Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

IRAQ and SYRIA

Ceasefire violations. Charges that the Syrian ceasefire has been violated have been numerous, American and international officials recording a “near-constant flow of accusations” since the truce went into effect on Saturday. However, the task force responsible for adjudicating them has so far publicly verified none of the accusations. [Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung] The State Department hotline responsible for monitoring the reports had a “shaky start,” reports Felicia Schwartz, noting that many Arabic callers struggled to communicate with the American officials manning the line. [Wall Street Journal]

Residents of Aleppo are preparing for the worst as the ceasefire agreement comes under strain, making plans in case of a siege by the Assad-regime. [Wall Street Journal’s Raja Abdulrahim] 

The House Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a resolution yesterday, accusing the Assad regime and its allies – including Moscow and Tehran – of committing war crimes in Syria, reports Nahal Toosi. [Politico] Continue Reading »

Yesterday, the UK government introduced a revised version of its Investigatory Powers Bill (aka the “snooper’s charter”) to Parliament. The bill seeks to consolidate, for the first time, all of the UK intelligence agencies’ surveillance powers under one law, and ministers are pushing to pass it by the end of this year, despite the complexity of the legislation and the difficulty Parliament will have meeting that compressed timeline.

A draft version of the bill was published in early November and was reviewed by three parliamentary committees, all of which criticized the government’s proposals and identified areas for further work. The Joint Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill warned that the earlier version “lacks clarity,” is “inconsistent and confusing,” and adopts a “piecemeal approach” to privacy protections, while the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said that the draft bill generally presents a “missed opportunity” to “provide the clarity and assurance which is badly needed.” (The Science and Technology Committee’s review is here.)

A source at the UK Home Office, which produced the legislation, claimed that the revised bill “reflects the majority” of the reports’ recommendations, adding that: “We have strengthened safeguards, enhanced privacy protections and bolstered oversight arrangements.”

Yet, on a bill as lengthy and detailed as this one (which rings in at more than 250 pages, not to mention the half dozen accompanying codes of practice and supporting documentation), the jury remains out on whether the revised version adequately addresses the recommendations made by the three committees. Continue Reading »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

IRAQ and SYRIA

Syria peace talks. Intra-Syrian peace negotiations, mediated by Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy to Syria, will resume on March 9 in Geneva, according to a press statement from Mr de Mistura’s office.

Forces loyal to the Syrian government have opened a new fight to capture an opposition-controlled hill in the northwest of the country today, according to a rebel official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. [Reuters]

Suicide attacks in Baghdad and Fallujah left dozens of Iraqi soldiers dead on Tuesday, Al Jazeera reports. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

More than 400 civilians were killed in Iraq by acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict last month, according to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq. [UN News Centre]  More than 670 Iraqis in total lost their lives to violence during February. [AP]

The US military has detained and is interrogating an Iraqi man suspected of fighting with the Islamic State, part of a mounting effort to gather more on-the-ground intelligence about the militant group, defense officials told The Daily Beast, report Nancy A. Youssef and Shane Harris.  The capture raises questions about how the US military should handle what is likely to become a growing group of detainees, observe Helene Cooper et al. [New York Times] Continue Reading »

The last few weeks and months have been awash in media coverage of two cases before magistrate judges involving the federal government seeking to use the All Writs Act to compel Apple’s cooperation with ongoing criminal investigations. The older case, in the Eastern District of New York, involves a drug case where the phone’s owner has pleaded guilty to the charges against him. The more recent case, in the Central District of California, involves an iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the alleged San Bernardino shooters. While the two cases involve different different phone models, operating systems, alleged crimes, and legal postures, they touch on similar questions related to the scope of the All Writs Act.

In an attempt to create a one-stop shop for our coverage and the related documents and some useful sources, we’ve compiled this readers’ guide. We will update it as the cases progress to include the latest filings and posts, so check back for more as things unfold. Continue Reading »

. . . is here. The order that the government requested the judge to issue would have required Apple to bypass the passcode security on an iPhone 5s (which used Apple’s iOS 7 for its operating system), in order to assist the government in its execution of a search warrant previously issued by the court.

UPDATED (as of March 1): The following reactions are tentative, based upon preliminary readings of the opinion and a bit of case law; I welcome additional views of my fellow bloggers and Just Security readers. I also highly recommend Bobby Chesney’s very helpful primer on the opinion, which fills out some of the points that I allude to here only in passing.

It’s important to emphasize that Judge Orenstein offers three (or four) reasons why the court cannot issue the order, and yet other reasons why he would decline to do so even if that were a legally available option for him.

Judge Orenstein reasons that he cannot issue the order for the following reasons: Continue Reading »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

*** Correction: Yesterday’s Early Edition erroneously asserted that Ibragim Todashev was one of the Boston Marathon bombers. The story should have read: “Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev passed the US citizenship test three months before the attack …”

IRAQ and SYRIA

Syria’s ceasefire. The ceasefire agreement brokered by the US and Russia faces “complete nullification” because of Assad regime attacks in violation of the truce, warned a senior official from the Saudi-backed opposition High Negotiations Committee yesterday. [Reuters’ John Davison and John Irish]  Secretary of State John Kerry said that alleged violations of the agreement will be investigated, adding that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad should show “some measure of decency” during the cessation of hostilities. [BBC; CNN’s Susannah Cullinane]

Russian fighter jets sat idle today at Moscow’s Hemeimeem air base in Syria, as the country’s ceasefire enters its fourth day, reports the AP.

“In the Syrian ceasefire shell game, the good guys may be bad guys,” reports Alexander Decina, citing US-allied backed militia, Ahrar al-Sham which is actually allies with al-Qaeda. [The Daily Beast] Continue Reading »

Below is a calendar of congressional hearings on national security matters for this week.

Tuesday, March 1

9:30am – Senate Armed Services – United States European Command (here)

10:00am – House Appropriations – Subcommittee on Defense – Budget Hearing: United States Navy and Marine Corps (here)

10:00am – House Armed Services – Member Day: National Defense Priorities from Members for the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (here)

10:00am – House Judiciary – Executive Overreach Task Force of 2016: The Original Understanding of the Role of Congress and How Far We’ve Drifted From It (here) Continue Reading »

This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks ahead to key developments on the horizon.

Testifying before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry raised the possibility of splitting Syria apart as a way toward peace. He said, “[at] some point in time, some day someone is going to have to sit down at a table and arrive at an understanding about what Syria is going to be. But it may be too late to keep it as a whole Syria if we wait much longer.” Later in the hearing, Kerry indicated that the US hasn’t given up on the idea of a unified Syria: “Russia, the US, and Iran and our allies all say that we want a united Syria.”

The testimony left the definite impression that Kerry had given thought to the division of Syria as one possible solution to the current turmoil in the country. That was certainly how some heard it: The Guardian reported, “John Kerry says partition of Syria could be part of ‘plan B’ if peace talks fail,” and Michael Weiss at The Daily Beast asked, “Does Obama Want to Carve Up Syria?” Bloomberg later reported that Syria had “condemned Kerry’s remarks on the risk of partition in Syria.”

This is not the first time that the world has flirted with partition as a way to solve an intractable war. The same proposal has circulated for years as a way to solve the crisis in Iraq, but it has been repeatedly rejected. And there have been various proposals over the years to reshape the Middle East by redrawing the borders, including by Ralph Peters, Robin Wright, and Joshua Landis.

There are, moreover, historical precedents for the sort of partition being discussed for Syria: In 1947, for instance, the former colonial India was partitioned into India and Pakistan. And in 1971, after a bloody civil war in Pakistan, the country was further partitioned to establish Bangladesh as an independent country. In the 1990s, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia all disintegrated, producing tens of smaller sub-states. Yemen broke up and then reunited (and is presently in danger of splitting once again). Eritrea split from Ethiopia, also in the early 1990s. And most recent of all, in 2011, Sudan split into Sudan and South Sudan.

Several of these historical precedents offer cautionary tales — none more so than the Sudan/South Sudan split. Continue Reading »

Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.

IRAQ and SYRIA

Syria’s shaky ceasefire. The second day of a partial Syria ceasefire witnessed violence yesterday, with a number of airstrikes and artillery attacks and both sides blaming the other of violating the truce agreement. Saturday had seen a lull in fighting. [New York Times’ Anne Barnard]  Anti-government activists accused the Syrian regime and Russian allies of escalating air attacks on rebel-held territory, with reports of at least 10 civilians killed in an airstrike targeting a town in Aleppo province. [Wall Street Journal’s Raja Abdulrahim and Dana Ballout]  Russia’s defense ministry provided no statement on the strikes. [Washington Post’s Liz Sly]

The Syria ceasefire task force will meet today at 3pm in Geneva, as France demands answers over violations of the ceasefire that came into effect on Friday night. [Reuters]  And NATO’s secretary general said the bloc is concerned about Russian military build-up in Syria, despite some “encouraging developments” indicating that the ceasefire is “largely holding.” [Reuters]

US-Russia cooperation. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on the phone yesterday, to discuss closer cooperation between the two nations’ militaries on the ceasefire plan for Syria. The call took place at the initiative of the Russian ministry, it claimed. [Reuters]

Forces loyal to the Assad regime have reclaimed control of an important road leading to the northern city of Aleppo, following advances against ISIS, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. [Reuters]

UN aid to besieged areas. The United Nations is prepared to begin deliveries of humanitarian aid to Syrians living in areas under siege, seeking to take advantage of the US and Russian brokered truce agreement currently underway. [BBC]  Meanwhile, the UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said at an address before the UN Human Rights Council that: “The deliberate starvation of people is unequivocally forbidden as a weapon of warfare. By extension, so are sieges, which deprive civilians of essential goods such as food.” [The Guardian’s Mark Tran] Continue Reading »

I. Surveillance, Privacy & Technology

1. Jennifer Granick, Who Sets the Rules of the Privacy and Security Game? (Monday, February 22)
2. Julian Sanchez, Apple vs. FBI: “Just This Once”? (Tuesday, February 23)
3. Marty Lederman, Apple’s Motion to Vacate the All Writs Act Assistance Order: Is This the Right Case for Apple to Make a Stand? (Friday, February 26)

II. Guantánamo & Military Commissions

1. Steve Vladeck, Closing Guantánamo, Episode XXVIII: This Time, We Really, Really (Really!) Mean It… (Tuesday, February 23)
2. Marty Lederman, The President’s Plan for Closing the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility (Tuesday, February 23)
3. Jonathan Hafetz, Guest Post: Torture and Transparency in the Military Commissions (Wednesday, February 24)

III. International Law

1. Beth Van Schaack, Iraq and Syria: Prospects for Accountability (Monday, February 22)
2. Christopher Rogers, Guest Post: How Should International Law Deal With Doubt in the Era of Drones and Big Data? (Monday, February 22)
3. Daniela Nogueira, A Quick Update on Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defence (Thursday, February 25)

IV. Cross-Border Data Sharing

• Jennifer Daskal, House Judiciary Committee Hearing Tomorrow: Law Enforcement Access to Data Across Borders (Wednesday, February 24)

V. Public Records & Oversight

• Andy Wright, The State Department’s Records and Response Problems Are Not New, They’re Systemic (Friday, February 26)

VI. Biodefense

• Conor Browne, Guest Post: Improving the Recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Biodefense Report (Thursday, February 25)

VII. Congressional Hearings

• Daniela Nogueira, National Security-Related Congressional Hearings, February 22–26 (Monday, February 22)