There was a weird period last spring, as all the fearmongering in the country focused on the underwear bomber sitting in a jail just nineteen miles from me, after the autopsy of an African American imam in Detroit raised new questions about FBI’s pursuit of him as a terrorist, and after some of the only [...]

A bunch of national security journalists are tracking down the three Qataris — described as a potential fifth 9/11 cell — described in this WikiLeaks cable and first reported by the Telegraph. I wanted to do the reverse of what they’re doing — to use their reporting to see how someone gets on a terrorist [...]

There are two new minor details in the UndieBomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s, case. He was scheduled for a pre-trial hearing tomorrow, but his lawyer, Anthony Chambers, just submitted a waiver of Abdulmutallab’s presence at the hearing, and the judge rescheduled the hearing for two weeks later. This is significant only insofar as it’ll prevent him [...]

The White House has started a pushback campaign on gate rape that is reminiscent of “Recovery Summer” or “Mission Accomplished” for its credibility. It consists of a number of things, in addition to the inevitable army of talking-point-people using the word “enhanced” the same way Cheney did. First, there are statistics. Such as their claim [...]

The UndieBomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had his first day in court since he decided to represent himself today. The outcome of the day was to schedule another pre-trial hearing on January 12. The only drama of the day pertained to whether Abdulmutallab would grant his standby counsel, Anthony Chambers, access to discovery. Abdulmutallab stated he [...]

As I noted yesterday (and Glenn has examined at more length), in addition to asserting that the government can target Anwar al-Awlaki … because they said so, the Obama Administration also invoked state secrets in its motion to dismiss the ACLU/CCR suit challenging targeted killings. The Obama Administration has officially positioned itself to the right [...]

Back in January, Dana Priest first revealed that Anwar al-Awlaki was on a JSOC kill list and was being considered for a CIA kill list. Now, eight months later, DOJ is considering charging him. The Obama administration is considering filing the first criminal charges against radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in case the CIA fails to [...]

When James Clapper testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee, he rejected one of the central criticisms in the WaPo’s Top Secret America series–that the redundancy in the Intelligence Community contributed to waste and intelligence failures. Clapper disputed criticism of redundancy in intelligence programs, saying that duplication is sometimes a conscious decision. “One man’s duplication is [...]

I trust you will all read Dana Priest and William Arkin’s story on the unwieldiness of our Intelligence Industrial Complex. It is good, insofar as it focuses needed attention on a huge problem. But boy is it itself unwieldy. Today’s overview appears to want to be two stories: one on the problem with out-of-control contracting, [...]

I’m thoroughly unsurprised by the news of Dennis Blair’s ouster. After all, it’s an impossible job that appears to serve one purpose: to provide a deck chair you can rearrange every two years as a scapegoat for our continuing inability to detect terrorists even with all the surveillance toys we’ve got. (Actually, if you’re Michael [...]