Today's Headlines and Commentary

Raffaela Wakeman
Thursday, April 12, 2012, 11:57 AM
A light (but interesting) news day. Wired's David Kravets reports on a potential snag in the prosecution's strategy against Bradley Manning.

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A light (but interesting) news day. Wired's David Kravets reports on a potential snag in the prosecution's strategy against Bradley Manning. The 9th Circuit found that an employee cannot be prosecuted under the 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act if he merely violates his employer's computer use policy, which is one of the charges that Bradley Manning is being tried on. This decision, in U.S. v. Nosal (read the opinion here), conflicts with other circuits' holdings in other cases. Josh Gerstein at the Politico also reports on this case. Members of Congress are countering activists' contentions that the bipartisan (yup!) House cybersecurity bill (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) has commonalities with the anti-piracy bill that was defeated earlier this year. Andrew Feinberg at The Hill reports on House Intelligence Committee Chair and cosponsor  Rep. Mike Rogers' remarks, and Reuters reports on the House's plan to take up the legislation soon. And Jennifer Martinez at the Politico writes on the plans for defeating the bill. Meanwhile, The Hill's Carlo Munoz has this post on Rear Adm. Samuel Cox's remarks earlier this week on the threat; he heads up intelligence at U.S. Cyber Command. A drone strike in southern Yemen killed 14 Al Qaeda militants Wednesday evening, reports Xinhua as well as Carlo Munoz at The Hill. Don't Fear the Reaper: Mark Thompson in TIME's Battleland blog on the MQ-9 assisted rescue of three soldiers in New Mexico (and he calls John Villasenor a "drone dweeb"). Carol Rosenberg has this piece in McClatchy on Judge Pohl's approach to the outrage over the Pentagon's decision to prevent the media from covering Al Nashiri's testimony on his treatment yesterday. And Peter Foster at the UK's Telegraph discusses this as well, quoting a Human Rights Watch lawyer calling them "fundamentally flawed" proceedings. FOIA Strikes Again: Andy Worthington at Eurasia Review draws attention to a TruthOut post describing the significance of a SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape) training manual that was used in the course of developing interrogation policy in 2002.  The manual was released recently by the Defense Department in response to a FOIA request. For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter, visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief, Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief, and Fordham Law’s Cyber Brief. Email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and  singh.lawfare@gmail.com.

Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT. Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.

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