Today's Headlines and Commentary
As its 10th anniversary nears, reflections and analysis on Guantananamo has been more notable than usual:
Former Guantanamo detainees will mark the day at the launch of an online project called Laa Tansa, co-led by Reprieve and CagePrisoners, designed to raise awareness of those still held at the detention center.
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As its 10th anniversary nears, reflections and analysis on Guantananamo has been more notable than usual:
Former Guantanamo detainees will mark the day at the launch of an online project called Laa Tansa, co-led by Reprieve and CagePrisoners, designed to raise awareness of those still held at the detention center. UKPA has the story, and Peter Finn at the Washington Post discusses other protests planned.
CNN.com's Tim Lister writes about Guantanano detainee Mahmoud Abd al Aziz, one of the 35 detainees who has been held at the detention center since January 2002, and is deemd "too dangerous to release."
As Ben noted earlier, the New York Times focuses its Room for Debate feature on Guantanamo.
Despite widespread belief to the contrary, President Obama still insists he plans to close Guantanamo. The AFP has the story here.
The BBC has the news that a former U.S. Army soldier who was arrested in Kenya in December is now facing U.S. charges for planning to offer several hundred (you read that correctly) dollars to Al Shabab in Somalia.
The New York Times's Thom Shanker examines how President Obama's military strategy utilizes less-expensive weapons like mines and cyberwarfare.
Josh Gerstein at the Politico pays close attention to the Army's internal discussions of news coverage of the Bradley Manning trial.
Spencer Ackerman and Noah Schachtman at Wired's Danger Room blog report that almost one in three warplanes is an unmanned aerial vehicle. Read the CRS report they cite here. Slate's Future Tense blog also posted about this, but the money on drones doesn't add up, writes Mark Thompson at TIME's Battleland blog.
In other drone news, Iranian ground troops practiced shooting down enemy drones according to the Tehran Times.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a lawsuit under the FOIA to require the U.S. government to release the video recording of the interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani. Read the AP's coverage.
Life after Guantanamo: flippin' pizza (no joke). A Uighur held in Guantanamo and granted asylum in Albania found a job making pizza in Tirana. The AFP has all the cheese-y details.
We missed this post by Josh Gerstein late last week on the Jeffrey Sterling case, reporting on the government appeal of Judge Brinkema's ruling against allowing testimony from two witnesses who would have testified against the former CIA operative--a decision that prosecutors say destroyed their case. Prosecutors are appealing the decision. You can read their filing here.
For the third time in two weeks, a man dressed as an Afghan soldier has attacked NATO personnel. Graham Bowley and Sharifullah Sahak at the Times have the story.
And Amr Mizraei Hekmati, an Iranian-American, has been sentenced to death in Iran for spying on behalf of the United States. Read Thomas Erdbrink and Joby Warrick's piece in the Post here.
Read today's LWOT here. For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter, and visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief as well as the Fordham Law Center on National Security’s Morning Brief. Feel free to email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and singh.lawfare@gmail.com.
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.
