By John Thorlin, NSJ Staff Editor - In Probing Secrets: The Press and Inchoate Liability for Newsgathering Crimes (in the Spring 2009 issue of the American Journal of Criminal Law) Professor William E. Lee of the University of Georgia examines the legality of soliciting or possessing classified information. The issue became a controversial one in […]
Unmanned Robotics & New Warfare: A Pilot/Professor’s Perspective
By Mary L. Cummings - As the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Humans and Automation Laboratory, I was asked to comment from a technologist’s perspective at the recent symposium Drone Warfare: New Robotics & Targeted Killings on the panel “Unmanned Robotics & New Warfare.” My perspective is unique in that not only do […]
Lawyers: A Predator Drone’s Achilles Heel?
By Brett H. McGurk - Killer mechanical robots the size of flies, giant predator drones piloted from an iPhone, together with a new mode of warfare embraced by the U.S. military and both political parties in Washington. That is the upshot of the recent symposium – “New Robotics and the Legality of Targeted Killings” – […]
Obama Administration May Link GTMO Closure to Use of Military Commissions
By Brian Itami, NSJ Staff Editor - It is increasingly likely that the U.S. government will use military commissions to help bring about the closure of its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and to help resolve the question of what to do with the prison’s remaining detainees. As reported by the Washington Post on March […]
NSJ Analysis: Turning Off Autopilot: Towards a Sustainable Drone Policy
As the intensity of the unacknowledged U.S. drone campaign against al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan has continued to increase throughout 2009 and into 2010, questions about the drone program have grown louder. To preserve the legitimacy and effectiveness of drones as an instrument of U.S. security policy, it is essential that government officials carefully […]
NSJ Analysis: Obama Signs Bill Extending PATRIOT Act Provisions Without Changes
On Saturday, February 27th, President Obama signed a one-year extension of the three expiring sections of the USA PATRIOT Act. These sections are Section 215 (the so-called “library records” provision), Section 206 (involving “roving wiretaps”), and Section 207 (the so-called “lone-wolf” provision). Last week, both the House and Senate voted to extend the sections without […]