The Commercial for John Brennan’s Signature Strike Drone Shop TADS
Between them, the NYT and the Daily Beast published over 10,000 words on Obama’s drone assassination program yesterday. Both stories rolled out the new acronym the Administration wants us to use:...
View ArticleFor All the Targeting “Transparency” We Still Don’t Know How al-Majala Was...
I realized something as I read this Gregory Johnsen post. For all the so-called transparency on targeting we’ve gotten since the AP first revealed John Brennan was seizing control of the targeting...
View ArticleThe NSC’s May 2011 “Draft” Legal Analysis and the Continued Stonewalling of...
I’m ultimately going to get around to arguing that the reason the government response to the ACLU targeted killing FOIA is so funky is because (mind you, this is a wildarsed guess) the CIA didn’t rely...
View ArticleAssume Obama Drone Rules Dead
There’s been a series of moves and trial balloons among Obama’s national security lawyers that lead me to assume that any effort to apply some regularity and the patina of legality to the drone program...
View ArticleThe Lawyers that Stayed, the Lawyers that Left
Charlie Savage covers a very troubling development in the case of Ali al-Bahlul, a Yemeni who is serving a life sentence for serving as Al Qaeda’s videographer. After Hamdan had his conviction vacated...
View ArticleCrowd of Unilateral Lawyers Applaud Unilateral Operator
Sarah Cleveland? Not a judge. Greg Craig? Not a judge. William Dodge? Not a judge. Jeh Johnson? Not a judge. David Kris? Not a judge. David Martin? Not a judge. Daniel Meltzer? Not a judge. And Trevor...
View ArticleTargeted Killing Timeline
A timeline! I’ve been working on this timeline for almost nine months, trying to pull together the known dates about strikes against Americans, the evidence supporting the strike against Anwar...
View ArticleHarold Koh and the First Office of Legal Counsel Memo
When I compared what appeared in Eric Holder’s March 2012 targeted killing speech and the targeted killing white paper, I discovered two sections that appear in Holder but not the white paper: a...
View ArticleThe Author of the White Paper, Stuart Delery, Argues Selective, Misleading...
As I noted in this post, Daniel Klaidman has identified the author of the targeted killing white paper as Stuart Delery. At the time he wrote the white paper, Delery was Senior Counselor to Attorney...
View ArticleWhy Would Jeh Johnson Suggest the Drone and/or Targeted Killing Court Would...
I’ll have more to say about Jeh Johnson’s skeptical speech on a drone and/or targeted killing court later. But I wanted to point to this detail: Our government finds itself in a lose-lose proposition:...
View ArticleTrent Franks and the EMP Threat to the Electrical Grid
At a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing for Department of Homeland Security today, Trent Franks implored DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to consider the threat of electromagnetic pulse or...
View ArticleObama Should Only Nominate Jeh Johnson If He Plans on Breaking Up DHS
There are multiple reports that President Obama is considering nominating Jeh Johnson to head DOD. I get the attraction. Obama and Johnson get along well. Johnson only recently left DOD, so he knows it...
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A Tale of Celebrity Bon Vivant Civil Servants and Access Journalism
There is a distinct problem in this country with excessive inbreeding of politicians, lobbyists and journalists. In a country where so many are now ruled by so few in power, it is becoming, if not...
View ArticleCyber-Unicorn Journalists Shocked the Unicorn Didn’t Appear, Again
When last we checked in on claims the US was going to cyber-deter China, I suggested people should understand the underlying dynamics at work. Before people start investing belief in unicorn cyber...
View ArticleThe Financial Services Roundtable Wants to Terrify You into Giving Them More...
The policy discussion about the many ways that the Cyber Information Sharing Act not only doesn’t do much to prevent the hacking of public and private networks, but in key ways will make it worse,...
View ArticleThe Pro-Scrub Language Added to CISA Is Designed to Eliminate DHS’ Scrub
I’ve been comparing the Manager’s Amendment (MA) Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein introduced Wednesday with the old bill. A key change — one Burr and Feinstein have highlighted in their comments on...
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Obama Bypassed OLC on Bin Laden Killing
There’s a name missing from Charlie Savage’s latest — a description of the legal analysis behind Osama bin Laden’s killing: Caroline Krass, who served as Acting Head of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel...
View ArticleThe Sources for Some Russian Voting Hack Stories Will Not Be Prosecuted
Yesterday, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson spent 90 minutes meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russian investigators. Today, Bloomberg reports that Russian probes of...
View ArticlePenetrated: Today’s Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing on Russian...
If you didn’t catch the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russian influence on 2016 U.S. election on live stream, you should try to catch a replay online. I missed the first panel but caught...
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