WSJ reveals that some folks within the Obama Administration have finally started to weigh the possibility that our drone strikes in Pakistan do more harm than good. Unfortunately, in the fight over whether the US should rein drone strikes in, those folks appear to have lost the debate … for now. The White House National [...]

Here are the claims the Bybee Two memo premised its authorization to torture Abu Zubaydah on: As we understand it, Zubaydah is one of the highest ranking members of the al Qaeda terrorist organization, [snip] Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us. We also understand that you do [...]

Here’s what Obama said in response to a question of whether and why he was going to close Gitmo. Q But it makes me wonder where you are, sir, at about the two-year mark on Guantanamo, when closing it was one of your initial priorities, sir? THE PRESIDENT: Obviously, we haven’t gotten it closed. And [...]

Let’s look at the following two examples of men arrested in the last week to see how the federal crime “Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction” is used. Mohamed Osman Mohamud: Mohamud was arrested Friday on charges of “attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction” for trying to detonate what he believed to [...]

Last week, the US put the Tehrek-i-Taliban Pakistan on its official terrorist lists and charged its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, with something that was almost certainly not a crime. Oddly, though, DOJ did not charge Mehsud which actions they verbally alleged he committed that actually are a crime: conspiring with Faisal Shahzad in his attempted bombing [...]

The day after Obama declared victory (sort of) in Iraq, the Administration announced a whole package of sanctions against the Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-e Taliban. The sanctions: Designate TTP as a Foreign Terrorist Organization Designate TTP as a Special Designated Global Terrorist Organization Designate TTP’s two leaders, Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali Ur Rehman, as Special Designated [...]

Close to midnight on May 3, authorities arrested Faisal Shahzad for attempting to bomb Times Square. Over the following two weeks, the authorities questioned Shahzad, even as Pakistani intelligence detained Shahzad’s family members. The government told the press that Shahzad had waived his right to be charged in court and (though no one focused on [...]

Faisal Shahzad rather suddenly got arraigned and got a lawyer yesterday. Josh Gerstein noted that the arraignment happened on the 15th day since Shahzad’s arrest–the lower range of time the Obama Administration has floated for its changes to Miranda. But the LAT reports that Shahzad decided he no longer wanted to be questioned by interrogators. [...]

Mark Hosenball has a post elaborating on something reported elsewhere–that the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) is only marginally involved in Faisal Shahzad’s interrogation. Given a point I tried to make here–namely, that one of the first things that happened after Shahzad’s arrest and seemingly in conjunction with him waiving a number of his [...]

Faisal Shahzad was arrested just before midnight on May 3. On May 5, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that one of Shahzad’s friends and his father-in-law, Iftikhar Mian (elsewhere named as Mohammad Asif Mian), had been detained by Pakistani intelligence. The same report describes a meeting that took place on May 4, at which Pakistani [...]