TEAR LINE
With their license to conduct warrantless wiretaps up for renewal, National Security Agency officials maintain that Congress, the courts and executive branch officials have ample visibility into the dragnet’s effect on privacy. Some lawmakers, however, dispute the contention that the agency is open about U.S. surveillance.
The Pentagon’s war crimes prosecutor charged a Saudi captive at Guantánamo yesterday with a 2002 attack on a French oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, and other crimes. If convicted by a military commission, Ahmed al Darbi, 47, could receive a maximum penalty of life in prison, the Pentagon said in an announcement.
President Obama took to popular social aggregator Reddit yesterday, fielding a variety of tough questions on topics ranging including domestic to foreign policy.
Obama administration officials have confirmed that the military operations commander of the Taliban-allied Haqqani militant network was killed by a missile strike last week in Pakistan.
ON THE FIGHT
Back in 2009 the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization put together a rather interesting open source intelligence (OSINT) study examining why the Qods Force, the covert action arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, was surreptitiously providing Mullah Omar’s Afghan Taliban forces with advanced IED technology. This revelation is timely, coming on the heels of reports that the Iranian Republican Guard Corps has dispatched hundreds of members to the Syria.
There are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered about an incident in Mexico that allegedly involved US personnel and Mexican federal police.
EVENT WATCH
While funding for many defense programs are getting cut amid the Department of Defense’s (DoD) latest cost saving measures, Unmanned Aircraft System spending continues to be a priority, with spending in the billions. Unmanned Aircraft Systems Conference – West takes place Oct 10-12, 2012 in San Diego, California.
Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
