'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
President Obama’s pledge to scale back lethal drone strikes against suspected terrorists and to be more transparent about them may not have pleased Republicans, but it did draw praise in Pakistan and Yemen, where almost all of the strikes take place, and from the U.N. official investigating U.S. targeted killing.
An American citizen killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2011 was arrested by Pakistani authorities three years earlier but escaped after being released on bail, officials said Thursday.
President Obama said Thursday that al Qaeda is nearly defeated and the war on terrorism has changed since he took office, and that demands a broad rethink that includes scaling down drone attacks, transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay and revisiting the 2001 congressional resolution that set the country on perpetual war footing.
U.S. drone strikes have killed four Americans, including one who was "specifically targeted" and three others who were not targets, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a letter to Congress on Wednesday, publicly confirming the strikes for the first time.
News organizations are convinced that the Obama administration trampled on freedom of the press when the Justice Department seized Associated Press phone records in pursuit of a government source who leaked details of a thwarted terrorist plot last year.
The man who leads the Pentagon's secret war against al Qaeda and its allies believes it is likely to last another decade or two, and that the current legal basis for it provided by Congress in 2001 continues to be sound, despite the changing character of the enemy.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday described the leak about a foiled terrorist plot in Yemen to The Associated Press as a "very, very serious" matter that "put the American people at risk," but he did not remember when he recused himself from the investigation into it, did not put his recusal in writing and never told the White House.
Trying to take a positive step in the face of two controversies over untoward government intrusion, the White House has called on Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, to reintroduce a bill that would give more protections to the press when it comes to keeping their sources confidential, a White House spokesman said Wednesday.
One-time journalist and presidential press secretary Jay Carney is channelling his inner Sgt. Schultz, a favorite of "Hogan's Heroes." He "knows nothing, absolutely nothing" about the Department of Justice snooping on the communication habits of 20 reporters and editors at the Associated Press.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle were asking questions Wednesday about the Justice Department’s subpoena of telephone records involving editors and reporters at The Associated Press, with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. expected to be asked about the matter during an long-scheduled hearing before the House Judiciary Committee
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday defended the Justice Department's use of its subpoena power to monitor the telephone records of editors and reporters at The Associated Press in a leak investigation, but said he was unaware of the details because he had recused himself from the leak case.
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said three of its workers were kidnapped Monday in Yemen.
The Justice Department is not saying why it secretly seized the telephone records of reporters and editors at The Associated Press, but several people close to the department said federal authorities have focused on the news agency in an ongoing investigation into the source of leaks about a CIA operation in Yemen.
News coverage was swift and straightforward following revelations that the Justice Department secretly had obtained two months worth of phone records from The Associated Press, an action the wire service President and CEO Gary Pruitt deemed an "unprecedented intrusion" and "serious interference with AP's constitutional rights to gather and report news," in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. made public on Monday. Those are fighting words from Mr. Pruitt, the former CEO of news syndicate McClatchey Co., who has been on the job just over a year.
