Today's Headlines and Commentary
The top news from the weekend is that the U.S. and Afghanistan have reached an agreement on night raids. The agreement requires all "special operations" to be reviewed by a panel composed of Afghan government, intelligence, and military services. The AP article covering the story says that the decisions will be made "in consultation" with U.S. forces.
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The top news from the weekend is that the U.S. and Afghanistan have reached an agreement on night raids. The agreement requires all "special operations" to be reviewed by a panel composed of Afghan government, intelligence, and military services. The AP article covering the story says that the decisions will be made "in consultation" with U.S. forces. Alissa Rubin at the New York Times also reports.
David Cynamon, counsel for the two remaining Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo, has written this op-ed on the conflicting nature of policies surrounding the prison. Using the example of his clients in particular, Cynamon reminds us that Washington approved the construction of a prison in Kuwait to allow the U.S. government to transfer these two detainees back to their homeland, but refuses to meet with Kuwaiti officials to affect their relocation. He complains:
Sadly, this seems to be the nature of Guantanamo with regard to logic, legality and consistency. Presidents ignore their own commands, allies are snubbed over sworn enemies and the world’s most dangerous detainees – “the worst of the worst,” as the Bush administration called them – are held incommunicado and indefinitely.
Spencer Ackerman writes at Wired on the strategy Gen. Mark Martins has pursued as Chief Military Prosecutor at Guantanamo, examining the plea bargain reached in Majid Khan's case in particular.
Helene Cooper writes over at the Times on President Obama's embrace of national security as a key campaign issue.
BBC News reports that the British agency MI6's involvement in the 2004 rendition to Libya of Adbel Hakim Belhaj was approved by the government. He is a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and is currently a senior military official in the new Libyan governmen. He is also suing British government for complicity in his rendition and torture.
Tara McKelvey interviews State Department legal advisor Harold Koh on drone strikes at the Daily Beast.
Dan Froomkin has this op-ed in the Huffington Post on the recently-released torture memo written by Philip Zelikow back in 2006, when Zelikow served as a State Department official.
Seymour Hersh writes in The New Yorker on JSOC training that the Iranian opposition group MEK received in Nevada back in 2003, despite the MEK's status as a foreign terrorist organization.
Looks like those groups who organized the protest of SOPA/PIPA a few months back are now organizing against the House cybersecurity bill, says Brendan Sasso at The Hill.
The Daily Beast has this op-ed by Reprieve's Cori Crider, arguing against the British government's efforts to prevent intelligence used in torture cases from reaching the public by using secret hearings.
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.
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.
