Today's Headlines and Commentary

Hurricane Sandy may have put your life on pause---and it shuttered Brookings, and hence, Today's Headlines and Commentary for two days---but the world continues to turn. From the Pakistan Tribune comes the news that Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani, formally called U.S. drone strikes unlawful, and violating Pakistan's sovereignty and international law on Tuesday. Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO between July 2008 and May 2009, has this op-ed in the Washington Post warning the U.S. not to become too reliant on drone strikes. He suggests that "a good rule of thumb might be that we should authorize drone strikes only if we would be willing to send in a pilot or soldier to do the job if a drone were not available." There was another "insider attack" in Afghanistan on Monday, and two NATO troops were killed (bringing the grand total of NATO troops killed in these attacks t at least 53). And Graham Bowley of the New York Times reports on the penetration of the war into Bamian Province in Afghanistan, a region that has been almost entirely immune from the violence. Carlo Munoz of The Hill reports on Tehran's announcement that it has acquired drone surveillance of Israeli military facilities. The last remaining UK resident held in Guantanamo may be released after the election, the British foreign secretary has told Parliament. Here's Julian Pecquet of The Hill on that news. Conor Friedersdorf, like many, read the Washington Post trio of stories on the U.S. drone strategy, and proceeds to pick it apart over at the Atlantic. Remember when there were reports that Yasir Arafat may have been poisoned? Well, it looks like French criminal investigators are going to exhume his body to look into those allegations. As Alan mentioned, the hardest of the hard core showed up at the Supreme Court on Monday to hear a case on the constitutionality of  FISA. Here's Nina Totenberg of NPR on the arguments. The White House issued an executive order late last week (no, not the cybersecurity executive order we're all waiting for) establishing a Homeland Security Partnership Council. And speaking of cybersecurity, Jennifer Martinez reported over the weekend on the likelihood of passage in the lame duck Congress of the cybersecurity bill. Needless to say, she's not too optimistic, particularly given the massive work still to be done. And the New York Times Room for Debate is focused on whether we need FEMA. 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, Syracuse’s Institute for National Security & Counterterrorism’s newsroll, and Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief and Cyber Brief. Email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and singh.lawfare@gmail.com, visit the Lawfare Events Calendar for upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings at the Lawfare Job Board.