Cora Currier Posts

As ProPublica reported this fall, the Obama administration is rolling back limits on some U.S. arms exports. Experts are concerned that the changes could result in military parts flowing more freely to the world’s conflict zones, and that arms sanctions against Iran and other countries will be harder to enforce. Now, some in Congress are seeking to add back some oversight mechanisms lost in the overhaul – over opposition from the administration.

Security assistance – a broad category that covers about $25 billion in yearly spending – skyrocketed in the wake of 9/11, growing by 227 percent from 2002 to 2012. A slew of recent reports from government watchdog agencies have found a glaring lack of accountability around security assistance. In 2012, Congress drafted a bill that would have subjected all foreign aid, including security assistance, to stricter monitoring and transparency requirements. The Pentagon successfully opposed the effort for security aid. The bill never made it to a vote.

The number of drone strikes has dropped this year, but they’ve continued to make headlines. On Friday, a U.S. drone killed the head of the Pakistani Taliban. A few days earlier came the first drone strike in Somalia in nearly two years. How much has changed since the president’s speech?

The United States is loosening controls over military exports, in a shift that former U.S. officials and human rights advocates say could increase the flow of American-made military parts to the world’s conflicts and make it harder to enforce arms sanctions. Come tomorrow, thousands of parts of military aircraft, such as propeller blades, brake pads and tires will be able to be sent to almost any country in the world, with minimal oversight – even to some countries subject to U.N. arms embargoes. U.S. companies will also face fewer checks than in the past when selling some military aircraft to dozens of countries.

The U.S. spent roughly $25 billion last year on what’s loosely known as security assistance — a term that can cover everything from training Afghan security forces to sending Egypt F-16 fighter jets to equipping Mexican port police with radiation scanners. Last year, legislators in the House drafted a bill that would require more transparency and evaluation of security and all foreign aid programs, but the Obama administration successfully pushed to have security assistance exempted from the bill’s requirements.

Young soldiers at Guantanamo Bay would have been in grade school when the 9/11 attacks occurred. But the government is making sure the terrorist attacks are fresh in their minds. The FBI now holds briefings for military personnel stationed at Guantanamo about the attacks and their connection to the island prison.

This week, Attorney General Eric Holder spoke out against the impacts of “draconian” sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. “Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason,” said Holder.

There have been nine drone strikes reported in Yemen in the past two weeks – an uptick apparently connected to the Al Qaeda threat that shut down U.S. embassies across the Middle East and Africa. As many as six civilian deaths have also been reported.

Bradley Manning’s conviction under the Espionage Act is the latest development in the Obama administration’s push to prosecute security leaks. While the Obama White House has been one of the busiest ever in its prosecution of national security leakers, they certainly aren't the first: Here's a timeline on the U.S. government versus journalists, whistle-blowers and federal agents since 1971.

After President Obama's speech in May that supposedly signaled a shift in the United States' drone war policy, the death of a 10 year old boy last month in Yemen is proving that the implementation of transparency isn't exactly what was promised.

At Guantanamo Bay, trials of alleged terrorists can turn into an arduous process overflowing with motion specifics, legal ambiguities, numerous delays and seemingly more questions than answers. While the alleged architect of the U.S.S. Cole bombing is in court, one observer witnesses days of proceedings that focus on spiral notebooks, smoke detectors and the Catch-22 of classified information.

In his first year in office, President Barack Obama pledged to “collect the facts” on the death of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war at the hands of U.S.-allied Afghan forces in late 2001. Almost four years later, there’s no sign of progress.

It’s been 11 years since the first detainees were brought to Guantanamo Bay. But the future of the prison, and the fate of the men inside it, is far from certain. With 59 detainees at Gitmo currently on hunger strike, by the military’s count, here’s a primer on what’s going on at the island prison.

The long-troubled military trials at Guantanamo Bay were hit by revelations earlier this year that a secret censor had the ability to cut off courtroom proceedings, and that there were listening devices disguised as smoke detectors in attorney-client meeting rooms. Now, another potential instance of compromised confidentiality at the military commissions has emerged: Defense attorneys say somebody has accessed their email and servers.

“Defense emails have ended up being provided to the prosecution, material has disappeared off the defense server, and sometimes reappeared, in different formats, or with different names,” said Rick Kammen, a lawyer for Abd Al Rahim Al Nashiri, who is accused of plotting the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole.

The U.S. drone war remains cloaked in secrecy, and as a result, questions swirl around it. Who exactly can be targeted? When can a U.S. citizen be killed? Another, perhaps less frequently asked question: What happens when innocent civilians are killed in drone strikes?

In February, during his confirmation process, CIA director John Brennan offered an unusually straightforward explanation: “Where possible, we also work with local governments to gather facts, and, if appropriate, provide condolence payments to families of those killed.”

A case in New York could shed light on a small part one of the most secretive aspects of U.S. counterterrorism operations during the Bush administration: What became of terror suspects held by the CIA in its network of “black-site” prisons around the world? Or disappeared into foreign cells in extraordinary renditions?

A case in New York could shed light on a small part one of the most secretive aspects of U.S. counterterrorism operations during the Bush administration: What became of terror suspects held by the CIA in its network of “black-site” prisons around the world? Or disappeared into foreign cells in extraordinary renditions?

A case in New York could shed light on a small part one of the most secretive aspects of U.S. counterterrorism operations during the Bush administration: What became of terror suspects held by the CIA in its network of “black-site” prisons around the world? Or disappeared into foreign cells in extraordinary renditions?

In 2009, ProPublica’s Dafna Linzer listed more than 30 people who had been held in CIA prisons and were still missing. Some of those prisoners have since resurfaced, but at least 20 are still unaccounted for.

President Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, has claimed that the 2001 authorization is the domestic legal basis of the authority to kill and detain not only members of al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan but also their “associated forces.”