No Easy Day, WikiLeaks, and Mitt’s 47%: Three Different Approaches to...
Last week, DOD issued a guidance memo instructing DOD personnel what they are–and are not–permitted to do with the Matt Bissonnettte book, No Easy Day, that they claim has sensitive and maybe even...
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Maybe Congress Doesn’t Want Constituents to Know Surveillance Has Spiked...
The ACLU sued the government to get it to release the reports on how much DOJ has used Pen Registers and Trap and Trace devices to get criminal suspects’ phone and email call records. The records show...
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Judge Invokes Alice in Wonderland in Denying NYT and ACLU Targeted Killing FOIAs
“YOU’D better not talk!’ said Five. ‘I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!’ ‘What for?’ said the one who had spoken first. ‘That’s none of YOUR business, Two!’ said Seven....
View ArticleThe DOD Targeted Killing Memo Not Addressed to DOD
I’m still deep in the weeds of Judge Colleen McMahon’s opinion rejecting the NYT and ACLU’s efforts to get the legal basis for killing Anwar al-Awlaki, The Child (as McMahon calls Anwar’s son...
View ArticleWhy Ask the FBI about Classification on the Targeted Killing FOIA?
The FBI, as far as we know, never gets to press the buttons on JSOC and CIA’s drones. And as I noted last June, FBI information we know exists (some of it in unclassified form) was suspiciously absent...
View ArticleJames Jones’ Targeted Killing Memo
In recent weeks, both Colleen McMahon and Ron Wyden have been hinting that there is more than one targeted killing memo (indeed, Wyden has been suggesting that for almost a year). Both also suggest the...
View ArticleDid Administration Stall Congressional Oversight Just to Beat ACLU in Court?
In an interview with WSJ last March, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said that publicly explaining the drone program would be “self-defeating.” White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler acknowledged Mr....
View ArticleThe CIA Glomared Their Own Public Speech
I’ve been reading the Colleen McMahon ruling on the ACLU Awlaki FOIA again in light of the release of the white paper. And I realized that the CIA must be treating the public targeted killing speech of...
View ArticleColleen McMahon: The Covert Op that Killed Anwar al-Awlaki Was Illegal
A lot of people have discussed this section of Judge Colleen McMahon’s January 2, 2013 ruling dismissing ACLU and NYT’s FOIA for memos and other documents related to the targeted killing of Anwar...
View ArticleCourts Won’t Be Reviewing Legality of Counterterrorism Programs Anytime Soon
By a 5-4 party line vote, SCOTUS denied standing in Amnesty v. Clapper today. The majority opinion, written by Sam Alito, emphasizes separation of power. The law of Article III standing, which is built...
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ACLU, Obama’s White Whale
NPR’s Carrie Johnson, ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer, and I discussed yesterday whether the Administration decided to blow off the House Judiciary Committee panel on targeted killing because appearing and...
View ArticleSnowpocalypse and Obama’s Drone Talk
As I’ve said a few times, I suspect one reason the Administration may be acting so ridiculously with respect to drones is because the families of Anwar and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki and Samir Khan are...
View Article18 USC 1119 Foreign Murder and Obama Targeted Kill White Paper
Back in February, when the “White Paper” was first “leaked”, Marcy wrote a fantastic article entitled Article II or AUMF? “A High Level Official” (AKA John Brennan) Says CIA Can Murder You on the...
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 ArticleDC Circuit Sends CIA’s Glomar Claims Back to the Drawing Board
The DC Circuit just remanded the ACLU’s drone targeted killing lawsuit (the one I talked about here) to the District Court. The decision is based on a theory Merrick Garland used in the hearing (which...
View ArticleIf the IRS Obtains E-Mails without a Warrant, Then Will People Freak Out?
The ACLU recently FOIAed the IRS to find out whether its investigative branch gets warrants before rifling through people’s stored email. While the FOIA didn’t answer the question definitively (IRS...
View ArticleTen Human Rights Groups Unified in Opposition to Drone and/or Targeted...
A group of 10 human rights groups have written President Obama a letter calling for him to fulfill his State of the Union promise of more openness about drone and/or targeted killing. The letter calls...
View ArticleHuman Rights Groups to Obama: Don’t Let John Brennan Cover Up the Torture He...
Eight human rights organizations just sent a letter to President Obama urging him to appoint a high level White House official to coordinate the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report out of the...
View ArticleObama (Almost) Capitulates to ACLU on Drone Killing Standards
Actually, that headline overstates things. Obama will never capitulate to ACLU, the organization. As I’ve shown, his Administration has gone to absurd lengths to defeat ACLU in Court, even holding up...
View ArticleACLU, Another Civil Liberties Narcissist, Defends Its Own Freedom of...
Since the Edward Snowden leaks first started, many have called him and Glenn Greenwald narcissists (as if that changed the dragnet surveillance they exposed). If that’s right, I can think of nothing...
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