Lanny Breuer Rewards DOJ Lawyers for Winning Impunity for Prosecutorial Misconduct
I always like reading DOJ's various expressions of their investigative and prosecutorial priorities--because they usually show a disinterest in prosecuting banksters, a thorough waste of resources on entrapping young Muslims, and an ongoing…
US Keeps Losing Control of Its Drones
Funny how these drones keep experiencing failures in areas where they're engaging in a covert war and not--say--where they're being used to arrest American citizens in North Dakota.
One of the Air Force’s premier drones crashed Tuesday morning…
Iran Seeks Interpol Prosecution of Neoconservatives Jack Keane, Reuel Marc Gerecht
Multiple news outlets in Iran are reporting that Iran has asked Interpol to prosecute former General Jack Keane (co-author of the Iraq surge) and former CIA operative Reuel Marc Gerecht on the basis of their open calls for the assassination…
Defense Authorization Conference Makes Few Changes to Detainee Provisions
According to a press release from Senator Levin's office, the conference on the Defense Authorization has made few changes to the detainee provisions institutionalizing military detention of alleged terrorists.
With regards to Section 1031,…
Obama to Iran: Please Give Our Assassination Surveillance Drone Back
Sorry, this is absurd.
"We have asked for [our Sentinel drone] back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said during a joint news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki after the two met at the White House.
We violate Iran's…
Normalizing the Disenfranchisement of African Americans
I've been one of the first people to note that the Emergency Financial Manager laws have disproportionately affected MI's African Americans. Note what I wasn't arguing: that Governors Snyder and Granholm imposed EFMs because the cities in question…
Gilani to BBC: Zardari to Remain in Dubai Hospital Two More Weeks
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxfZ2706b0U[/youtube]
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani granted an extended interview to BBC on Sunday.
Although many important topics were covered in the interview, the subject of the…
The Wild, Wild West: Drones Hunting Down Cattle Rustlers
This story, billed as an account of the first Predator-drone assisted arrest in the US, has all the elements we've been expecting from this development.
The drone in question belongs to the Border Patrol; presumably, it operates under the…
Pro Football Trash Talk
Yeah, we are in the doldrums between end of the college football season, start of the playoff and Super Bowl stretch for pro football and the start of the baseball season. Oh, and, of course, March Madness. Here is what I am having an, uncomfortably,…
Serial Abuser of Executive Branch "Flexibility," John Brennan, Making Veto Case on Detainee Provisions
I have already said I think Obama needs to veto the Defense Authorization because of the detainee provisions. And I have argued that the Administration needs to lay the groundwork for doing so right now, preferably by fear-mongering about how…
Operation Buckshot Yankee and WikiLeaks
Ellen Nakashima had a long article on Thursday using the 2008 thumb drive infection of DOD's networks (including, she mentions in passing, the top-secret JWICS system) to describe the evolution of our approach to cybersecurity.
The whole…
DOJ Doesn't Think Bloggers Are Media Either--and It May Use NSLs to Get Media Call Records
A number of bloggers are pointing, with concern, to an Oregon case in which a blogger got hit with a $2.5 million defamation judgement.
Oregon law provides special legal protections against defamation lawsuits to journalists associated with…
The Government Continues To Classify WikiLeaks Cables to Cover Up Their Torture Cover Up
The government has responded to ACLU's FOIA for a bunch of WikiLeaks cables by releasing redacted versions of just 11 of the 23 cables they FOIAed (I've copied, ACLU's inventory of what they got below the fold).
Some of their redactions are…
Baby-Sitting Terrorists Rather Than Tracking Osama Bin Laden
A few comments from Mary got me thinking about how damning today's AP story on our Romanian black site is for the torture apologists' tale that torture--and CIA interrogations more generally--helped find Osama bin Laden.
The AP's story reminds…
Obama: "As the Father of 2 Daughters" I Want the Government to Ignore Science
Barack Obama, who was educated in the country's most esteemed universities, has implied that having daughters has convinced him the government should ignore science.
His anti-science justification came in response to questions about HHS'…
"This Isn't the Assassination Surveillance Drone You're Looking For"
[YouTube]vzcWPKAv2Ow[/YouTube]
Before you read this David Sanger/Scott Shane piece reporting that the RQ-170 Sentinel drone that just went down in Iran was, "among other missions, [] looking for tunnels, underground facilities or other places…
Archiving Terrorists in the False-Floored Cells in the Basement
Goldman and Apuzzo are back on the dark sites beat, this time with a description of the dark site in Bucharest, Romania where the CIA stashed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others after shutting down the site in Poland.
This prison was built…
The Albatross of Obama's "Rule of Executive Order"
The other day, John Bellinger and Matthew Waxman joined the long list of people voicing opposition to the detention provisions of the Defense Authorization. Yet there's a part of their column that has received little focus, in spite of the fact…
Zardari in Dubai Hospital; Coup Rumors Quelled for Now
Late Tuesday afternoon, Twitter was awash in a flurry of rumors on the status of Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari. One tweet that was repeated over and over stated that Zardari had been sedated, flown to Abu Dhabi, and would leave as…
Two Drone Questions: How Did Iran Get It? What Will the Damage Be?
As I noted in an update to this post, the US has now admitted that the drone Iran claimed to down is, in fact, one of its new-fangled RQ-170 Sentinels. Sources have admitted anonymously that CIA was using the drone for reconnaissance, implicitly…