Today's Headlines and Commentary

SecDef Chuck Hagel has sent more American troops to assist with the recovery efforts in the central Philippines. Here's The Hill. On Iran, the New York Times editorial today expresses the paper's support for continued negotiations. The Senate, meanwhile, will pause before adding more sanctions against Iran until it hears from SecState John Kerry in a Senate Banking Commtitee hearing this week. Here's Reuters with a story on that. Vice President Joe Biden chatted with Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer on the same topic, reports Jeremy Herb at The Hill. And if you're interested at all in Iran, then you simply must read this three-part Reuters series, entitled "Assets of the Ayatollah" that takes a deep dive into the financial empire that Ayatollah Khameni has collected, in spite of the weighty economic sanctions imposed on Iran. Here are Parts One and Two; Part Three is yet to be posted. A senior leader of the Haqqani network, Nasiruddin Haqqani (the founder's son) was killed on Monday outside of Islamabad. Responsibility for the attack has not yet been claimed, report Declan Walsh and Ihsannullah Tipu Mehsud of the Times. The Afghan Taliban has threatened those Afghan leaders convening to decide the future of a U.S. military presence after 2014. The Wall Street Journal reports. The Greenpeace activists captured by Russia, and charged with hooliganism a few months ago have been moved to a prison in St. Petersburg. This Reuters piece explains that the Netherlands is seeking release of two of its nationals with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which was established through the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. Also in Russia, a court has sentenced three men involved with the 2011 suicide bombing in Domodedovo Airport to life in prison. The attack killed 37 people and wounded 172. Here's Andrew Roth with details. The roundup just isn't the roundup if we don't mention NSA survillance: Katrin Bennhold reports on the diverging views among European leaders on NSA's programs: Germany's debating an appropriate legislative response and Britain's voicing full-fledged support. That's in the Times. Politico's Tony Romm discusses the legislative proposal that would require Senate confirmation of the NSA Director. Senator John McCain clarified his remarks over the weekend regarding General Keith Alexander's tenure at the NSA. Says his office: "Senator McCain believes that there needs to be accountability for the Snowden leaks, but he is not calling for the resignation of General Alexander, who is retiring soon." Juana Summers writes at Politico. Speaking of advice and consent, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas bemoans the many, many vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security in a Wall Street Journalop-ed. Perhaps his colleagues in the Senate might help speed up the filling of those spots, by confirming President Obama's DHS Head nominee, Jeh Johnson. In the world of international law, the International Court of Justice ruled on the dispute over the Cambodia-Thailand border: the promontory in question, on which a 1,000 year old Hindu temple is located, is in Cambodia, not Thailand, the tribunal found. Here's the Bangkok Post with more. So it seems that illegal immigrants into Libya are being caged---quite literally, in zoos---by the militants in charge of certain areas of the country. That's how NPR explains it. Henry Farrell, political scientist, notes over at the Post's Monkey Cage blog a forthcoming piece in International Security by Erid Gartzke that argues that there's no incentive for staging a "Pearl Harbor-type" cyberattack. Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins computer science professor, writes at the New Yorker on the challenges of encrypting email. He mentions the latest hope for those seeking surveillance-free email communications tools, a new entity that would encrypt far more of an email than previous systems:

It will encrypt both data and metadata, including e-mail subjects. Keys won’t be held long-term or ever stored on a server; they’ll be generated on the fly by your device and new ones will be periodically generated for each batch of e-mail---a technique that’s worked well for popular chat-encryption technologies like Off-the-Record Messaging. Thus, even if a Dark Mail provider is hacked or compelled to disclose your data, the government won’t get much more than a pile of encrypted bits; they’ll need to force you to disclose your password to unscramble them.

Who thinks Uncle Sam will find a way around this system? CBS's apology last week about its supposed eye-witness to the Benghazi attack has brought well-known reporter Lara Logan under scrutiny. Paul Farhi discusses over at the Post. Email the Roundup Team noteworthy law and security-related articles to include, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for additional commentary on these issues. Visit our Events Calendar to learn about upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings on our Job Board.