Today's Headlines and Commentary

On the twelfth anniversary of 9/11 and the first anniversary of the Benghazi attack, we pause for a few moments to remember the lives that were lost and to reflect upon the consequences of those two tragic days. The New York Times has a piece on the lingering pain that is still felt from the attacks twelve years ago.Reuters has details on today’s ceremony in New York.  A private ceremony being held at the Pentagon will commemorate the 184 lives that were lost there. The Hill addresses the confusion and anger that still surround the Benghazi attack. Speaking of which, a car bomb exploded in front of the US Consulate in Benghazi this morning—the same place an attack claimed the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other US officials last year. There were no fatalities, but several people were wounded. On to Syria. Last night, President Obama delivered a speech on American involvement in the continuing crisis there. Originally intended as a staunch defense of a United States-led military intervention and aimed at swaying Congress to vote to authorize a strike, the speech instead focused on the possibility of a diplomatic solution—and called for Congress to delay voting on military action. President Obama assured the public that the United States military will remain on high alert. Here is the transcript of the speech, and areaction from Matt. The Times has a piece on the evolution of what began as an off-the-cuff suggestion from Secretary of State Kerry to a viable diplomatic solution. Reactions to the President’s speech were varied. NPR  argues that it was unconvincing and will not sway a doubtful public. The Times focuses on what the speech left out–crucial details like time limits for a diplomatic solution or details of potential military action. The Wall Street Journal collected reactions from various members of Congress, highlighting that the President’s speech failed to change minds.  The Hill offers an analysis of the speech.  The Guardian’s Michael Cohen has one of the strongest negative reactions to the speech we’ve seen: he argues that the President’s speech was “lathered it in so much threat-exaggeration and maudlin imagery that it was virtually impossible to take his case for war seriously.” Ross Douthat of theTimes questions whether  the speech should have been given in the first place. Let’s take a look at what other people are saying about the NSA documents that were declassified yesterday. Bloomberg, Politico, the Times, and the Journal all cover details of the NSA’s failure to comply with telephony metadata rules set by the FISC—in particular, the agency’s misrepresentation to the court that telephone numbers on an “alert list,” which NSA compared to each day’s incoming data streams,  already had met a court-imposed, threshold legal standard for suspicion.  (It turns out most numbers did not meet the standard.)  All three stories focus on Judge Reggie Walton’s sharply worded March 2009 ruling, on the agency’s noncompliance. The Post reports on the technological incompetency within the agency, which led to the sustained violation of court mandated privacy rules. And the Hill takes a look at Congressional reactions to the release, pointing to renewed energy on the Hill to rein in the NSA’s collection of domestic telephony metadata. The NSA documents make Stewart Baker very worried about the structure of the FISA Court and the ramifications for the way judges approach cases:

…we’ve unfairly given FISA judges a role akin to a school desegregation master — more administrator than judge.  Instead of resolving a setpiece dispute and moving on, FISA judges are dragged into a long series of linked encounters with the agency.  In ordinary litigation, the judges misunderstand things all the time and reach decisions anyway, and they rarely discover all that they’ve misunderstood.  The repetitive nature of the FISA court’s contacts with the agency mean that they’re always discovering that they only half understood things the last time around.

Syria isn’t the only country on the government’s Middle East agenda. It seems as though the United States also is looking to improve diplomatic relations elsewhere.  Yesterday, President Obama’s administrationeased sanctions on Iran, making room for good-will exchanges between the two countries.  One wonders whether a Russian official’s claims that Russia would increase arms sales to Iran, in the event of a United States strike on Syria, might jeopardize the United States’ recent steps in mending diplomatic relations with both Iran and Russia. Meanwhile, in a “major legal setback for Google,” a federal appeals court in San Francisco rejected Google’s request to dismiss a case accusing the company of illegal wiretapping. The Times has that story. In a reaction to the recent news that the NSA is able to break through most Internet encryption technologies, the Office of the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology released a statement.  It assures us that the public vetting process to establish an encryption standard is still in place. NPR has a story on Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO at Microsoft, and his new focus on the threat from biological weapons. Myrhvold is currently in the District to convince government leaders to focus time and energy on potential terrorist attacks of this new variety. Ben interviewed Myhrvold for the Lawfare Podcast—be sure to check it out this coming Sunday. In major ICC news, the trial of Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto has begun. He and President Kenyatta have been charged with crimes against humanity. The BCC has more on the complex trial. The Israeli government is offering a large settlement to the family of a deceased Mossad agent who died in an Israeli prison in 2010. A United Nations report shows that marijuana production in Afghanistan has increased since 2011, despite campaigns and efforts to reduce production for over a decade. The Guardian has that story. 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, Syracuse’s Institute for National Security & Counterterrorism’s newsroll and blog, and Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief and Cyber Brief. Email the Roundup Team noteworthy articles to include, visit the Lawfare Events Calendar for upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings at the Lawfare Job Board.