counterterrorism

Matt Apuzzo, writing in the New York Times, reports that one of retiring Attorney General Eric Holder's legacies is shifting terrorism cases from military tribunals to the civilian courts: "Five years ago, the debate over whether terrorists should be prosecuted in criminal courts was so contentious that it made its chief advocate, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., a political liability. Republicans argued that F.B.I. interrogation was not suited to wartime intelligence-gathering. By extension, civilian courtrooms were no place for terrorists, who did not deserve the same rights as common criminals." In contrast, Guantanamo Bay tribunals have had problems, including two convictions overturned on appeal.

The Washington Post reports that a defendant in a terrorism case has been informed by the U.S. Department of Justice that federal prosecutors want to use evidence generated from warrantless surveillance against him. The case is expect to generate a constitutional challenge. The case also could generated a U.S. Supreme Court test case. The Supreme Court rejected prior challenges to warrantless surveillance because the "lawyers, journalists and human rights organizations who brought the suit could not prove they had been caught up in the surveillance. As a result, they did not have legal standing to challenge the constitutionality," The Washington Post also reports.

The European Parliament voted to suspend a data-sharing agreement with the United States that allows access to financial transactions for the purposes of tracking the financing of terrorists, GigaOm reported, although only the European Commission can actually suspend the agreement.

Edward Snowden's leaks exposed that the National Security Agency has been tapping the SWIFT database of international transactions "directly in order to extract information, thus breaking the terms of the agreement with the EU. The intelligence agency has apparently also been illegally accessing credit card transaction data in Europe, the Middle East and Africa," GigaOm also reported.

The Washington Post reports on a joint effort from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to investigate how many civilians are killed by U.S. drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan: "In Yemen, Human Rights Watch investigated six selected airstrikes since 2009 and concluded that at least 57 of the 82 people killed were civilians, including a pregnant woman and three children who perished in a September 2012 attack. In Pakistan, Amnesty International investigated nine suspected U.S. drone strikes that occurred between May 2012 and July 2013 in the territory of North Waziristan. The group said it found strong evidence that more than 30 civilians were killed in four of the attacks."

Both groups said it is nearly impossible to gauge if the civilians who were killed met the legal standard of posing an imminent threat to the United States because of the secrecy governing drone strikes, The Washington Post also reported.