that a U.S. military official has confirmed that a U.S. drone fired upon two Somali militants who are affiliated with al Qaeda. Pakistan has halted U.S. drone flights from one of its airbases in Balochistan, a western province, reports The Guardian. It has also ordered U.S. personnel to vacate the base. The Miami Herald reports that Senator Ben Nelson is criticizing the detention of the Iraq war veteran who is being held for passport fraud. For more news and analysis links, see Today’s Terrorism News over at the CenterLine.

Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT. Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.

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