New version of DOJ letter attaching FBI analysis of Guantánamo interrogation tactics released

Read it here.

Historic Abu Omar rendition trial ends with conviction of CIA officers for abduction

Robert Lady, the former head of the CIA in Milan, has been given an eight-year jail sentence for kidnapping at the end of the first trial anywhere in the world in which CIA officials were sentenced for the practice of extraordinary rendition.Lady was tried in his absence and convicted of helping to organise the seizure [...]

OIG report on CIA accountability with respect to 9/11 Attacks

Read the newly released document here.

CIA Releases 1984 document on NATO intelligence

Read the article called, NATO Intelligence – A contradictio in terminis here.

Documents detail conditions found at secret CIA jails

Newly released documents show the FBI interviewed a naked, chained Ramzi Binalshibh back in 2002 as the bureau struggled with the CIA over how to treat high-value prisoners. According to one document, FBI officials told investigators when they arrived at the unidentified CIA site “the detainees were manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring [...]

Commander Reports on Africa Command Progress

Interesting quotes by Army Gen. William E. “Kip” Ward, who stood up Africa Command this time last year
“U.S. Africa Command’s mission calls for us to do our work in concert with other U.S. government agencies and in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives,” Ward said. “I want to emphasize that: we support — not lead [...]

Intelligence community legal reference book

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence has declassified its Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book from which the US intelligence community ‘draws much of its authority and guidance’. Download the 949 pages here.

Durham investigation will focus on very small number of cases

The Justice Department’s review of detainee abuse by the CIA will focus on a very small number of cases, including at least one well documented case where an Afghan prisoner died at a secret facility called The Salt Pit in Afghanistan, the Washington Post says.While earlier reports indicated that Durham would look into 10 cases, [...]

Academic Articles and opinions worth reading

Jens David Ohlin (Cornell Law School) has posted The Torture Lawyers (Harvard International Law Journal, Forthcoming) on SSRN.
Laurence R. Helfer (Duke Univ. – Law) and Emilie Hafner-Burton have a new piece on “Opting Out: Derogations from Human Rights Treaties in National Emergencies“
Peter Margulies (Roger Williams University School of Law) has posted The Wages of Playing [...]

C.I.A. Resists Disclosure of Records on Detention

The Central Intelligence Agency is refusing to make public hundreds of pages of internal documents about the agency’s defunct detention and interrogation program, saying such disclosures would jeopardize national security by revealing classified intelligence sources and operations. Among the documents the agency is trying to keep classified are President George W. Bush’s September 2001 authorization [...]