Today's Headlines and Commentary

Nine lawyers representing high-value Guantanamo Bay detainees set to be tried in military commissions are objecting to a new policy monitoring all correspondence between them and their clients on the grounds that the measure violates the attorney-client privilege, report Peter Finn of the Washington Post and Ben Fox of the Associated Press. The lawyers have threatened to contest the issue to "the fullest extent."  The AP has more on the London Conference on Cyberspace,  at which the U.S. and the U.K. have called for governments to "not use cybersecurity as an excuse for censorship or to deny their people the opportunities that the Internet represents." To nobody's surprise, Russia and China call for "tighter regualtion of the Internet through binding international treaties." The Guardian has more. The Iranian English-language news organization, Press TV, complains that Iran wasn't invited to the conference "over fears it may raise the issue of the Stuxnet computer worm attack on its nuclear program"; the article is largely devoted to Britain's "double standards on cyberspace." Jay Weaver of the Miami Herald describes the "Liberty City Seven" case, announcing that five of the men convicted of conspiring to support al-Qaeda lost their appeal for a new trial.  Bobby covers the appeals court ruling here. Scott Shane of the New York Times has the story of four new Georgia militants charged with a terrorist plot; Bobby has posted the criminal complaints and FBI affidavits here. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says that the U.S. must negotiate with regional players before engaging with the Taliban, the Politico informs us. In other news, the Times says that Afghan and Pakistani leaders have agreed to conduct a joint investiagation into the assasination of the leader of Afghanistan’s peace talks with the Taliban. Karen DeYoung at the Post has the story on the Obama administration's revised strategy for the endgame in Afghanistan. Mali Khan, a top commander in the Haqqani network, has been blacklisted and designated a "global terrorist" by the State Department, says the AP. The AP reports that the attorney for Mohammad Saali Shibin, the highest-ranking Somali pirate the U.S. has captured--who is also charged with the hijacking of a yacht that killed four Americans--wants all charges against his client dismissed because "Somalia is far too dangerous a country to travel and mount an adequate defense." Never heard that defense before. Boston College law professor George Brown argues in the Boston Herald that the "U.S. government's approach to fighting terrorism" is what's really at stake in Tarek Mehanna's trial. He asserts that the major issue in the case is not the material support accusation, but whether the government's  paradigm of  preventative counterterrorism will prevail in court. And here, from Muammar Gahaddafi's family, is your Moment of Zen. For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter and visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief. Feel free to email me noteworthy articles I may have missed at singh.lawfare@gmail.com.