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The Week That Was: All of Lawfare In One Post

Raffaela Wakeman
Saturday, August 24, 2013, 11:00 AM
What with the declassified NSA documents and the 9/11 commission hearings, it's been a busy week. Oh, and there was that whole site host-problem, thanks to Bluehost.
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What with the declassified NSA documents and the 9/11 commission hearings, it's been a busy week. Oh, and there was that whole site host-problem, thanks to Bluehost. Help us, please. O.K., here's what's going on in the world of NSA surveillance: Ben critiqued the Washington Post's handling of the most recent NSA surveillance leak, and the administration's response to the Post story. Ben also shared Brookings colleague Bill Galston's Wall Street Journal column on the debate over surveillance laws. On Wednesday, the DNI declassified an assortment of documents, and we have been summarizing each one. Here's what we've published thus far:
  • Ben's Introduction
  • Summary of the October 2011 FISC Opinion, written up by Ben and Lauren
  • Summary of the November 2011 FISC Opinion, by Ben and Jane
  • Summary of the September 2012 FISC Opinion, by Ben and Sean
  • Summary of Statements to Congress, by Ben, Ritika and me
  • Summary of the Minimization Procedures, by Ben and Sean
And some analysis came in from Georgetown Law's Carrie Cordero, whose piece received a critique from Steve. Ben also shared the NSA's response to a Wall Street Journal story on NSA monitoring of email traffic. Human Rights First's Raha Wala wrote in to respond to Matt's earlier post on the Feinstein-Durbin op-ed proposing a plan to close Guantanamo. Catch the two-page memo the White House sent to members of Congress to prepare them for the late July Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on closing the detention facility. Wells and I spent the week up at Fort Meade, covering the 9/11 military commission pre-trial hearings. Here are each day's compilations of posts: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On the eve of the hearings, defense counsel J. Connell III released a statement regarding his unprecedented visit to the high-value detention facility. We also heard from the Chief Prosecutor, Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, in advance of this week's hearings, and at the conclusion of them. And Al Arabiya's Muna Shikaki, reporting from Guantanamo, sent in a photo of the Caribbean island paradise. Of course, other non-NSA non-GTMO things took place this week too: the Second Circuit interpreted the Supreme Court's ruling in Kiobel to say that all Alien Tort Statute-related claims against defendants in Balintuno v. Daimler are barred. John was all over that decision. And Ritika noted the conviction of Maj. Nidal Hassan in the Fort Hood shooting and the sentencing of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales to life without parole, both courts martial proceedings. Apropos of Bradley Manning's sentencing, Lawfare's intern Clara Spera reviewed the movie about Wikileaks, called We Steal Secrets. Ben shared a moving episode of This American Life, and Rick recommended the book Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, written by Ben MacIntyre. If you're interested in surveillance, technology, and privacy issues, Bobby endorses a proposed event by UT’s Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, along with instructions for voting for it. A new organization spawned by Martin Feldstein caught Jack's attention---The Economics of National Security Association. And while we didn't have a new episode of the Lawfare podcast this week, you can access future episodes on Stitcher. Actually, there is an episode this week; it's just hiding, for now. Laura Dean is coming to the U.S. for a visit from Cairo; she is this week's guest on the podcast, only it will happen next week, when she's here. And that was the week that was.
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Raffaela Wakeman

Raffaela Wakeman

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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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