On first glance, it is a simple question to be laughed at or outright dismissed because someone with a lack of knowledge on the Global War on Terrorism would think it could never happen. That is how a number of people who consider themselves to be “serious” individuals reacted to the question of whether the [...]

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who sent three letters to CIA director nominee John Brennan requesting an answer on “whether the president has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a US citizen on US soil,” finally received an answer from Attorney General Eric Holder. The answer indicates the [...]

Ahead of the confirmation hearing for John Brennan, who President Barack Obama nominated to head the CIA, the Obama administration has instructed the Justice Department to provide copies of a targeted killing memo to the two intelligence committees in Congress. The Justice Department drafted a “white paper” explaining the legal basis for using the targeted [...]

A lawsuit brought by the teenager’s grandfather provides details. He was born in Denver, Colorado on August 26, 1995. The American teen grew up in the United States. In 2002, he moved to Yemen with his family. He was in his first year of high school in Sana’a, where he lived with his mother, siblings, [...]

Michael Hayden, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director under President George W. Bush, delivered a speech yesterday where he outlined the ways that President Barack Obama has managed a “practical consensus,” which has fostered “powerful continuity between two vastly different presidents”—himself and his predecessor, Bush. At the University of Michigan last Friday, according to Wired, [...]

At a conference organized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Geneva, Switzerland, Christof Heyns, a UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, strongly condemned the United States’ targeted killing program and the country’s use of drones to carry out extrajudicial executions abroad. Heyns told attendees the program threatens fifty years of [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information on the legal basis for a strike that occurred in Yemen on December 17, 2009. The United States had been allegedly targeting Saleh Mohammed al-Anbouri, a “known militant who had allegedly been [...]

A hearing on a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that grants the military the authority to indefinitely detain US citizens without charge or trial was held by the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning. The hearing was on legislation proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein that would clarify that no authority permits the indefinite [...]

The Associated Press has published an investigation into the number of civilians killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan that shows “far fewer civilians than many in the country are led to believe” are being killed. The findings come from a “rare on-the-ground investigation by The Associated Press of 10 of the deadliest attacks in the [...]

A poll released by the Washington Post and ABC News provided another opportunity to discuss how important civil liberties and national security issues are to liberals. The poll results showed majority support among liberals for President Barack Obama’s handling of “counterterrorism,” including his use of drone strikes and failure to close Guantanamo Bay prison. Scott [...]