Today's Headlines and Commentary
House and Senate intelligence committees have reached a bipartisan (really, I said it) agreement to remove two provisions from the authorization bill they're considering. We shared last week the details of these two provisions which, if enacted, would have required the administration to provide the committees with sensitive information regarding detainees at Guantanamo as well as detainees being held around the world by U.S. forces, and provided for Senate confirmation of the Director of the NSA.
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House and Senate intelligence committees have reached a bipartisan (really, I said it) agreement to remove two provisions from the authorization bill they're considering. We shared last week the details of these two provisions which, if enacted, would have required the administration to provide the committees with sensitive information regarding detainees at Guantanamo as well as detainees being held around the world by U.S. forces, and provided for Senate confirmation of the Director of the NSA. Walter Pincus at the Washington Post reports on the agreement to nix these two provisions.
Josh Gerstein at the Politico reminds us that one of the recommendations from the 9/11 Commission Report was that the CIA surrender its "paramilitary" operations to the JSOC. Both Presidents Bush and Obama have rejected that recommendation, and, in fact, Gerstein points out that Obama has ramped up the program during his tenure.
The U.S. is considering using Ankara, Turkey, as its base for Predator drones being used to fight a Kurdish group in Iraq. Craig Whitlock at the Post shares the details of Turkey's proposal, and discusses the potential implications for this move on U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Ernesto Londoño from the Post interviewed several Afghans who had been detainees at Guantanamo and who have since been cleared of any connection with al Qaeda released from detention.
They just keep on coming: Bob Woodward reviews Dick Cheney's book, focusing specifically on the section in which he discusses the discovery of a nuclear reactor in Syria. Woodward says that Cheney "shows he has not fully absorbed" the lesson of Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction.
On Friday, Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled that records of drone use could be withheld under exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act. Josh Gerstein summarizes her opinion, which is also available here.
NPR interviewed Ali H. Soufan, a special agent at the FBI who played a major role in the interrogation of suspects and has just written a book about his experience after 9/11.
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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.
