Today's Headlines and Commentary

As the Senate prepares to take up cybersecurity legislation, NPR's Morning Edition has done a few more segments on it. Tom Gjelten discusses the briefing that has CEOs shivering in their boots, and this morning he discusses how cybersecurity firms are changing their approach from playing defense to hunting down threats. Darren Goode and Jennifer Martinez at Politico update us on the cyberattack on natural gas infrastructure, and the AP tells us that the U.S. and China will be collaborating more on cyber issues. Yesterday, the family members of a kidnapped Army sergeant took matters into their own hands when they revealed that the U.S. is negotiating for his release in exchange for Afghan detainees being held in Guantanamo. Karen DeYoung at the Washington Post,  Elisabeth Bumiller and Matthew Rosenberg at the New York Times, and Julian Barnes and Adam Entous at the Wall Street Journal all have stories on this. The Miami Herald's yesteday editorialized on the KSM trial, Brig. Gen. Mark Martins' recent speeches, and the need for greater transparency at Guantanamo. Quote of the Day:

Yet the general’s argument — that federal courts are equipped to handle terrorist trials but not cases involving violations of the law of war — will not meet the objections of civil libertarians who argue that the terrorists are not soldiers in any conventional sense and therefore not subject to a judicial system designed for uninformed combatants. The larger problem is that the elaborate Guantánamo system attempts to square the circle — ostensibly offering a “fair trial” to the accused who have been tortured, held in secret jails, and subjected to years of detention without charges. For these defendants, the USS Fairness sailed long ago. No wonder the defendants refused to play along and disrupted the recent hearings. No wonder the trials probably won’t start for at least another year. It is too late to rectify the mistakes of the past, but if Gen. Martins wants to create greater confidence in the military commissions, he should ask the government to declassify what was done to the accused 9/11 mastermind and his four fellow defendants while in “black site” custody.

Robert Worth and Eric Schmitt at the New York Times provide more details on the informant who helped thwart an attack on an airliner on the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden's death. Mark Sherman at the Miami Herald has this analysis of the new study out by Seton Hall Law on Guantanamo habeas corpus cases, which Ben already noted. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole has this lengthy opinion piece over at Al Jazeera about Jose Padilla. For those of you watching the KSM arraignment last week at one of the closed-circuit feed locations, the DOD sends it apologies: apparently the white noise that was turned on during an argument by Walid Bin Attash's lawyer was accidental. Read Mark Seibel's piece from McClatchy here. 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.