Georgetown Security Law Brief

White House releases Benghazi emails, documents

05/16/13:  The Washington Times reports the White House released more than 100 pages of e-mails Wednesday in an effort to quiet criticism that President Obama and his aides downplayed the role of terrorism in the deadly attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya The documents detail discussions between top administration officials on developing “talking points” to describe the attack last Sept. 11 that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The CIA originally drafted those talking points, and Republican lawmakers have said the administration scrubbed the memos to remove any references to a terrorist attack. In the early days and weeks following the attack, the administration portrayed it as a mob assault fueled by protests about an anti-Islam video. But in the CIA’s original set of talking points, the first bullet point included a reference that the Benghazi attack was “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US consulate and subsequently its annex.” It said the agency’s assessments could change “as additional information is collected and analyzed.” The second bullet point said the Benghazi assailants were “a mix of individuals from across many sections of Libyan society.”

Commentary: Daskal and Vladeck working paper on "After the AUMF"

05/15/13: Lawfare has this post, which links to a working paper authored by our own fellow Jennifer Daskal and Professor Steve Vladeck.  The paper - which is available here - is a more comprehensive effort to explain the authors' view that proposals for an expanded, open-ended Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), from whatever quarter and with whatever caveats, are unneccessary, counterproductive, and unwise. Instead, we offer out an alternative vision for the next generation of U.S. counterterrorism policy—one in which law enforcement and intelligence-gathering capabilities, with the backstop of self-defense authorities, are the baseline. We hope that this is an approach that Congress will take seriously if and when it decides to revisit the AUMF.  As this is an early draft of the paper, Profs. Daskal and Vladeck both (1) welcome comments of all shapes and sizes (whether online or via e-mail); and (2) beg readers’ indulgence for typos or other early-draft indiscretions.

Benghazi e-mails put White House on the defensive

05/11/13:  The New York Times reports a long-simmering dispute over the White House’s account of the deadly assault on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, flared up on Friday, with a disclosure of e-mails that show the White House was more deeply involved in revising talking points about the attack than officials have previously acknowledged. The e-mails, which the administration turned over to Congress, show the White House coordinating an intensive process with the State Department, the CIA, the FBI and other agencies to obtain the final version of the talking points, used by Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, in television appearances after the attack. The State Department, in particular, pushed to remove references to al Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia, the Libyan militant group suspected of carrying out the attack as well as warnings about other potential terrorist threats from CIA, which drafted the initial talking points. Officials stuck to their contention that the only wording change the White House made was to change the description of the Benghazi annex from a consulate to a diplomatic post. Indeed, the e-mails do not reveal major new details about the attack or other discrepancies in the administration’s evolving account of it.

Diplomat says questions over Benghazi led to demotion

05/09/13:  The New York Times reports a veteran diplomat gave a riveting minute-by-minute account on Wednesday of the lethal terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11 and described its contentious aftermath at a charged Congressional hearing that reflected the weighty political stakes perceived by both parties. During a chaotic night at the American Embassy in Tripoli, hundreds of miles away, the diplomat, Gregory Hicks, got what he called “the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life” informing him that Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was dead and that he was now the highest-ranking American in Libya. For his leadership that night when four Americans were killed, Mr. Hicks said in nearly six hours of testimony, he subsequently received calls from both Secretary of StateHillary Rodham ClintonandPresident Obama. But within days, Mr. Hicks said, after raising questions about the account of what had happened in Benghazi offered in television interviews by Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador, he felt a distinct chill from State Department superiors. “The sense I got was that I needed to stop the line of questioning,” said Mr. Hicks, who has been a Foreign Service officer for 22 years. He was soon given a scathing review of his management style, he said, and was later “effectively demoted” to desk officer at headquarters, in what he believes was retaliation for speaking up. House Republican leaders made the hearing the day’s top priority, postponing floor votes so that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform could continue without interruption. The Obama administration appeared focused on the testimony, with senior officials at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon responding through the day to Republican accusations of incompetence and cover-up in campaign war room style.

FBI says okay to continue questioning terrorism suspect who asks for lawyer

05/01/13: Politico reports the FBI says its agents are on solid legal ground if they continue to question a terrorism suspect who has asked for an attorney, as they reportedly did with Boston Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.  The February 2011 article by Carl Benoit, a lawyer and FBI Academy instructor, points to two federal appeals court rulings that concluded such questioning was constitutional and that evidence obtained as a result could be used in court.  The article appeared in the Law Enforcement Bulletin, an FBI publication aimed at “the larger policing community.”  The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Tsarnaev “asked several times for a lawyer, but that request was ignored.”  DOJ’s current policy on questioning terror suspects without Miranda warnings does not give explicit guidance, at least publicly, about how to proceed if a suspect invokes his right to counsel.

DNI supports review of intelligence on alleged Marathon bomber Tsarnaev

05/01/13: CNN reports Director of National Intelligence James Clapper believes an independent review of how the government handled its investigation of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev prior to the attack is a prudent step “to ensure that nothing was missed.”  Clapper spokeswoman Shawn Turner said the DNI believes all of the agencies involved in collecting and sharing information “took all the appropriate steps,” but that the Intelligence Community inspector general, a watchdog that investigates risks, vulnerabilities, and deficiencies within sixteen intelligence-related agencies and departments across the government will lead a review.  Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with Boston police days after the April 15 bombings.  His brother Dzhokhar, also a suspect, remains in custody and has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction.

Obama renews call to close Guantanamo

05/01/13: The Washington Times reports President Obama Tuesday vowed to redouble his efforts to close the US detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.  “I don’t want these individuals to die,” the President said of detainees currently on a hunger strike.  “Obviously, the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can.  All of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this.  Why are we doing this?”  He decried the US policy of holding the suspects without trial “in a no-man’s land” in perpetuity.  “That is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.”  Congress has blocked efforts to move detainees to the United States, even though the Government has tried and convicted other terrorism suspects on US soil without incident.

DOJ asks court to shut down suit over Afghan war memoir

05/01/13: The Blog of Legal Times reports the Justice Department has renewed its effort to shut down a lawsuit in Washington over the scope of information a former US defense intelligence officer can publish in a memoir about service in the war in Afghanistan.  DOJ lawyers said in court papers filed April 26 that the government has determined that some of the details in the book, Operation Dark Heart, written by Anthony Shaffer, are classified and cannot be publicly disclosed.  “[T]here is no First Amendment right to publish classified information,” DOJ lawyer Scott Risner wrote.  Shaffer’s book, DOJ said, reveals “intelligence activities, sources and methods, as well as information about military plans and the foreign activities of the United States that … could reasonably be expected to cause serious identifiable damage to our national security.”

Health Care and Military Spending bear the brunt of proposed cuts

04/11/13:  The New York Times reports President Obama’s effort to control federal spending would require the largest cuts from the government’s biggest programs — health care and the military — while preserving or increasing spending on favored initiatives like early education, manufacturing and research. The Defense Department’s proposed $526.6 billion base budget is a reduction of $3.9 billion, or 0.7 percent, from the enacted budget for 2012. It includes substantial reductions for the Army, which has carried the bulk of the combat operations over the past decade. The Army’s budget proposal is 4 percent lower in constant dollars, while the Air Force’s rose 3 percent and the Navy’s, which includes Marine Corps spending, was steady. The budget proposes spending $2.4 billion over five years to conduct another round of politically difficult base closings, which Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said would deliver “significant savings” over the long term. The inventory of remotely piloted vehicles, commonly called drones, would grow through 2017 and then level off, Pentagon officials said, and money would be preserved for the new way of war as fought by Special Operations forces and in cyberspace.

White House seeks to overhaul international food aid

04/05/13:  The New York Times reports an Obama administration plan to change the way the United States distributes its internationa food aid has touched off an intense lobbying campaign by a coalition of shipping companies, agribusiness and charitable groups who say the change will harm the nation’s economy and hamper efforts to fight global hunger. Proponents of the plan, however, say it would enable the United States to feed about 17 million more people each year, while helping to fight poverty by buying the crops of farmers in poor countries. According to people briefed on the soon-to-be released fiscal year 2014 budget, the administration is expected to propose ending the nearly 60-year practice of buying food from American farmers and then shipping it abroad. The administration is proposing that the government buy food in developing countries instead of shipping food from American farmers overseas, a process that typically takes months. The proposed change to the international food aid program is expected to save millions in shipping costs and get food more quickly to areas that need it. The administration is also reportedly considering ending the controversial practice of food aid “monetization,” a process by which Washington gives American-grown grains to international charities. The groups then sell the products on the market in poor countries and use the money to finance their antipoverty programs. Critics of the practice say it hurts local farmers by competing with sales of their crops. The United States spends about $1.4 billion a year on food aid and is the only major donor country that continues to send food to humanitarian crisis spots, rather than buying food produced locally.

Analysis: Hagel facing tough decisions at the Pentagon

04/01/13: The New York Times has a piece discussing the arduous task facing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in managing the US military budget.  As President Obama – who has placed some of the military’s long-favored weapons programs in his sights – continues to negotiate with Congress over a spending and revenue deal, the Pentagon is bracing for a protracted period in which they may have to manage even larger budget reductions than anticipated.  “There will be changes, some significant changes,” Secretary Hagel warned at a news conference last week, and he is expected to begin outlining those changes in a major speech this week.  Already, Hagel has directed General Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter to conduct a sweeping “Strategic Choices and Management Review” due by the end of May.  Their challenge is to trim the Pentagon while also assuring that the military continues to attract high-quality personnel and can maintain American and allied security around the world.

White House says North Korea "state of war" threat taken seriously

03/31/13: The Hill reports the White House said Saturday it was taking threats of war from North Korea “seriously,” while acknowledging that Pyongyang has a history of bellicose rhetoric.  “We take these threats seriously and remain in close contact with our South Korean Allies,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.  “But, we would also note that North Korea has a long history of bellicose rhetoric and threats and today’s announcement follows that familiar pattern.”  North Korea Saturday declared that a “state of war” existed with the South and threatened to “dissolve” the United States in an “all-out war and nuclear war.”  Pyongyang has cut the military hotline with Seoul and earlier this week said the armistice ending the Korean War in 1953 was void.

Officer tied to tapes’ destruction moves up CIA ladder

03/28/13:  The New York Times reports a CIA officer directly involved in the 2005 decision to destroy interrogation videotapes and who once ran one of the agency’s secret prisons has ascended to the top position within the CIA’s clandestine service, according to current and former intelligence officials. The officer, who has been serving in the position in an acting role for several weeks since the retirement of her direct boss, is one of a small group of candidates being considered to take over the job permanently. The decision about whether to keep the officer in the job presents a dilemma for the new CIA director, who said that he was opposed to the brutal interrogation methods used by the spy agency in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks. The promotion of the officer, who spent years working inside the agency’s Counterterrorist Center and once was in charge of a so-called black site, played a role in developing the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, was first reported by The Washington Post. Because the officer remains undercover, The New York Times is not disclosing her identity. The officer served as the CIA station chief in London and New York, and the branch of the agency she now leads, the National Clandestine Service, is responsible for all CIA espionage operations and covert action programs. The head of the clandestine service is one of the most coveted jobs in the CIA, and has never before been run by a woman. The destruction of dozens of CIA interrogation tapes, documenting the interrogations of Qaeda operatives Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in a secret CIA detention facility in Thailand, was one of the most controversial episodes of the past decade. The Justice Department undertook an investigation into the matter after the destruction of the tapes was disclosed in late 2007, but no CIA officers were criminally charged.

Analysis: The AUMF will soon extend to Syria (if it doesn't already)

03/24/13: Lawfare has this post by Jack Goldsmith discussing a report that the CIA is expanding its role in the campaign against the Syrian regime by feeding intelligence to select rebel fighters to use against government forces.  The point of the CIA aid is to stem the rise of Islamist extremists in Syria by aiding secular forces and in particular to blunt the influence of the extremist al Nusra Front, the main al-Qaeda-linked group operating in Syria.  Goldsmith highlights the fact that, according to US officials, al-Nusra is deepening its ties to al-Qaeda’s central leadership in Pakistan.  The ties to al-Qaeda’s central operations have become so significant that officials are debating whether al Nusra should now be considered its own al-Qaeda affiliate instead of an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as it has generally been viewed within the US government.  Goldsmith points out that, if the former view is taken, the authority the President has to fight al-Qaeda and its affiliates under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) would now extend, for the first time, to Syria.

DHS officials still seek ways to assess border security

03/22/13:  The New York Times reports more than two years after Homeland Security officials told Congress that they would produce new, more accurate standards to assess security at the nation’s borders, senior officials from the department acknowledged this week that they had not completed the new measurements and were not likely to in coming months, as the debate proceeds about overhauling the immigration system. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers were taken aback at a hearing on Wednesday in the House of Representatives when Mark Borkowski, a senior Homeland Security official, said he had no progress to report on a broad measure of border conditions the department had been working on since 2010. The lawmakers warned that failure by the Obama administration to devise a reliable method of border evaluation could imperil passage of immigration legislation. Amid contentious discussions in Congress over immigration, one point of wide agreement is that an evaluation of border security will be a central piece of any comprehensive bill. A bipartisan group in the Senate is working to write legislation that includes a “trigger,” which would make the path to citizenship for more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the country contingent on measurable advances in security at the borders. Lawmakers have been pressing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to devise a measure they can use to judge if the Obama administration’s claims of significant progress in border enforcement are justified. Republican senators in the bipartisan group have said a border standard is pivotal to their efforts.

 

DC Circuit seeks reply on Government's petition for rehearing in war crimes case

03/11/13: SCOTUSBlog reports the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday afternoon asked lawyers for a foreign national convicted of war crimes at Guantánamo Bay to answer the Obama Administration’s plea for a new look by that court at the powers of the military commissions to try terrorist suspects.  The order does not assure that the court will pursue that issue further, but at least it raises the prospect that it could, as a prelude to a likely Supreme Court appeal.  On Tuesday, the Administration asked for en banc review the validity of the convictions of Yemeni national Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul.  At the center of the controversy is a ruling by the court last October in a different case that military commissions cannot try offenses that took place before they were designated as war crimes by the Military Commissions Act of 2006.  The DC Circuit held the Act didn’t reach such offenses, concluding that otherwise a serious issue would arise under the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clause.  The government counters the offenses previously existed and were simply codified by Congress, and has asked the DC Circuit en banc to revisit its previous ruling.  In 2006, four members of the Supreme Court held in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the crime at issue - conspiracy - was not an internationally accepted war crime, but there was no majority holding on the issue.

US responded to FOIA requests at same rate in 2012 as previously, but used state secrets more

03/11/13: The Associated Press reports the US Government, led by the Pentagon and CIA, censored files that the public requested last year under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) more often than at any time since President Barack Obama took office.  Overall, the Obama Administration last year answered its highest number of FOIA requests so far, and it slightly reduced its backlog of requests from previous years.  But it more often cited legal provisions allowing the government to keep records or parts of its records secret, especially the state secrets privilege.  Still, the AP’s analysis showed government released all or portions of the information that citizens, journalists, businesses and others sought at about the same rate as the previous three years.

Congress blocked larger aid package to Egypt

03/10/13: The Hill reports House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Cal.) said Saturday that Secretary of State John Kerry had hoped to offer considerably more aid to Egypt than the $250 million he announced during his trip to Cairo but was blocked by Congress.  “This is not the aid package that the administration wanted to announce,” Royce said.  The Administration wanted to release a “larger sum,” but bowed to the wishes of Royce’s committee as well as congressional appropriators.  Royce wouldn’t say how much Kerry had hoped to announce, but the State Department has been pressing Congress to greenlight $450 million in direct aid since last fall.  Kerry announced the new aid package last Sunday during a stop in Cairo as part of his first trip overseas.

Analysis: How a US citizen came to be in America's cross-hairs

03/10/13: The New York Times has this in-depth piece reporting on the hunt for Anwar al-Awlaki, the American citizen and al-Qaeda cleric who was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen in September 2011.  The account of what led to the Awlaki strike fills in new details of the legal, intelligence and military challenges faced by the Obama administration in what proved to be a landmark episode in American history and law.  The strike that killed Awlaki — a terrorist leader whose death lawyers in the Obama Administration believed to be justifiable — also killed Samir Khan, though officials had judged he was not a significant enough threat to warrant being specifically targeted.  The next month, another drone strike mistakenly killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who had set off into the Yemeni desert in search of his father.  Within just two weeks, the American government had killed three of its own citizens in Yemen.  Only one had been killed on purpose.

Republicans blast New York trial for al-Qaeda spokesman

03/10/13: The Hill reports the Obama Administration’s decision to try former al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a relative of Osama bin Laden, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York has sparked criticism from Republicans, who say he should be held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp and tried by a military tribunal, not an Article III court.  “Gitmo, a naval vessel, Guam, anywhere other than New York, and anything other than a civilian trial,” said Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).  Gowdy said a military tribunal would offer distinct advantages over a civilian jury trial, namely that military courts are made up of military officers and don’t require unanimous jury verdicts for conviction, although trials of terrorists have had much more success in regular federal courts than military ones.

Brennan confirmed to lead the CIA

03/08/13:  The New York Times reports the Senate on Thursday afternoon approved John O. Brennan’s nomination to lead the Central Intelligence Agency by a vote of 63 to 34. The vote followed a filibuster by Senator Rand Paul, who spent nearly 13 hours on the Senate floor in pursuit of more information about the administration’s domestic drone policy. After receiving a brief letter from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. assuring him that the president does not have the “authority to use a drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil,” Mr. Paul declared his effort a success, and ultimately voted to end debate (though against the nomination), bringing the total votes in favor of cloture to 81 over 16 against. The final confirmation vote, however, revealed some unusual coalitions.

Holder does not rule out drone strike scenario in US

03/07/13:  CNN reports Attorney General Eric Holder is not entirely ruling out a scenario under which a drone strike would be ordered against Americans on U.S. soil, but says it has never been done previously and he could only see it being considered in an extraordinary circumstance. But he also said the government has no intention of carrying out drone strikes inside the United States. Echoing what he said in a letter to U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, he called the possibility of domestic drone strikes "entirely hypothetical." That letter, released Tuesday, was prompted by questions raised over the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA. Specifically, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee sought the Obama administration's legal rationale for its use of drones to kill terror suspects overseas.

 

Senator Rand Paul's drone filibuster delays CIA nomination

03/07/13:  The BBC reports a Republican US senator has delayed the nomination of a new CIA chief over questions about the possible use of drones against Americans. Senator Rand Paul spoke without a pause for nearly 13 hours, in a tactic known as a filibuster, before yielding the floor before 01:00 (06:00 GMT). The move has delayed a Senate vote on John Brennan until Thursday. Mr Brennan currently serves as a top counter-terrorism adviser at the White House, and was nominated in January. As part of the Obama administration's national security team, he helped oversee the drone programme.

Decades-old illegal wiretap inspires demand on CIA for more information

03/04/13: The Washington Post has this story about Jim Scott, the son of the late journalist Paul Scott, who is involved in a dispute with the CIA over the Agency’s spying on his father in the 1960’s.  In 2007 the CIA declassified a trove of documents popularly called “the family jewels,” which revealed the Agency’s unlawful surveillance of the Scott home in an operation code-named “Project Mockingbird.”  For the past five years, Jim has sought to declassify and make public any documents Langley might still have on his father and why he was wiretapped.  So far, the CIA has released to Jim a handful of intriguing documents, but Jim has been trying to compel the agency to cough up more. A federal declassification review panel is reviewing Jim’s case.  Paul Scott died in 2001.

UN investigator urges US investigation, accountability for Bush-era human rights abuses

03/04/13: Reuters reports a United Nations investigator called on the United States on Monday to publish its findings on the CIA’s program of rendition and secret detention of terrorism suspects during the Bush Administration.  Ben Emmerson voiced concern that while President Obama has rejected practices conducted under his predecessor, there have been no prosecutions.  “Despite this clear repudiation of the unlawful actions carried out by the Bush-era CIA, many of the facts remain classified, and no public official has so far been brought to justice in the United States,” Emmerson said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council, which he will address on Tuesday.  Emmerson has served since August 2011 in the independent post set up by the Council in 2005 to probe human rights violations committed in counterterrorism operations worldwide.

Hagel scolds Pentagon sequestration cuts

03/03/13: The blog Space War reports new Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said Friday that new budget cuts will endanger the US military’s ability to conduct its missions.  His comments came hours before President Obama authorized automatic “sequestered” cuts in domestic and defense spending, following the failure of efforts to clinch a deal with Republicans on cutting the deficit.  Hagel, whose budget at the Pentagon is set to be slashed by roughly $46 billion, said, “Let me make it clear that this uncertainty puts at risk our ability to effectively fulfill all of our missions.”  In contrast with his predecessor Leon Panetta, who branded the cuts a “doomsday mechanism” and “fiscal castration,” Hagel was more measured, but he made his thoughts on the military consequences of the sequestration clear nevertheless.

Spending cuts imposed; US starts to trim its budget

03/02/13:  The New York Times reports seventeen months after President Obama signed doomsday budget legislation that was never intended to become law, the sweeping spending reductions in the measure have been imposed. Late Friday night, Mr. Obama formally triggered spending cuts that will reach across the breadth of the federal government after he failed to persuade Congressional Republicans to replace them with a mix of cuts and tax increases.  In a 70-page report to Congress accompanying the order and detailing the reductions — agency by agency and program by program — Jeffrey D. Zients, Mr. Obama's budget director, called them “deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments and core government functions.” But even as the cuts become official, some of the immediate impact is difficult to see. The process of trimming government budgets is slow and cumbersome, involving lengthy notifications to unions about temporary furloughs, reductions in overtime pay and cuts in grant financing to state and local programs. Less federal money will, over time, mean fewer government contracts with private companies. Reduced overtime for airport security checkpoint officers will make lines longer, eventually.

Chuck Hagel set for US defence secretary vote

02/26/13:  The BBC reports the US Senate is set to proceed with votes to confirm former Senator Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense. The move on Tuesday comes 12 days after Republicans delayed a vote, questioning his past positions on Israel and Iran and his qualifications. But some critics have since agreed to allow the confirmation to proceed, while pledging to vote against him. Outgoing Defence Secretary Leon Panetta is to remain in his post until Mr Hagel is confirmed. On Tuesday, the US Senate will hold a procedural vote to end debate on the confirmation of Mr Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska nominated by President Barack Obama to lead the Pentagon. Sixty votes are needed on that question; a vote earlier this month garnered only 59. If, as expected, the chamber ends debate, it will move to a simple majority vote for confirmation. Mr Obama's Democratic Party holds a 55-45 edge.

US speeds access to publicly financed research

02/23/13:  The New York Times reports if you paid for it, you should be able to read it. For publicly financed science research, the Obama administration agrees.  In a memorandum issued on Friday, John P. Holdren, science adviser to President Obama, called for scientific papers that report the results of federally financed research to become freely accessible within a year or so after publication. The findings are typically published in scientific journals, many of which are open only to paying subscribers. The new policy would apply to federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Agriculture, that finance more than $100 million a year of research. The agencies have six months to submit plans for how they would carry out the new policy. The hope is that broad access to scientific results will encourage faster progress on research and will let anyone apply the knowledge for technological advances.

HRW: Mexico security forces colluded in disappearances

02/21/13:  The BBC reports the pressure group Human Rights Watch says Mexico has failed to properly investigate human rights abuses committed by the security forces. The group has documented almost 250 disappearances during the term of former President Felipe Calderon. It says evidence suggests that in more than half of the cases the security forces participated either directly or indirectly in the disappearances. HRW has called on the new government to find the missing. HRW says "state agents participated directly in the crime [of disappearances], or indirectly through support and acquiescence" in more than 140 of the cases they investigated.  In the remaining cases, their researchers were not able to determine whether state actors may have participated. An estimated 70,000 people are believed to have been killed in Mexico since December 2006, when Mr Calderon came to power and declared war on the country's powerful drug cartels. Mr Calderon deployed the army in an attempt to curb the violence, but human rights groups say the levels of human rights abuses against civilians has risen as a result.

Kerry says trip will focus on finding Syria solution

02/14/13:  The New York Times reports Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that he planned to use his first foreign trip to advance new ideas about how to persuade President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to yield power and agree to a political transition.  Mr. Kerry’s itinerary has not been formally announced, but he is expected to go to Europe and the Middle East later this month.  Though the United States has sought to encourage a negotiated handover of authority to a transitional government, Mr. Assad’s determination to cling to power has proved to be a major, and so far insurmountable, impediment.  Mr. Kerry did not say what ideas he had in mind. But he stressed the importance of trying to find common ground with the Russians, whose cooperation the Americans have long sought in trying to convince Mr. Assad that he is isolated internationally.

Allen urged to take time to decide on NATO post

02/14/13:  The New York Times reports Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta disclosed Wednesday that he met this week with Gen. John R. Allen, the outgoing commander in Afghanistan, and urged him to take time off with his family before deciding whether to accept or decline the president’s nomination to be the senior NATO commander.  General Allen, 59, who turned over the top command post in Afghanistan last weekend, has “been under a tremendous amount of pressure, a lot of challenges,” Mr. Panetta said Wednesday at his final news conference before stepping down from the president’s cabinet.  The defense secretary cited the demands of command — and the effort to compose recommendations to President Obama about future troop levels in Afghanistan — in describing why General Allen’s tour had been so challenging.

Senate Intelligence Committee to vote Thursday on Brennan nomination

02/13/13: The Hill reports the Senate Select Intelligence Committee will decide on Thursday whether to approve White House nominee John Brennan to become the nation’s chief intelligence officer.  Brennan is expected to clear the Committee and be confirmed by the Senate despite the controversy over the Obama Administration’s drone strikes on American terrorist suspects overseas.  Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.) said moves by the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to explore new court authorities to oversee the drone program will be on hold until her panel weighs in on Brennan.  “We really haven’t put anything together [yet],” Feinstein said Tuesday when asked about the possible creation of a new federal court to oversee armed drone strikes.  “We will look into it, [but] we are trying to get the Brennan nomination done first.”

Guantanamo Bay official reveals hidden microphone in meeting room

02/13/13: The Miami Herald reports a senior official for the Guantánamo Bay prison admitted Tuesday that the Government had placed a hidden microphone inside a meeting room but that he was assured it was not used to monitor the private conversations that prisoners have with their lawyers.  Navy Captain Thomas Welsh, the senior legal adviser to Guantánamo’s commander, conceded the microphone appeared to be intended to resemble a smoke detector in the ceiling of a meeting room for men labeled “high-value"” detainees by the Pentagon and held in a special top security camp.  “I agree with your point that it was not recognizable, it was not readily identifiable,” Welsh said on cross-examination by a detainee’s lawyer.  The admission came during a pretrial hearing.

Divided Senate panel approves Hagel nomination after bitter debate

02/13/13: The New York Times reports the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday approved the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense on a sharply partisan vote after a combative two-hour debate that tested the bounds of Senate collegiality.  The 14-11 vote to send the nomination to the Senate floor with a favorable recommendation was the latest step in a process that has deepened festering hostilities between congressional Republicans and the White House and has exposed stark disagreements over wartime foreign policy.  At times, the meeting slipped into an unusually accusatory and bitter back-and-forth, with Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) suggesting that Hagel had accepted money from North Korea and Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) saying he was “cozy” with Iran.  These remarks were condemned by Democratic Senators such as Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.), as well as Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) a Republican Vietnam veteran like Hagel who opposes his nomination.  The full Senate is likely to vote on the nomination before the end of the week.

Obama to issue executive order on cybersecurity

02/12/13:  The Washington Times reports President Obama is set to issue on Wednesday an executive order to fight off electronic attacks and hackers, according to various media.  The order — which has undergone several revisions over the past few months — sets the Department of Homeland Security as overseer of an information-sharing network that distributes intelligence information about cybersecurity risks, Fox News reports. The information would help U.S. business owners block hackers and attacks on their compute systems, Fox News says.  Some Republicans decry the executive order as yet another presidential bypass of congressional authority, according to Fox News. The executive order comes after Congress failed to pass similar legislation last summer, Fox News reports.

Former SecDef Gates backs drones, but supports more oversight

02/11/13: CNN reports former Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued Sunday number of innocent victims of drone strikes remains “extremely small” and doesn’t outweigh the benefits of using drones against al-Qaeda operatives.  But Gates said a better system of checks and balances could be constructive when targeting Americans, aligning himself with lawmakers concerned about unfettered power in the hands of the President.  Gates served under George W. Bush during the beginnings of the drone program and later under President Barack Obama as the use of drones spiked.  Recently lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, have forcefully questioned the use and oversight of the lethal devices.  “I’m a big advocate of drones,” Gates said, that they can limit collateral damage more effectively than “any other weapons system.”

9/11 suspects' lawyers fear government eavesdropping at Guantanamo

02/11/13: The Miami Herald reports lawyers for the five Guantánamo Bay prisoners charged in the September 11 attacks want to know if government officials have been eavesdropping on their private conversations with the defendants.  The evidence for any such listening, the subject of a hearing scheduled to start Monday, is circumstantial.  At a hearing January 28, the sound system in the Guantánamo courtroom was suddenly cut.  The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, later revealed that a government official following the proceedings from outside the courtroom intervened to prevent the potential release of classified information.  Pohl later said the information was not classified; he ordered the government to disconnect any equipment that could unilaterally cut the sound and released a transcript of the censored remarks.  But the incident has made defense counsel concerned about possible monitoring.

Obama to renew drive for nuclear arms reductions in State of the Union

02/11/13: The New York Times reports President Obama will use his State of the Union Address on Tuesday to reinvigorate one of his signature national security objectives, drastically reducing nuclear arsenals around the world, after securing agreement in recent months with the military that the American nuclear force can be cut in size by roughly a third.  Obama is unlikely to discuss specific numbers in the address, but White House officials are looking at a cut that would take the arsenal of deployed weapons to just above 1,000.  Currently there are about 1,700, and the recently ratified arms reduction treaty with Russia calls for a limit of roughly 1,550 by 2018.  The big question is how to accomplish further reductions, given that Republicans oppose even the modest cuts in the treaty.

US simulates mass-migration scenario at Guantanamo

02/11/13: The Miami Herald reports soldiers, sailors and Homeland Security officials came to Guantánamo Bay this weekend to simulate a humanitarian-relief crisis inspired by the tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans who overwhelmed the base in the 1990’s.  The exact nature of the scenario is classified, and only Pentagon-approved photos of the exercise will be released.  That’s because nobody wants news about it to touch off a real, live Caribbean exodus.  The intent, say organizers, is not to encourage anyone in the Caribbean to get on rafts to reach this Navy base in southeast Cuba, but to be ready in case it happens.  One thing they’ll rehearse is registering 1,000 migrants in a single day, and if history is any guide, the actors should cram inside the processing tent, desperate, undocumented and disorganized.

Congress to renew cybersecurity push

02/11/13: The Hill reports a cybersecurity bill that received pushback from privacy advocates and the White House last year will be re-introduced on Wednesday, setting up a potential battle between Congress and the Administration over cybersecurity legislation.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) will reintroduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and hold a public hearing analyzing the current state of cyber threat information-sharing between the US Government and industry next week.   The bill aims to thwart cyberattacks by making it easier for private companies to share information about threats and malicious source code with the intelligence community and the Department of Homeland Security.  The privacy and civil liberties groups that fought CISPA last year plan to revive their efforts to oppose the bill.

GOP Senator to block CIA, Pentagon nominations over Benghazi

02/11/13: The Washington Times reports Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday that he intends block two key Obama Administration appointments until he gets answers about last year’s attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Graham plans to place a hold on the nominations of John Brennan, tapped to be director of the CIA, and Chuck Hagel, the President’s pick to lead the Defense Department. Democrats wasted no time in blasting Graham’s plan, with Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) calling it “unprecedented [and] unwarranted.” He added, “The men and women of the Department of Defense need a Secretary.” Senator Graham, who may face a primary challenge next year, demanded to know whether President Obama called Libyan authorities while the attacks were taking place.

Analysis: Debating a court to vet drone strikes

02/10/13: The New York Times reports a proposal is gaining steam that would require court approval before targeting American citizens overseas for lethal force.  The idea is to apply the model exemplified by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court – created by Congress so that surveillance had to be justified to a federal judge – to the targeted killing of suspected terrorists, or at least of American suspects.  A drone court would face constitutional, political and practical obstacles, and might well prove unworkable, according to several legal scholars and terrorism experts.  But with the war in Afghanistan winding down, al-Qaeda fragmenting into hard-to-read offshoots, and the 2001 terrorist attacks receding into the past, they said, it is time to consider how to forge a new, trustworthy and transparent system to govern lethal counterterrorism operations.

Pentagon study: US missile shield plans seriously flawed

02/10/13: Haaretz reports secret Defense Department studies cast doubt on whether a multibillion-dollar missile defense system planned for Europe will ever be able to protect the US from Iranian missiles as intended. The studies described in a report from the Government Accountability Office are the latest to highlight serious problems for a plan that has been criticized on several fronts. Republicans claim it was hastily drawn up in an attempt to appease Russia, which had opposed an earlier system, but Moscow is also critical of the plan, which it believes is really intended to counter its missiles. A series of governmental and scientific reports has cast doubt on whether it would ever work as planned.

DHS Watchdog okays ‘suspicionless’ seizure of electronic devices along border

02/09/13:  The Wired's Threat Level reports the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.  The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.  "We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.

Analysis: Debating a court to vet drone strike

02/09/13:  The New York Times reports since 1978, a secret court in Washington has approved national security eavesdropping on American soil — operations that for decades had been conducted based on presidential authority alone.  Now, in response to broad dissatisfaction with the hidden bureaucracy directing lethal drone strikes, there is an interest in applying the model of the Forieign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to the targeted killing of suspected terrorists, or at least of American suspects.  A drone court would face constitutional, political and practical obstacles, and might well prove unworkable, according to several legal scholars and terrorism experts. But with the war in Afghanistan winding down, Al Qaeda fragmenting into hard-to-read offshoots and the 2001 terrorist attacks receding into the past, they said, it is time to consider how to forge a new, trustworthy and transparent system to govern lethal counterterrorism operations.

Commentary: President Obama, did or did you not kill Anwar al-Awlaki?

02/08/13:  The Washington Post published an op-ed by David Cole: there are plenty of problems with President Obama's targeted killings in the war against terrorism: The policy remains secret in most aspects, involves no judicial review, has resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, has been employed far from any battlefield and has sparked deep anti-American resentment in countries where we can ill afford it.  But when it comes to the particular legal issue raised in a recently leaked "white paper" from the Justice Department — namely, whether it is legal to kill Americans with drones — one problem looms largest: The policy permits the government to kill its citizens in secret while refusing to acknowledge, even after the fact, that it has done so.  There may be extraordinary occasions when killing a citizen is permissible, but it should never be acceptable for the government to refuse to acknowledge the act. How can we be free if our government has the power to kill us in secret? And how can sovereign authority be accountable to the people if the sovereign can refuse to own up to its actions?

Syria secret: Panetta reveals rejected Pentagon plan to send weapons to rebels

02/08/13:  The Washington Times reports Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has revealed that he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey originally backed a plan to send weapons to rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad in Syria - but the White House blocked it.  The revelation Thursday, which exposes a previously unknown rift within the Obama administration over policy toward Syria’s bloody and nearly two-year-old civil war, came during Senate testimony focusing on the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.  Mr. Panetta told Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, that he and Gen. Dempsey had backed a secret plan put forth by then-Secretary of State Hilary Radam Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus to arm opposition rebels under the assault of Syrian military forces loyal to Mr. Assad.

Congress to see memo backing drone attacks on Americans

02/07/13:  The New York Times reports the White House on Wednesday directed the Justice Department to release to the two Congressional Intelligence Committees classified documents discussing the legal justification for killing, by drone strikes and other means, American citizens abroad who are considered terrorists.  The White House announcement appears to refer to a long, detailed 2010 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel justifying the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric who had joined Al Qaeda in Yemen. He was killed in a CIA drone strike in September 2011. Members of Congress have long demanded access to the legal memorandum.  The decision to release the legal memo to the Intelligence Committees came under pressure, two days after a bipartisan group of 11 senators joined a growing chorus asking for more information about the legal justification for targeted killings, especially of Americans.  The announcement also came on the eve of the confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon for John O. Brennan, President Obama’s choice to be director of the CIA, who has been the chief architect of the drone program as Mr. Obama’s counterterrorism adviser.

US increases pressure of economic war on Tehran

02/07/13:  The New York Times reports the West escalated the economic war another notch on Wednesday, imposing a new set of restrictions intended to force Iran into what amounts to a form of barter trade for oil, because payments for oil deliveries can no longer be sent to accounts inside Iran.  A senior Obama administration official called the latest step “a significant turning of the screw,” repeating the administration’s four-year argument that the mullahs here face a “stark choice” between holding on to their nuclear program and reviving their oil revenue, the country’s economic lifeblood.  But there is little confidence among American officials in Washington — and little evidence on the streets of Tehran — that even newly stringent sanctions have much chance of forcing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, into striking the deal that most Americans and Europeans, and even some Israelis, say could defuse the crisis.