Salon.com > Devlin Barrett

Obama pick for Justice post backs out

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:33:00 +0000

President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has withdrawn her bid for confirmation, after several Republicans objected to her criticism of the Bush administration's terrorist interrogation policies.

Dawn Johnsen's withdrawal -- a setback for the Obama administration -- was announced late Friday by the White House on a day the capital's legal and political elites were absorbed in the news that Justice John Paul Stevens would retire from the Supreme Court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee had recommended Johnsen's confirmation on party-line votes. But several Republicans objected to her sharp criticisms of terrorist interrogation policies under President George W. Bush, and the full Senate never voted on her nomination.

The decision about who should lead the little-known office became a political flashpoint because of the controversies surrounding Bush-era interrogations of terror suspects.

During the Bush administration, lawyers at the OLC wrote memos approving interrogation techniques that human rights advocates call torture. Those methods included waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

U.S. upbeat about anti-terror accord with E.U.

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:35:50 +0000

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday he is confident an accord will be reached shortly with the European Union to relaunch a Bush-era data-sharing program the U.S. considers key to anti-terror investigations.

Holder said he and other U.S. officials would listen to the EU allies' concerns about the accord's effect on civil liberties during a one-day EU-U.S. ministerial meeting in Madrid on Friday focusing on counterterrorism cooperation.

"One of our goals during these meetings will be to outline the extensive privacy safeguards that we have put in place to govern the TFTP, Holder told reporters in Madrid, referring to the Terrorist Financing Tracking Program. "I'm actually confident that in a relatively short period of time the program will be up."

Holder was to meet with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Justice Minister Francisco Caamano and Interior chief Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba later Thursday.

On Friday, he will meet with the EU officials along with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Treasury Department officials. Vice President and EU Commissioner for Justice Vivian Reding and EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom also will be there.

Anti-government writing linked to Pentagon gunman

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:59:00 +0000

A California man killed in a shootout with Pentagon police drove cross-country and arrived outside the military headquarters armed with two semiautomatic weapons, authorities said Friday. The shooter apparently left behind angry, anti-government Internet postings airing suspicions about the 9/11 attacks.

John Patrick Bedell, 36, of Hollister, Calif., was named as the gunman in the Thursday evening attack. Authorities said he'd had previous run-ins with the law.

Investigators have found no immediate connection to terrorism. The attack that superficially wounded two officers guarding the massive Defense Department headquarters appears to be a case of "a single individual who had issues," Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police, said Friday.

Hints of those issues emerged in anti-government Internet postings linked to Bedell. One blog linked to Bedell's page on the social networking site LinkedIn contained a two-part treatise on big government, including its vulnerability to being controlled by a criminal organization.

"This organization, like so many murderous governments throughout history, would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens, in an event such as the September 11 attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control," the blog post read.

New Detroit plane security scare

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:12:00 +0000

The same Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight that was attacked on Christmas Day saw another security scare Sunday after a confrontation with a sick passenger, officials said.

Security and airline personnel have been on edge since authorities charged a passenger from Nigeria with attempting to detonate a hidden explosive device while his flight from Amsterdam approached Detroit on Friday.

In the Sunday incident, the flight crew became concerned after the man -- also Nigerian -- became sick and spent about an hour locked in the bathroom, officials said.

"This raised concerns so an alert was raised," FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said. "The investigation shows that this was a non-serious incident and all is clear at this point."

After the flight crew became concerned, the pilot of the Sunday flight had requested emergency assistance upon arrival, sending federal authorities scrambling to respond to a potential danger.

The Transportation Security Administration said the airline alerted authorities to a "disruptive passenger" on board fligth 253, who was taken into custody when the plane landed.

Alleged airline attacker to be charged

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 21:13:00 +0000

Law enforcement officials say the alleged Christmas Day terrorist will be charged in Detroit with trying to blow up a plane.

The officials say the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, will be charged in federal court later Saturday.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the charge has not yet been unsealed.

Mutallab allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device onboard a Northwest Airlines plane from Amsterdam just before it landed in Detroit on Friday.

He allegedly claimed to have been instructed by al-Qaida to detonate the plane over U.S. soil.

Does failed Xmas bomber represent new threat?

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:12:00 +0000

U.S. counterterrorism officials are scrambling to assess a potential new threat from an explosive mixture that evaded detection aboard a Detroit-bound airliner but failed to bring down the plane.

Multiple law enforcement officials said the suspected attacker -- identified as a Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab -- claimed to have acted on instructions from al-Qaida to detonate the explosive device over U.S. soil. The law enforcement officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

The law enforcement officials cautioned that such claims could not be verified immediately, and said the man may have been acting independently -- inspired but not specifically trained or ordered by terror groups.

One law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the case, said Mutallab's name had surfaced earlier on at least one U.S. intelligence database, but not to the extent that he was placed on a watch list or a no-fly list.

As investigators try to determine the veracity of his claims, they also want to figure out exactly how the explosive device was made -- and how much of a broader threat it may pose to air security.

Anti-gay, religious-motivated crimes up

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:20:00 +0000

Reports of hate crimes against gays and religious groups increased sharply in 2008, according to new FBI data released Monday.

Overall, the number of reported hate crimes increased about 2 percent. These same figures show a nearly 11 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a nearly 9 percent increase in hate crimes based on religion.

The largest category, racially-motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.

Among all categories of hate crimes, roughly a third are vandalism or property damage. About 30 percent involve intimidation of some kind, and another 30 percent were physical attacks against people.

The FBI does not compare year-to-year trends in hate crimes, saying the number of agencies reporting changes too much. And in fact, the bureau cautioned that the increase reported Monday might well be due to more agencies tracking such incidents.

In 2008, 2,145 different agencies reported hate crimes incidents, while the year before 2,025 agencies did this reporting.

In total, there were 7,783 hate crimes reported to the FBI last year, and seven murders were categorized as hate crimes.

FBI reassesses past look at Hasan

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:01:00 +0000

Nearly a year before Maj. Nidal Hasan allegedly went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, terrorism investigators conducted an "assessment" of him before deciding he did not pose a threat.

After the shooting, the FBI is doing a new assessment -- of its own conduct.

The Army psychiatrist is believed to have acted alone despite repeated communications -- intercepted by authorities -- with a radical imam overseas, U.S. officials said Monday. The FBI will conduct an internal review to see whether it mishandled early information about the man accused in the bloody rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 29.

President Barack Obama was joining grieving families and comrades of the victims Tuesday at a memorial service at the sprawling Texas Army base. Hasan, awake and talking to doctors, met his lawyer Monday in the San Antonio hospital where he is recovering, under guard, from gunshot wounds in the assault.

In Washington, an investigative official and a Republican lawmaker said Hasan had communicated 10 to 20 times with Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam released from a Yemeni jail last year who has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. Despite that, no formal investigation was opened into Hasan, they said.

Sources: Shooter used “cop killer” gun

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:01:00 +0000

Law enforcement officials say a 5.7-millimeter pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting rampage was purchased legally at a Texas gun store.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

Records indicate Hasan bought the FN 5.7 at store called "Guns Galore" in Killeen, Texas, well before the attack that left 13 people dead. The pistol has been dubbed a "cop killer" by those who have tried to stop its use.

The most powerful type of ammunition for the gun is available only to law enforcement and military personnel. Gun control advocates call it a "cop killer" weapon because that ammo can pierce bulletproof vests, and its use by Mexican drug cartels worries police.