Terrorism

Mukasey Limits White House Contacts in Pending Probes

New guidelines issued by Attorney General Michael Mukasey limit contact between Justice Department and White House officials in pending civil and criminal investigations. The guidelines say the Justice Department will advise the White House about such pending matters “only where it is important for the performance of the president’s duties…

Dec 20, 2007 11:34 AM CST

Bin Laden Driver to Get POW Hearing

A military judge at Guantanamo Bay has agreed to decide whether the driver for Osama Bin Laden should be classified as a prisoner of war. If Salim Ahmed Hamdan is classified as a POW under the Geneva Conventions, he would have to be tried by court-martial rather than the special…

Dec 19, 2007 3:39 PM CST

Paris Court Convicts Ex-Gitmo Detainees Despite Prosecutor’s Condemnation of U.S.

A Paris court has convicted five former Guantanamo detainees for criminal association with a terrorist enterprise and sentenced each of them to one year in prison. The court followed the recommendation of prosecutor Sonya Djemni-Wagner, who urged a conviction even though she said she disagreed with the “Guantanamo system” and…

Dec 19, 2007 2:25 PM CST

Detainees Quietly Released from Pakistan’s Secret Detention System

Pakistan has quietly freed nearly 100 terrorism suspects, apparently to avoid embarrassing revelations about the country’s secret detention system, the New York Times reports. In at least two instances, detainees were handed over to U.S. authorities without formal extradition. In another, a detainee suspected in the death of U.S. journalist…

Dec 19, 2007 12:20 PM CST

At Least Four White House Lawyers Debated Videotape Destruction

White House officials were more involved in discussions about the destruction of videotaped interrogations of al-Qaida suspects than previously reported. At least four White House lawyers were part of the discussions, the New York Times reports. They are Alberto Gonzales, who was White House counsel until early 2005; Harriet Miers,…

Dec 19, 2007 11:37 AM CST

Judge Orders Hearing Into Destruction of Interrogation Videotapes

A federal judge has scheduled a hearing (PDF) Friday to consider whether the CIA violated a court order barring the destruction of evidence by destroying two videotaped interrogations. U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy of Washington, D.C., refused a Justice Department request to stay out of the controversy, the Associated Press…

Dec 18, 2007 4:56 PM CST

Senate Vote Delayed on Telecom Immunity for Wiretaps

A bill to give telecommunications companies immunity for aiding the government’s secret surveillance program won’t be considered in the Senate until after the holiday break. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said there were too many competing amendments and too little time to consider them before the recess, the…

Dec 18, 2007 2:36 PM CST

Harsh Interrogation of Videotaped Suspect Yielded Little, FBI Official Says

FBI officials are disputing CIA accounts that harsh interrogation techniques helped pry information from al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaida. Siding with the CIA, President Bush has said the “alternative set of procedures” used in the interrogation led to the capture of Sept. 11 suspect Ramzi Binalshibh. But former FBI officials told…

Dec 18, 2007 11:26 AM CST

Terrorists Not the Only Targets of Government Secret Surveillance

The government’s data-mining program, in which it enlists telecommunications companies to help find suspicious calling patterns, isn’t being used exclusively to find terrorists. The government has cited the National Security Agency’s reliance on warrantless wiretaps to catch terrorists as it seeks legislation to extend the program and protect cooperating companies.…

Dec 17, 2007 4:52 PM CST

Ex-Worker Says Exec Acknowledged CIA ‘Torture Flights’

Lawyers are citing the statements of an ex-employee to support their lawsuit claiming a California aviation company flew terrorism suspects to countries where they can be tortured. The former employee says he learned about the company’s work for the Central Intelligence Agency in an unusual welcome speech from a company…

Dec 17, 2007 1:39 PM CST

Congress, DOJ Clash re CIA Videotapes Probe

Congress and the Department of Justice apparently may be headed for a showdown over the issue of whose investigation takes precedence concerning videotapes of al-Qaida interrogations destroyed by the CIA. Members of the House Intelligence Committee reacted angrily yesterday to a Justice Department request that the committee postpone their investigation…

Dec 15, 2007 9:47 AM CST

House Passes Bill Banning Waterboarding

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would bar the Central Intelligence Agency from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. The bill passed yesterday would restrict CIA interrogators to techniques permitted in the U.S. Army Field Manual, which also bans sexual humiliation, mock executions and the…

Dec 14, 2007 11:24 AM CST

Mistrial in Sears Tower Terror Case

The so-called Liberty City 7 trial in federal court in Miami over alleged, abortive plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and FBI buildings in other major cities has fizzled out for now. One defendant was acquitted and the jury deadlocked concerning the other six, concluding the case…

Dec 13, 2007 11:02 PM CST

CIA Chief Says Congress Not Fully Informed About Tapes

CIA Director Michael Hayden told journalists yesterday that his agency had not kept Congress fully informed about videotaped interrogations of terrorism suspects, both at the time the tapes were made and when they were destroyed three years later. Hayden’s comments to reporters “struck a different tone” than a message sent…

Dec 13, 2007 1:03 PM CST

Chief Guantanamo Judge Wrote Paper Slamming Military Commissions

The chief judge of military commissions at Guantanamo Bay apparently had a different view of the system when he was a master’s degree candidate at the Naval War College. Col. Ralph Kohlmann concluded in a 2002 paper that terrorism suspects should be tried in federal courts rather than before military…

Dec 13, 2007 12:45 PM CST