Obama administration

Mark Weisbrot writes: The video (warning: contains graphic images of lethal violence), caught randomly on a warehouse security camera, is chilling. Five young men walk down a quiet street in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. A big black SUV pulls up, followed by a second vehicle. Two masked men with bullet-proof vests jump out of the lead car, [...]

Wired: Ultra-secret national security letters that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech, a federal judge in California ruled in a decision released Friday. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop issuing so-called NSLs across the board, in a stunning defeat for the Obama [...]

McClatchy reports: President Barack Obama has relied on state secrets and secret laws to make national security decisions with little congressional or public oversight much as his predecessor did, according to a report being released Sunday by a liberal government watchdog group. The Center for Effective Government’s study on transparency finds that Obama has issued [...]

Helen Epstein writes: America’s new drone base in the West African city of Niamey, Niger, announced by the White House on Friday, further expands our counter-terrorism activity in Africa. It’s also consistent with the militaristic emphasis of the Obama administration’s engagement with the continent. This may help contain the spread of jihadist violence in specific [...]

A federal court judge has ruled that President Obama does not need to reveal the legal grounds on which he claims he can make a unilateral and unreviewable decision to kill an American citizen. Last year Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. contrived the notion that a citizen’s constitutional right to due process can be [...]

Reuters reports: U.S. sales of warplanes, anti-missile systems and other costly weapons to China’s and North Korea’s neighbors appear set for significant growth amid regional security jitters. Strengthening treaty allies and other security partners is central to the White House’s “pivot” toward a Pacific region jolted by maritime territorial disputes in China’s case, and missile [...]

The New York Times reports: President Obama declared on Wednesday that he would make gun control a “central issue” as he opens his second term, promising to submit broad new firearm proposals to Congress no later than January and to employ the full power of his office to overcome deep-seated political resistance. Leading House Republicans [...]