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Wells shared the news yesterday that the strike reported to have killed Al Qaeda's #2 was in fact confirmed to have done so. Carlo Munoz at The Hill reports that Pakistan is none too pleased with the continuation of drone strikes in the country.
There was another suicide attack near Kandahar Airfield, which killed at least 23 people. Taimoor Shah and Alissa Rubin at the New York Times have the story.
The New York Times story last week that revealed that the U.S. and Israel were involved in the development of the Stuxnet worm may have resulted from an unauthorized leak from the White House, writes Jeremy Herb at The Hill.
Congressman Mac Thornberry has this op-ed in USA Today arguing against amendments to the NDAA like the Smith-Amash amendment, which he says would "change the framework" of counterterrorism policy. He concludes:
Today, sensational allegations often travel faster than reason and judgment. The truth is that no executive can take away a U.S. citizen's constitutional rights. The right to challenge any detention in a federal court has been affirmed repeatedly by the Supreme Court. Even al-Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo Bay have been given the right to habeas corpus. Congress and the courts provide stringent oversight of any military detention. A few on either end of the political spectrum have invented hypotheticals about terrorist detention that play to anti-militarism or hostility toward the Obama administration. Such tactics should not drive national policy — especially when it has helped keep us safe for a decade.The United States and Pakistan continue to discuss re-opening supply lines that Pakistan has control over into Afghanistan, despite NATO's seeking out alternative routes, writes Carlo Munoz at The Hill. Paul Harris in the Guardian interviews former head of NCTC Robert Grenier on whether drone strikes have been used too broadly to take out terrorist suspects. Yesterday, President Obama and his cabinet participated in a simulated cyberattack exercise. Brendan Sasso at The Hill reports. SecDef Panetta is on a weeklong trip in the Asia-Pacific region as part of the Obama administration's efforts to rebuild relationships with that part of the world. Larry Abramson at NPR reports. 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.
