Georgetown Security Law Brief

Kim Jong-il tells North Koreans in Libya not to bother coming home

10/31/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that strongman Kim Jong-il has issued a decree to North Koreans in Libya – don’t bother coming home. The ban was an effort to prevent word of the often-violent Arab uprisings from reaching the isolated regime, illustrating Kim’s concern about potential social unrest at home inspired by the Arab Spring revolutions, according to stories published in the South Korean press. The move has left an estimated 200 North Koreans stranded as country-less orphans. 

615 detained in Iraq's anti-Baathist sweep

10/30/11: The Associated Press reports that Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said Saturday that 615 people have been detained in a security sweep targeting members of the former ruling Baath party. Arrests on this scale are likely to alarm Sunni Arabs, who consider use of the term "Baathists" by Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to be a coded way to refer to Sunni politicians, army officers, and other prominent members of their community. The arrests coincide with a recent autonomy push by a mostly-Sunni province in north-central Iraq.

Iran cyber police cite US threat

10/30/11: The Washington Post reports that an Iranian police unit that was formed this year to counter alleged Internet crimes is playing a key role in an escalating online conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic. The “cyber police” force is part of a broad and largely successful government effort to block foreign Web sites and social networks deemed a threat to national security.  Iranian officials say the US is waging a “soft war” against Iran by reaching out to Iranians online and inciting them to overthrow their leaders.

Government to disclose evidence against WikiLeaks suspect in pretrial hearing

10/30/11: The Washington Times reports that the Army is preparing to hold a pre-trial hearing that for the first time will disclose the government’s case in detail against the soldier accused of disseminating thousands of classified documents that were aired on the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. A spokeswoman for the Military District of Washington at Fort McNair, which has jurisdiction over the proceedings, said the investigative hearing, known as an Article 32, will be held “in the Washington area.”

More are being prosecuted for crimes in Afghan, Iraq rebuilding effort, reports show

10/30/11: The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that a Marine in Iraq sent home $43,000 in stolen cash by hiding it in a footlocker among American flags. A soldier shipped thousands more concealed in a toy stuffed animal, and an embassy employee tricked the State Department into wiring $240,000 into his foreign bank account. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the number of people indicted and convicted by the US for bribery, theft and other reconstruction-related crimes in both countries is rapidly rising, according to two government reports released Sunday.

Israeli army whistleblower sentenced to 4 1/2 years on espionage charge

10/30/11: The Sacramento Bee reports that Anat Kamm, a former Israeli soldier who admitted to relaying classified military documents to a newspaper reporter, was sentenced on Sunday to 4 1/2 years in prison on espionage charges, according to a ruling from an Israeli court. According to earlier court documents, Kamm had told investigators she wanted to disclose certain Israeli military operations against West Bank militants to provide the public with evidence of "war crimes."

Online hackers threaten to expose cartel's secrets

10/30/11: The Houston Chronicle reports that Anonymous, an international group of online hackers, is warning the Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel, to release one of its members kidnapped from a street protest. Anonymous threatens that if the Zetas do not do so, it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate's associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the  syndicates' businesses. The vow is a bizarre cyber twist to Mexico's ongoing drug war.

Saudi woman sentenced to 15 years for Al Qaida links

10/30/11: The Kansas City Star reports that a special Saudi Arabian tribunal has sentenced a Saudi woman to 15 years in prison on terrorism-linked charges including aiding al-Qaida cells and insurgents seeking to enter Iraq. The official Saudi Press Agency says the woman sought to "commit terrorist attacks" in the kingdom, financed anti-state groups with more than 1 million riyals ($266,000) and provided communications equipment. The woman also was convicted of helping issue forged IDs to people seeking to join the insurgency in Iraq.

In Omar Khadr’s legal saga, a new chapter begins

10/30/11: The Globe and Mail reports that Omar Khadr, Canada’s only convicted war criminal – a confessed murderer, spy and terrorist – is headed home soon. But just how soon remains unclear. Even murkier is when he will be freed. Mr. Khadr is eligible for repatriation to Canada any time after Monday, to serve the rest of his eight year sentence in a Canadian prison. That could be years or as little as a few months, depending on whether he can successfully challenge the Guantanamo war crimes conviction in Canadian courts. HT to Neal R. Sonnett.

Morrocan court sentences cafe bomber to death

10/29/11: ABC News reports that the chief suspect in the April bombing of a Marrakesh cafe that killed 17 people was found guilty on Friday and sentenced to death. The suspect, Adel al-Othmani, was convicted of premeditated murder and building explosives, among other charges. An associate was sentenced to life in prison, and other defendants were sentenced to lesser terms. The defendants maintain their innocence and say they will appeal.

Lawmakers press US officials to put Palestinians released in Israeli swap on terror list

10/29/11: The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that  a bipartisan group of lawmakers is asking FBI Director Robert Mueller and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to put Palestinians released from prison in a swap for an Israeli soldier on the terrorist watch list. In a letter this week to Mueller and Clinton, the lawmakers said the Palestinians who were convicted on various terrorism charges should not be allowed to enter the United States.

15 suspected Islamists detained in Serbia after attack on US embassy in Bosnia

10/29/11: The Washington Post reports that 15 people suspected of belonging to an extremist Islamic sect have been detained in southern Serbia. The arrests in Sandzak early Saturday were made after a man from the Muslim-dominated region of Serbia fire with an automatic weapon outside the US Embassy in neighboring Bosnia Friday in what authorities called a terrorist attack. A policeman and the gunman were wounded. The embassy said none of its employees was hurt.

US northern border checks scaled back

10/29/11: The Miami Herald reports that the US Border Patrol has quietly stopped its controversial practice of routinely searching buses, trains and airports for illegal immigrants at transportation hubs along the northern border and in the nation's interior. Current and former Border Patrol agents said field offices around the country began receiving the order last month - soon after the Obama administration announced that to ease an overburdened immigration system, it would allow many illegal immigrants to remain in the country while it focuses on deporting those who have committed crimes.

Ex-Guantanamo guard tells of violence against detainees

10/29/11: CNN reports that Brandon Neely, a military police officer, admitted to witnessing and participating in acts of violence against Guantanamo detainees. "We were told that these guys, all of them, had either helped plan 9/11 or were caught red handed on the battlefield, weapon in hand, fighting American soldiers ... These are the people that would kill you in a heartbeat if you turn your back on them."

China’s legislature passes law defining terrorism

10/29/11: CBS News reports that China's legislature is authorizing new guidelines to define and combat terrorism, taking a step toward bringing its practices in line with international norms as Beijing battles a sporadically violent rebellion in the far west. The legislative resolution approved Saturday clearly lays out for the first time China's legal definition of terrorism and the steps for formally declaring groups and individuals terrorists and freezing their assets.

Guantanamo detainee files complaint against Lithuania in Europe rights court

10/28/11: JURIST reports that lawyers for a Guantanamo Bay detainee and alleged al Qaeda facilitator on Thursday filed a case against Lithuania in the European Court of Human Rights for torture and secret detention at a CIA-run location in the Baltic state. The claimant, Abu Zubaydah, is a Palestinian who was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and taken to multiple CIA black sites. According to Zubaydah and supported by government intelligence reports, he was waterboarded approximately 83 times. It is alleged that he was also flown to a secret detention facility in Lithuania in February 2005, where he was tortured once again.

Panetta reaffirms US commitment to South Korea

10/28/11: The Washington Times reports that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday that the Asia-Pacific region will be a key focus of US security efforts in the 21st century, but he was cagey about whether US troops would join their South Korean allies in retaliating against North Korean provocations on the troubled peninsula. “It is no secret that the United States is facing some tough fiscal decisions back home, but we are fully committed to advancing our military presence and capabilities in Asia and on the peninsula,” Panetta said during a press conference with South Korean Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin.

Egyptian activists say that prison guards tortured man to death

10/28/11: The Washington Post reports that Egyptian rights activists on Friday accused guards at a Cairo prison of killing an inmate by forcing water into his body with hoses, in a case they said shows the continued use of torture by security forces despite the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Popular anger over the use of torture was a key grievance behind the mass uprising that toppled Mubarak in February. Activists see the death of Essam Atta, 23, at a Cairo hospital late Thursday as an indication that Egypt’s new rulers have expended little effort to stamp it out.

Pentagon report says security improved in Afghanistan

10/28/11: The Miami Herald reports that security has improved in Afghanistan but the insurgency's safe havens in Pakistan and the Kabul government's limitations pose significant risks to a "durable, stable Afghanistan," according to a Pentagon progress report released Friday. More than a decade since the September 11 terror attacks and the start of the Afghan war, the US and its allies have reversed violent trends in much of the country and the transition to Afghan security taking the lead has begun in seven key areas, including major cities such as Kabul and Herat.

Israel and Egypt carry out US-brokered prisoner swap

10/28/11: The Chicago Tribune reports that Egypt released an American-Israeli held as an alleged spy and Israel freed 25 Egyptians in a prisoner swap Thursday that will ease strains between Cairo's new rulers and the United States and Israel. Ilan Grapel, 27, flew to Israel accompanied by two Israeli envoys sent by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The freed Egyptians crossed overland into Egypt's Sinai desert, some of them kneeling in a thanksgiving prayer.

Communications with Pakistan still inconsistent

10/28/11: The Washington Times reports that cross-border radio communications with Pakistan's military collapsed after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May and still are not consistent or up to what the United States would like to see, a top US general said Thursday. US Army Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who directs day-to-day military operations in Afghanistan, said officials are trying to re-establish military communications along the border, particularly between Afghan and Pakistani units that are facing each other.

Opinion: Why a cybersecurity treaty is a pipe dream

10/28/11: Council on Foreign Relations features an opinion piece by Adam Segal, Ira A. Lipman Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Matthew C. Waxman, fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Associate Professor at Columbia Law School and member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law.  Segal and Waxman discuss how there is almost universal belief that any durable cybersecurity solution must be transnational. They propose that the solution can only be achieved through multiple arrangements hammered out between state and private actors rather than through a global accord. 

Officers get seven years for killing that helped inspire Egypt’s revolt

10/27/11: The New York Times reports that an Egyptian court sentenced two police officers to seven years in prison on Wednesday for the beating death of a 28-year-old man whose killing helped set off the Egyptian revolution. The sentence, handed down in an Alexandria court, angered both sides. The family of the victim, Khaled Said, and its supporters called it far too lenient. And news reports said that relatives of the two officers, Mahmoud Salah and Awad Ismaeil, caused havoc in the courtroom and tried to attack the prosecutors. The two men had been convicted of manslaughter.

Opinion: Reform the un-American Patriot Act

10/27/11: CNN features an opinion piece by Farhana Khera, the president and executive director of Muslim Advocates, a national legal advocacy and educational organization.  Khera discusses how ten years after the passage of the USA Patriot Act, the law has eroded America's freedoms and wasted precious resources. Khera proposes that the law should be amended to require law enforcement to focus on actual threats, and further seeks Congress to perform a full public accounting of the use of the Patriot Act and all federal surveillance powers. 

Treatment of ex-intel chief to Gaddafi raising questions about handling of detainees

10/27/11: The Washington Post reports that the former intelligence chief to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi was seriously injured Tuesday while in the custody of the National Transitional Council, fueling concerns about the treatment of loyalists to the deposed government. The cause of Abuzed Omar Dorda’s injuries are disputed, but a relative of Dorda, a one-time UN envoy, has appealed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council president to intercede with Libyan authorities to protect the former official, saying he had been the target of an assassination attempt by his jailers. 

Homeland Security adding three drone aircraft despite lack of pilots

10/27/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that the Homeland Security Department is adding three surveillance drone aircraft to a domestic fleet chiefly used to patrol the border with Mexico even though officials acknowledge they don't have enough pilots to operate the seven Predators they already possess. The new drones are being purchased after lobbying by members of the so-called drone caucus in Congress, many from districts in Southern California, a major hub of the unmanned aircraft industry.

Karzai invites McChrystal back to Afghanistan for visit

10/27/11: The New York Times reports that President Hamid Karzai has invited retired Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who led NATO troops in 2009 and 2010, to Afghanistan, and General McChrystal plans to make the visit in the next few weeks, according to Afghan and American officials. The general has not been in Afghanistan since he resigned his command in June 2010 after an embarrassing article in Rolling Stone magazine quoted members of his staff saying disparaging things about the Obama administration.

New FBI rules relax restrictions on intelligence gathering

10/27/11: The Atlantic reports that the FBI reportedly implemented new rules that relax restrictions on, and oversight of, the FBI's intelligence collection activities. Although they are not available to the public, reports indicate the changes permit FBI agents to search an individual's trash with the goal of finding material that might pressure him into becoming a government informant, grant agents the authority to search commercial or law enforcement databases without first opening an investigation, and reduce the type of investigations subjected to heightened oversight because of their relationship to protected First Amendment activities.

Scholarship: Targeted killings

10/26/11: Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World, edited by Claire Finkelstein, Jens David Ohlin, and Andrew Altman, will soon be published by Oxford University Press. The work covers such topics as targeting non-combatants, the law-enforcement versus war paradigms, targeted killings and self-defense, criteria used in targeted killing decisions, and the ideological tradeoffs and deontological constraints on the practice. HT to Robert Chesney.

Scholarship: Transcending, but not abandoning, the combatant-civilian distinction

10/26/11: Alec D. Walen, of Rutgers School of Law, will publish "Transcending, but Not Abandoning, the Combatant-Civilian Distinction: A Case Study" in the November issue of Rutgers Law Review. The paper describes the conflict between the traditional law of war model and the functionalist model at the heart of the recent five-to-four decision of the Fourth Circuit in al-Marri v. Pucciarelli. Walen posits both models are inadequate, as the functionalist approach is insufficiently respectful of basic civil rights, and the traditional approach is too dismissive of the problems presented by using traditional criminal law techniques when fighting enemies who use military levels of force.  HT to Robert Chesney.

Indonesian court slashes radical cleric's sentence

10/26/11: ABC News reports that a radical Islamic cleric accused of setting up a terror training camp in western Indonesia had his prison sentence slashed from 15 years to nine years, an appeals court said Wednesday. No reason was given for the decision. Abu Bakar Bashir, known as the spiritual leader of al-Qaida-linked militants blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings, was accused of providing key support for the camp that brought together men from almost every known extremist group in the predominantly Muslim country.

Awlaki family angered by US silence

10/26/11: The Washington Post reports that the State Department claims it has not yet received confirmation of the killing of a 16-year-old American in Yemen. This has angered his relatives, the family of radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The teenager was Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman, and he was killed in an American military airstrike on October 14. But the strike hasn’t been officially acknowledged. US officials, meantime, say they have not yet been contacted by the teenager’s family, or been provided with confirmation of his death by the Yemeni government.

Death highlights women's role in Special Ops teams

10/26/11: The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Army 1st Lieutenant Ashley White died on the front lines in southern Afghanistan last weekend, the first casualty in what the Army says is a new and vital wartime attempt to gain the trust of Afghan women. White, like other female soldiers working with special operations teams, was brought in to do things that would be awkward or impossible for her male teammates. Frisking burqa-clad women, for example. Her death, in a bomb explosion in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, underscores the risks of placing women with elite US special operations teams working in remote villages.

FBI going to court more often to get personal Internet-usage data

10/26/11: The Washington Post reports that the FBI is increasingly going to court to get personal e-mail and Internet usage information as service providers balk at disclosing customer data without a judge’s orders. Investigators once routinely used administrative subpoenas, called national security letters, seeking information about who sent and received e-mail and what Web sites individuals visited. But more recently, many service providers receiving national security letters have limited the information they give to customers’ names, addresses, length of service and phone billing records.

US parts smuggled to Iran for Iraq bombs, charges say

10/26/11: The Washington Post reports that electronic parts made in Minnesota were smuggled through Singapore to Iran, and some of them ended up in the remote controls of makeshift bombs seized by American forces in Iraq. The parts are normally used in commonplace devices like routers that wirelessly connect computers and printers in a typical office network. The Justice Department said in an indictment that the ones smuggled to Iran had been put to use in sophisticated improvised explosive devices, or IED’s, that could be triggered from miles away.

Law firm gives more than $3.2 million in services to help Bybee’s defense

10/25/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay S. Bybee accepted more than $3.2 million in free legal services from Latham & Watkins to fight allegations of ethics violations for providing the Bush administration legal justification to use harsh interrogation tactics that critics called torture. In his latest financial disclosure report to the Administrative Office of the US Courts, Bybee reported gifts from the Latham & Watkins firm that bring the total of its free legal assistance to the judge to $3,251,893 since 2007.

US requests for Google user data spikes 29 percent in six months

10/25/11: Wired reports that the number of US government requests for data on Google users for use in criminal investigations rose 29 percent in the last six months, according to data released by the search giant Monday. US government agencies sent Google 5,590 criminal investigation requests for data on Google users and services from January 1 to June 30, 2011, an average of 31 a day. That’s compared to 4,601 requests from July 1 to Dececember 31, 2010, the company reported Tuesday in an update to its unique transparency tool.

State Department leads classification, but sometimes lags behind

10/25/11: Secrecy News reports that at its best, the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series serves as a driver of declassification, propelling it farther and faster than it would otherwise go.  But it’s not always at its best. Although a 1992 law directed the State Department to publish records of major US foreign policy decisions “not more than 30 years after the events recorded,” the department has never met this deadline.  Nor has Congress effectively required that it do so.  In fact, Congress has not even conducted regular oversight of the FRUS program, which has experienced significant turmoil in recent years.

Afghan leader's office says Pakistan remarks misinterpreted

10/25/11: The Los Angeles Times reports that parsing statements by President Hamid Karzai has become something of a parlor game in the Afghan capital. The Afghan leader's office sought Monday to distance him from his controversial remarks in a weekend television interview, in which he asserted that Afghanistan would side with Pakistan in a hypothetical war against the United States. The presidential palace said Karzai's comments to Pakistan's Geo TV, aired Saturday, had been misinterpreted.

US agencies infiltrating drug cartels across Mexico

10/25/11: The New York Times reports that American law enforcement agencies have significantly built up networks of Mexican informants that have allowed them to secretly infiltrate some of that country’s most powerful and dangerous criminal organizations, according to security officials on both sides of the border. The informants have helped Mexican authorities capture or kill about two dozen high-ranking and midlevel drug traffickers, and sometimes have given American counternarcotics agents access to the top leaders of the cartels they are trying to dismantle.

NATO delegation visits Moscow to brief Russian military about the alliance’s missions

10/25/11: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that NATO still hopes to engage Russia in its prospective missile defense system, but won’t yield to Moscow’s push for the shield to be run jointly, an alliance envoy said Tuesday. James Appathurai, a deputy assistant NATO Secretary General, said the alliance would like to reach a missile defense deal with Moscow by NATO’s summit in Chicago next May, but added that he wouldn’t “gamble on expectations.”

The FBI, CAIR and subterfuge in Connecticut

10/24/11: The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports that the FBI's New Haven, Conneticut field office organized a community outreach program last October that featured two speakers from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), in apparent violation of FBI policy not to partner with the Islamist group. To avoid openly violating the ban, the records show, officials drew semantic distinctions and seem to have tried to conceal the field office's role in organizing and developing the event.

UN Security Council calls for criminalization of piracy

10/24/11: CBS reports that the UN Security Council has unanimously agreed to ask all countries around the world to make piracy a crime in light of the growing problem in Somalia. Council members on Monday asked all UN member states to issue reports before year's end on measures they have taken to criminalize piracy. States are asked to support the prosecution of people suspected of piracy off Somalia's coast. The council will examine further steps to establish courts in Somalia and nearby countries with international participation.

Libya’s interim leaders to investigate Qaddafi killing

10/24/11: The New York Times reports that the head of Libya’s interim government announced the creation of a formal committee of inquiry on Monday to examine the circumstances surrounding the death of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the country’s former leader, while in the custody of his captors after he fled his final refuge last week. The announcement acknowledged the calls by foreign powers and rights groups  for an investigation into how Colonel Qaddafi wound up dead with a bullet to the head.

State Department’s police training program in Iraq lacks planning, report says

10/24/11: The Washington Post reports that a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that the State department is spending just 12 percent of money allocated for its police training program on advising Iraqi police officials, with the “vast preponderance” of funds going toward the security, transportation and medical support of the 115 police advisers hired for the program. The department has requested $887 million to continue operating the program this fiscal year.

Cost and length of Iraq war may mark a shift in the US approach to countering threats

10/24/11: Newser reports that in the final days of the US war in Iraq, the outlook for America's military entanglements is markedly different from the confusing, convulsive first days. Early on Iraq looked, to many, like one in a string of big conflicts in a "war on terror." Now, with the last American troops set to depart by year's end, Iraq seems more likely to signal an end to such long and enormously costly undertakings in the name of preventing another terrorist attack on US soil - at least under the administration of President Barack Obama.

US scales back diplomacy in Iraq amid fiscal and security concerns

10/23/11: The New York Times reports that beyond the final withdrawal of troops that President Obama announced Friday, America’s fiscal troubles are dictating a drastic scaling back of plans for diplomatic, economic and cultural programs once deemed vital to steadying Iraq, building a long-term alliance and prying the country from Iran’s tightening embrace. Recent plans for consulates in Mosul and Kirkuk have now been shelved or indefinitely postponed, and pleas from some Iraqi leaders to open diplomatic offices in the Shiite-dominated south, where Iran wields outsize influence, were summarily rejected.

Spy agency in Kabul denies claim of abuse

10/23/11: The New York Times reports that Afghanistan’s embattled spy agency absolved itself of any wrongdoing on Saturday in the case of a wandering Islamic preacher detained by intelligence officials who ended up in a hospital this month, fading in and out of consciousness and seemingly near death. Ten days ago, doctors in the eastern province of Khost reported that the preacher, Maulavi Abdullah, had been held for 12 days by the intelligence service and arrived at the hospital badly beaten, unable to drink fluids and with failing kidneys.

Gaddafi spy chief Koussa tortured Libyan prisoners

10/23/11: The BBC reports that Muammar Gaddafi's former spy chief who fled to Britain in March personally tortured political prisoners in Libya.  Moussa Koussa was the slain ex-leader's right-hand man and the key liaison with British intelligence in the aftermath of 9/11 when Libya sought new allies. He has also been accused of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The BBC traced Mr Koussa to a luxury hotel in Qatar but he refused to respond to the new allegations.

UN rights expert warns lethal force during arrests could violate international standards

10/23/11: JURIST reports that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, urged respect for international standards concerning the use of lethal force during arrests and warned that the growing use of targeted killings with unmanned drones is legally problematic. Heyns made a report to the UN the General Assembly on Thursday saying that "International standards provide adequate room for States to pursue their legitimate security interests, both at home and abroad."