“Those who reaffirm our nation’s most essential and enduring values do not deserve to have their own values questioned,” Holder told a group of lawyers who offer “pro bono,” or voluntary, legal services. “Let me be clear about this: Lawyers who provide counsel for the unpopular are, and should be treated as what they are: patriots.”

The crowd, gathered to honor Holder with an award from the Washington-based Pro Bono Institute, erupted in applause.

For months the Justice Department had been refusing to identify seven politically-appointed attorneys who previously represented or advocated for terror suspects.

On March 2, a conservative group led by Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, released a video condemning the Justice Department for its “secrecy.”

“So who did President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, hire?” the group, Keep America Safe, said in the video. “Whose values do they share?”

The video dubbed the seven unknown lawyers “The Al Qaeda 7.”

On Friday, Holder took issue with such rhetoric.

“Advancing the cause of justice sometimes means working for the sake of the fairness and integrity of our system of justice,” Holder said. “This is why lawyers who accept our professional responsibility to protect the rule of law, the right to counsel, and access to our courts — even when this requires defending unpopular positions or clients — deserve the praise and gratitude of all Americans. They also deserve respect.”

A week earlier, some of the Obama administration’s most outspoken critics came to the defense of Holder and the Justice Department lawyers criticized in the Keep America Safe video.

“The past several days have seen a shameful series of attacks on attorneys in the Department of Justice,” said a statement signed by several conservative lawyers and former officials who worked under Republican administrations.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who has condemned Holder’s handling of recent terrorism cases, called the video “shoddy and dangerous” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on March 10.

Responding to the statement from conservative lawyers and officials, Keep America Safe Spokesman Aaron Harison said it was “absurd” for lawyers “to go out in public and argue that voluntarily representing detainees is somehow good for America.”

Since November 2009, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had been trying to uncover politically-appointed lawyers within the Justice Department who advocated for detainees at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere.

In a subsequent letter to Grassley, Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich declined to identify seven of nine such lawyers, insisting that no political appointee at the Justice Department “would permit or has permitted any prior affiliation to interfere with the vital task of protecting national security, and any suggestion to the contrary is absolutely false.”

He also said that any suggestions of a “conflict of interest” are “an apparent misapprehension” of legal standards, adding that all political appointees have taken pledges to meet ethical standards.

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House Democrats have asked Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank, and California Rep. Jane Harman, a leader on intelligence issues in the House, to help lead training sessions on the issue.

BTW, wtf is a “centrist Democratic think tank”? If its Democratic its not “Centrist”

“The Democratic approach on security — or at least my approach — is that we know how to be tough and smart, not tough and reckless,” said Harman, a Blue Dog whose district is home to an enormous Air Force base and a number of intelligence contractors. “For some Democrats, this is difficult.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34045.html#ixzz0hcZl7KdI

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If I had captured Adam Gadahn I’d nickname my rifle “Miranda rights.” So when people asked I could say “Yeah. He heard them.”

I don’t think I could have said this better myself, In fact, I know I couldn’t have.

The arrest of Adam Gadahn represents a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement’s No. 2 commander.

U.S. officials did not immediately confirm Gadahn’s capture.

Gadahn has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting and threatening the West and calling for its destruction. A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years.

He was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis of Karachi in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest, but said it happened Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be resolved.

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“Although they will try, it will be extremely difficult even for his most devoted loyalists to deny the fundamental cowardice of Barack Obama,” wrote Greenwald. “Even just as a political matter, is there any better way to ensure that Americans will view him as weak than by abandoning one key decision after the next as a result of the slightest pressure? What kind of person could possibly admire a ‘leader’ who does this?”

Another libnut, Ken Gude from the heavily George Soros funded Center of American Progress agreed the trade-off makes little sense for the White House politically or from a legal standpoint.

“The political calculation that caving on the 9/11 trial will ensure or even ease the path to close Guantanamo is deeply flawed. Any deal that would gain Sen. Graham’s support will surely lose many more Democratic votes and I am extremely skeptical that Sen. Graham would be able to bring any other Republicans with him, especially as Sen. McConnell has already telegraphed his political strategy of absolute opposition to Obama’s counterterrorism policies,” Gude said.

The primary source of the liberal anger comes from the belief that Obama would be sacrificing the moral high ground and jeopardizing the country’s standing in the international community.

“Politics aside, this is about doing what’s right. Military commissions are virtually untested and woefully unprepared for the complex and challenging 9/11 case that includes nearly 3,000 counts of murder. A criminal trial for the 9/11 plotters is in the best interests of the United States,” Gude said.

“[The president] can’t continue to vacillate over matters of American values,” Murphy said. “These go to core of what makes America different — how you detain people, whether you torture them, how you prosecute them. These are the very issues that separated us from Great Britain.”

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“Department of Justice attorneys work around the clock to keep this country safe, and it is offensive that their patriotism is being questioned,” said Justice Department Spokesman Matt Miller.

The video by the group Keep America Safe, which dubbed the seven lawyers “The Al Qaeda 7,” is the latest salvo in a lengthty political battle.

For several months, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has led an effort to uncover politically-appointed lawyers within the Justice Department who have advocated for Guantanamo Bay detainees or other terror suspects.

“The administration has made many highly questionable decisions when it comes to national security, ” Grassley said in a recent statement. “[Americans] have a right to know who advises the Attorney General and the President on these critical matters.”

An extensive review of court documents and media reports by Fox News suggests many of the seven lawyers in question played only minor or short-lived roles in advocating for detainees. However, it’s unclear what roles, if any, they have played in detainee-related matters since joining the Justice Department.

Before joining the Justice Department, Jonathan Cedarbaum, now an official with the Office of Legal Counsel, was part of a “firm-wide effort” to represent six Bosnian-Algerian detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, according to the web site of the firm WilmerHale.

That effort brought the case Boumediene v. Bush to the Supreme Court, which reaffirmed the right of detainees to challenge their detention.

But, according to a review by Fox News, Cedarbaum’s name appears only once in court records of detainee-related cases. Specifically, he’s named as part of the WilmerHale legal team in a 2007 filing with the Supreme Court, and he was joined in that filing by Eric Columbus, a former WilmerHale attorney who is now senior counsel in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.

Alongside Cedarbaum in the Office of Legal Counsel now is Karl Thompson, who while working for the firm O’Melveny & Myers became one of seven attorneys to represent Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 and transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

But, according to court documents, Thompson was only part of Khadr’s defense team for seven months, from October 2008 to May 2009.

More than five years before that, Joseph Guerra, now Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General at the Justice Department, was one of five lawyers from the firm Sidley Austin to help three civil liberties groups, including the self-described “conservative” Rutherford Institute, file a detainee-related brief with the Supreme Court.

The brief urged the justices to hear the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was held as an “enemy combatant” before the Bush Administration decided in 2006 to prosecute him in a civilian court..

Similarly, in November 2006, Tali Farhadian, now an official in the Office of the Attorney General, was an attorney with the firm Debevoise & Plimpton when she helped file a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, urging the federal appeals court to hear the case of Ali al-Marri, the only “enemy combatant” at the time being held on U.S. soil.

In addition, Beth Brinkmann, now Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Civil Division, was a partner with the firm Morrison & Foerster when she helped compile at least two Supreme Court briefs dealing with Guantanamo Bay detainees.

In 2007, she and others co-signed a Supreme Court brief by 20 former federal judges calling for further protection of detainees’ rights, and the next year she co-signed a brief by two advocacy groups, including The Rutherford Institite, urging the Supreme Court to hear an appeal from al-Marri.

The most extensive detainee-related work by a current Justice Department official, though, may have been done by Tony West, the Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division.

For several years, while working in Morrison & Foerster’s San Francisco office, West represented “American Taliban” Johh Walker Lindh, a move that was hotly debated after West was nominated to the Justice Department in January 2009. West wasn’t confirmed until April 2009.

In a recent letter to Grassley, Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich said nine Justice Department lawyers in total previously represented terror suspects, contributed to court briefs in detainee-related cases or otherwise helped advocate for detainees.

Weich acknowledged in the letter that Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal previously represented a Guantanamo Bay detainee and that National Security Division Attorney Jennifer Daskal previously worked for Human Rights Watch, which advocates on behalf of detainees.

Weich declined to identify the other lawyers, but he insisted that no political appointee at the Justice Department “would permit or has permitted any prior affiliation to interfere with the vital task of protecting national security, and any suggestion to the contrary is absolutely false.”

He also said that any suggestions of a “conflict of interest” are “an apparent misapprehension” of legal standards, adding that all political appointees have taken pledges to meet ethical standards.

Asked whether any of the seven previously unidentified lawyers now work on detainee-related issues, Miller declined to comment.

An article in The National Law Journal shows that, as recently as December, Brinkmann represented the government a defamation case that had reached a federal appeals court.

As for the two lawyers who were named by Weich in his recent letter to Grassley, Daskal has “generally worked on policy issues related to detainees” while at the Justice Department, said Weich, adding that her detainee-related work “has been fully consistent with advice she received from career Department officials regarding her [ethical and legal] obligations.”

Weich said Katyal “has not worked on any Guantanamo detainee matters, but has participated in litigation involving detainees who continue to be detained” elsewhere.

Still, the video released Tuesday includes the image of a recent Investors Business Daily headline wondering whether the Department of Justice could be called the “Department of Jihad.”

“Why the secrecy?” asks the video from Keep America Safe, which is run by Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Debra Burlingame, whose brother was killed in the 9/11 attacks, and Bill Kristol, a Fox News contributor.

Miller suggested it all comes down to politics.

“Each of the nine people referenced in the letter filed legal briefs that are available by using something as simple as Google,” he said. “We will not participate in an attempt to drag people’s names through the mud for political purposes.”

The Obama Administration is not the first to hire lawyers who represented or advocated for terror suspects.

Pratik Shah, an assistant to the Solicitor General hired by the Bush Administration, was part of the WilmerHale team that put together arguments for the Boumediene v. Bush case.

Trisha Anderson, an adviser in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel who was also hired by the Bush Administration, was previously an attorney at Attorney General Eric Holder’s former firm, Covington & Burling, where she helped represent 13 Yemeni detainees.

Varda Hussain, an attorney hired in 2008 with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, was an associate with the Washington-based firm Venable when she helped represent three Egyptians being held at Guantanamo Bay.

“Varda has spent over 500 hours in the past year fighting to bring due process to our clients,” a firm newsletter said in 2006.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxg7LmlEQg

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She says that when she started as secretary a year ago, the focus was largely on international terrorists who want to harm U.S. interests. But in the past year, more of the violent extremism that has been seen overseas is showing up in the U.S.

She says officials need to drill down and analyze the factors that make a young person, raised in the U.S., migrate to extremist beliefs and actions.

Napolitano was speaking to governors who are in Washington for their annual conference.

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Hussain, named by Obama as an envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, said Friday his comments at the time were “ill conceived or not well formulated.”

In 2004, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs quoted Hussain saying at a seminar on Muslim issues that Sami al-Arian was the victim of “politically motivated persecutions” after al-Arian, a university professor, was charged in 2003 with heading U.S. operations of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to aid the group — designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist group since 1997 — and was sentenced to more than four years in prison.

The Web version of the 2004 article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs was later edited to delete all of Hussain’s comments. Editor Delinda Hanley told Fox News last week she believed the change was made in February 2009.

Hanley didn’t recall who requested the edit, but Hussain said Friday that he had contacted the publication to “raise concerns” about comments that he said were “without context, leaving a misimpression.”

“Eventually, on their own accord, they modified the article,” said Hussain, who was a Yale Law student and an editor of the Yale Law Journal at the time of the panel discussion.

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A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the “Fort Jackson Five” may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, DC area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.

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Secretary Napolitano spent an hour and a half briefing them on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counter-radicalization and anti-terrorist programs. The intensive briefings spanned two days (January 27 and 28) and were called by the DHS.

Although there is no evidence of an exchange of classified information, this meeting was the beginning of an Obama administration program aimed at devising a new information-sharing framework with the Muslim organizations — some of them regarded as extremist because of their ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The group is to meet regularly with DHS senior aides and with Napolitano. This program was imported from the United Kingdom. The Obama administration has decided to replicate the UK program to win over Muslims and to get them to collaborate with the federal government.

Although Matthew Chandler, deputy press secretary and spokesman for Secretary Napolitano, refused to comment on the meetings or identify the groups that attended the two-day session, Pajamas Media has learned the identities of a number of the participants and interviewed them — including those linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

It was unclear whether he was talking, but the officials said his capture had provided a window into the Taliban and could lead to other senior officials. Most immediately, they hope he will provide the whereabouts of Mullah Omar, the one-eyed cleric who is the group’s spiritual leader.

Disclosure of Mullah Baradar’s capture came as American and Afghan forces were in the midst of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan.

His capture could cripple the Taliban’s military operations, at least in the short term, said Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who last spring led the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review.

Details of the raid remain murky, but officials said that it had been carried out by Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and that C.I.A. operatives had accompanied the Pakistanis.

This is a great achievement for the military, and yet another chance for Obama and his adminstration to do things right, instead of screwing things up. Left wing nut jobs, such as Firedog Lake are only concerned that Barada isn’t “tortured”.

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“Anyone who can fit in and not attract suspicion” is desirable to the terror network right now, said one official.

An investigative source also said that among those attracting attention by the intelligence community are women recruits. The next wave of terrorists may include Western women, possibly Canadian, with forged documents. The use of women would be seen an evolution in Al Qaeda’s strategy from the failed Christmas Day attack by accused “underpants bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki is considered the top “talent spotter.” He is tied to three of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, the Fort Hood shooting and Flight 253, which carried Abdulmutallab.

A former senior intelligence official who first identified Awlaki as a threat in 2008 said he believes Awlaki has hundreds of followers in the United States, so the focus of the intelligence community is not solely on overseas operatives but on people inside the United States.

Abdulmutallab, who is educated and born into a wealthy Nigerian family, told investigators that about 20 or 30 more people like him were training in Yemen. Yemen is also where English-speaking, Muslim converts go to learn Arabic, so one U.S. official said Abdulmutallab’s information will be vetted thoroughly.

However, that official said just because someone is studying Arabic in Yemen doesn’t mean he or she has made the leap to terrorism.

“I think we constantly have to be on our guard, the enemy is adapting,” said Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee. “We have to look for not just the usual suspects, if you will, but obviously Al Qaeda is going to try to find people who would blend into our society, people who can speak English, speak it fluently, and you know not give the appearance of what we identify as the traditional Al Qaeda suspect.”

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The National Operations Center of DHS will watch the web for information, according to the statement, to “provide situational awareness” in the event of natural disaster, an “act of terrorism, or other manmade disaster.”

“The Olympics are a potential target for such events,” said the statement. The statement did not list all web sites and social media that the NOC will monitor, but provided 31 examples, many of them, like the Blotter, sites that cover breaking news, security, or terror.

Here’s part of the government statement on the social media monitoring. The list is at the end of the statement in the appendix:

Section 1.0 Characterization of the Information

The following questions are intended to define the scope of the information requested and/or collected as well as reasons for its collection as part of the program, system, rule, or technology being developed.

1.1 What information is collected, used, disseminated, or maintained in the system?

The NOC is reviewing information posted by individual account users on third party social media providers of activities and events necessary to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture regarding the security, safety, and border control associated with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC. Third party service providers provide an array of applications that provide social media services along with publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards. See Appendix A for a list of the types of sites that may be viewed for information related to the 2010 Winter Olympics. The NOC is accessing these web based platforms to identify content posted by public users for the purpose of providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture on the 2010 Winter Olympics. The NOC is assessing information identified to assist decision-makers in the security, safety, and border control associated with the 2010 Winter Olympics. The NOC shall not collect data on the individuals posting information to third party service providers, about individual users, or any PII. The NOC will immediately destroy any PII that it discovers at any time in its possession as a result of this Initiative.

1.2 What are the sources of the information in the system?

Members of the public as well as first responders, press, volunteers, and others provide publicly available information on social medial sites including online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards.

1.3 Why is the information being collected, used, disseminated, or maintained?

The NOC is identifying, using, disseminating, and maintaining this information to comply with its statutory mandate to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture for the entire federal government, and for state, local, and tribal governments as appropriate and to ensure that this information reaches government decision makers. In this case, the NOC is monitoring information directly related to the security, safety, and border control associated with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC. The aggregation of data published via social media sites will likely make it possible for the NOC to provide more accurate situational awareness, a more complete common operating picture, and more timely 2010 Winter Olympics-related information for decision makers.

1.4 How is the information collected?

The NOC identifies information directly from third-party social media services. The NOC is accessing and collecting information from various informational streams and postings that the NOC, as well as the broader public, view and monitor.

1.5 How will the information be checked for accuracy?

The NOC identifies information from third party hosts submitted voluntarily by members of the public and compares that information with information available in open source reporting and through a variety of public and government sources. By bringing together and comparing many different sources of information, the NOC will attempt to generate a more accurate picture of activities occurring at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
1.6 What specific legal authorities, arrangements, and/or agreements defined the collection of information?
Congress requires the NOC “to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture for the entire federal government and for state, local, and tribal governments as appropriate, in the event of a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other manmade disaster; and ensure that critical terrorism and disaster-related information reaches government decision-makers.” Section 515 of the Homeland Security Act (6 U.S.C. § 321d(b)(1)). The Olympics are a potential target for such events.

1.7 Privacy Impact Analysis: Given the amount and type of data collected, discuss the privacy risks identified and how they were mitigated.

There is a risk that the NOC will receive PII or other identifiable information that is not relevant to this Initiative. The NOC has a clear policy in place that any PII incidentally received will be destroyed immediately. Information collected to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture originates from publicly available social media sites and is available to the public.

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The Taliban based in Orakzai Agency confirmed on Tuesday that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakeemullah Mehsud is dead, according to DawnNews. Mehsud died on Sunday in Multan after succumbing to injuries received in a drone attack in Shaktoi village.

However, Alam Tariq the offiicial Taliban spokesman has not yet made a statement.

Sources said that Maulvi Noor Jamal has been nominated as Mehsud’s succesor.

Government officials too have confirmed his death.

American and Pakistani officials had been saying Mehsud was dead since the past few weeks.

Maulvi Noor Jamal is a native of the Orakzai Agency and rose to power as the leader of the Taliban in the Kurram tribal area.

He was also given responsibilities for Orakzai when the military began the Waziristan offensive in October.

Jamal is in his late thirties and was a maulana at a local madrassah before he was made the leader of the Taliban in Kurram.

He had a close relationship with Mehsud and is known for his brutality.

One resident who left Khurram for fear of being wanted by him said Jamal “…kills humans like one will kill chickens.”

Jamal is also the man who is allegedly overseeing the flogging of two men and a teenage boy in a recently broadcast video.

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The Obama administration has come under withering attack, mainly from Republicans, for a decision by his Justice Department to try the terrorist mastermind in a U.S. court near Ground Zero, site of the attack that destroyed New York’s World Trade Center

Obama said using the traditional judicial method was a “virtue of our system” in which Americans should take pride.

He also defended his decision, noting again that the administration of former President George W. Bush had handled terror suspects arrested in the United States in the same way.

“They prosecuted 190 folks in these Article III courts, got convictions and those folks are in maximum security prisons right now. And there have been no escapes,” Obama said. “And it is a virtue of our system we should be proud of.”

Later Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., responded: “Based on the security, logistical and cost concerns raised by the mayor and the police commissioner, it is not feasible to have the trials in New York. The administration should realize that and move on.”

In a pre-Super Bowl interview with CBS’ Katie Couric, Obama also said that passing health care reform remained the key to bringing down America’s skyrocketing budget deficit. He said he was calling Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to a meeting later this month to thoroughly air the issue.

“The biggest thing, the most important thing we can do on deficits … is to get a health reform package passed,” Obama said.

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Attorney General Eric Holder says he made the decision to read the underwear bomber suspect his Miranda rights — and he’s hammering Republicans for politicizing a practice he says they backed when George W. Bush was in office.

“I made the decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab with federal crimes, and to seek his detention in connection with those charges, with the knowledge of, and with no objection from, all other relevant departments of the government,” Holder wrote in a letter to senators Monday.

He called the decision “fully consistent” with precedents set by “administrations of both parties.”

“Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security,” he said.

The Holder letter is the Obama administration’s latest round in an ongoing battle with congressional Republicans, who have accused the president of jeopardizing national security by informing the alleged terror plotter of his right to remain silent.

Holder said intelligence and law enforcement officials explicitly discussed whether to use the military tribunal system to try Abdulmutallab.

“No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued,” Holder wrote.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8j9lwTmiSA

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Some Democrats want Obama to be even more forceful, including on the importance of civilian trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 plotters. “Obama and the Department of Justice need to get out there and push back very clearly with the public…Frankly, I thought New Yorkers were made of sterner stuff than this—traffic is going to be disrupted?” said Ken Gude of the liberal Center for American Progress.

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Chicago
Boston
Harrisburg
Hartford
San Francisco
Las Vegas

The decision came after Mayor Bloomberg and other politicians across the state railed against President Obama’s plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan Federal Court.

Attorney General Eric Holder now has to think of other places where the trial could take place, officials said.

It was not immediately clear if the reassessment means the trial will definitely be moved out of the city.

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