Today's Headlines and Commentary

What looks to be the fifth Taliban attack by a man in an Afghan police officer uniform on NATO and Afghan forces took place this morning. No service members were killed, reports the AP. Meanwhile, Afghan government officials met over the weekend with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a high-ranked Taliban member who was captured in Pakistan in 2010. The AP has the story here. Read the latest on the computer virus, nicknamed Gauss, that is making its way through banking computers in the Middle East. Tom Gjelten at NPR writes on the virus, which appears to have similarities to the Flame virus (and thus might be state-sponsored). Last week Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post wrote about a proposal that the DOD authorize its cyber specialists to take action outside of its own computer networks, a bold suggestion but one that is within SecDef's authority. On the topic of cybersecurity, Rebecca MacKinnon digs deep into the allegations that the UN is attempting to take over the internet as it prepares to rewrite the International Telecommunication Union's treaty this December in Dubai at Foreign Policy. And it's not just the anti-democratic countries like Russia, Iran, and China that are patrolling and curbing access to the internet these days. Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times writes on government efforts to quiet opposition to government leaders in South Korea. A report by a Norwegian commission criticizes authorities for failing to take action that could have prevented to stopped the 2011 massacre by Anders Behrin Breivik that killed 77 people. The AP reports, as does NPR. Sandhya Somashekhar and Carol Leonnig at the Washington Post explain why "lone wolf" white supremacists and their terrorist plots (like last week's attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin) are hard to track. There was a collision between a U.S. Navy destroyer and a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. Read the AP's story. Two Ugandan military helicopters disappeared as they flew over Kenya en route to Somalia to support a coalition of African military forces working to stem the growth of the Shabab in Somalia. Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times reports. Just because it's the August recess of a presidential election year doesn't mean that everyone in Washington has given up proposing legislation until Wednesday, November 7th. Democratic Congressman Ed Markey has introduced legislation to respond to concerns over the news that wireless carriers received 1.3 million requests from government for private cell phone data in 2011. Jule Ershadi at The Hill writes. Uri Friedman writes on the history of targeted killing at Foreign Policy. Carlo Munoz at The Hill reports on White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan's speech last week. Greg McNeal responds to Bobby's ruminations last week regarding whether autonomous robots may eventually be capable of capturing, rather than killing, targets at Forbes. An in today's dose of human interest stories, Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald's latest piece last week will have me humming the theme song of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for the rest of the day. 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.