Congress Can’t Rubber Stamp Military Commissions Without Endangering U.S. Troops

Congress Can’t Rubber Stamp Military Commissions Without Endangering U.S. Troops: "Vazquez said that Congress could pass a law authorizing the procedures ruled illegal by the court. But according to the court’s decision, doing so would abrogate Common Article 3 of Geneva Conventions. This would have serious consequences because the Geneva Conventions provide essential protections to U.S. troops abroad."

(Via Think Progress.)

The Newbie's Guide to Detecting the NSA

27B Stroke 6:

• "The internet surveillance program covers domestic traffic, not just international traffic. Marcus notes that the AT&T spy rooms are 'in far more locations than would be required to catch the majority of international traffic'; the configuration in the San Francisco office promiscuously sends all data into the secret room; and there's no reliable way an analysis could infer a user's physical location from their IP address. This, of course, directly contradicts President Bush's description of the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program.'
• The system is capable of looking at content, not just addresses. The configuration described in the Klein documents -- presumably the Narus software in particular -- 'exists primarily to conduct sophisticated rule-based analysis of content', Marcus concludes."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

Finally, some good news for MDA?

ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog: Finally, some good news for MDA?: "The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA), much-beleaguered about the status of the missile defense system designed to protect the United States against missile attacks, can finally report good news. Sort of.

It held a test of the upgraded version of the interceptor for its Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (Aegis BMD) system. The new Standard Missile (SM)-3 Block 1A was launched off of the USS Shiloh – a first, as previous tests all used the USS Lake Erie – to hit a target coming out of the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. MDA reports that the SM-3 Block 1A successfully intercepted a medium-range target with a separating warhead at an altitude of just over 100 miles."

...

The Aegis BMD system was created, designed, and tested as a system that would defend against theater ballistic missiles. This means short- and medium-range ballistic missiles (i.e., those with ranges of 500 miles or less). Anything with a longer range and the Aegis BMD system is left eating its dust: it is too slow to be able to target an ICBM-class threat. The Aegis’ interceptor would have to be reworked to have its speed doubled, and then its its canisters on the Aegis ships would need to be redone. What the system can do is work on tracking an ICBM and networking its LRS&T data into the overall missile defense network.

So for those who would believe that our missile defense “problem” vis-à-vis North Korea has been solved…well, it wouldn’t be anyone reading this blog, as you all are far too smart (and handsome, have you been working out?) to fall for that. But people who believe that the Aegis BMD system could work against an ICBM would be sadly mistaken.

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)