NPR and other news outlets are reporting that the U.S. believes Osama bin Laden's 20-something year old son, Saad bin Laden, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan.

It's believed he was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone sometime this year. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official tells NPR that without a body to conduct DNA tests on, it's hard to be completely sure. But he characterized U.S. spy agencies as being "80 to 85 percent" certain that Saad bin Laden is dead.

The airstrike was months ago. Why are we just hearing this now? Also,

The U.S. counterterrorism official says Saad bin Laden wasn't important enough to target personally — that he was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The Wall St. Journal reports today that President Obama may be considering a big change in the way the U.S. interrogates high-value detainees.

The Obama administration is considering overhauling the way terror suspects are interrogated by creating a small team of professionals drawn from across the government, according to people familiar with a proposal that will be submitted to the White House.

The new unit, comprising members of spy services and law-enforcement agencies, would be used for so-called high-value detainees, they said. In a switch from Bush-era efforts, it wouldn't be run by the Central Intelligence Agency, though who might be in charge isn't specified.

Among the expected changes: [More...]

John Yoo defends himself against malpractice allegations in the Inspector General report on warrantless electronic surveillance in an op-ed today's Wall St. Journal, Why We Endorsed Warrantless Wiretaps. He says the IG report " ignores history and plays politics with the law."

Anonymous Liberal breaks it down and says Yoo is not being truthful. (h/t to Peter Daou's tweet.)

It turns out the classified CIA program that Leon Pannetta disclosed last week which had been ordered kept from Congress by Dick Cheney had to do with hit squads on al-Qaida.

Today's news is the House is laying groundwork for hearings.

The House Intelligence Committee has asked the CIA to provide documents about the now-canceled program to kill al-Qaida leaders, congressional officials said Tuesday. The agency spent at least $1 million on the eight-year program before it was terminated last month, one congressional official said. Intelligence officials say the operation never progressed beyond a planning stage.

The C.I.A. says it will cooperate with the House. [More...]

The ACLU hits the highlights of the Inspector General's unclassified report (pdf) on the Bush administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program.

• The White House asked the CIA to prepare independent “threat assessments” to determine whether the surveillance program was necessary, but then told the CIA to add a paragraph to the end of each threat assessment stating that terrorists possessed the intent and capability to stage terrorist attacks within the United States (p. 7);

• Many officials, agents and analysts believe that “most PSP (Presidential Surveillance Program) leads were determined not to have any connection to terrorism,” and that “the mere possibility of the leads producing useful information” justified the program (p. 32), directly contradicting previous statements that the program was critical;

[More...]

As a follow-up yesterday's post on the Newsweek article suggesting Attorney General Eric Holder may conduct an investigation of Bush torture policies, I'd like to point you to Glenn Greenwald today. He points out that the sources floating this trial balloon also indicate:

[T]he investigation will only target "rogue" CIA interrogators who exceeded the limits of what John Yoo authorized, and would not include high-level policy makers who authorized the torture tactics and implemented America's torture regime.

In other words, as Greenwald writes, it would be Abu Ghraib redux. Tim F. at Balloon Juice makes a similar point.

The New York Times reports on a covert program planned by the CIA that Dick Cheney ordered be kept secret.

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

....Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

[More...]

Newsweek has a long feature article on Attorney General Eric Holder.

Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter.

[More...]

The Washington Post reports on the release of the Unclassified Inspector General report on warrantless wiretapping (and other forms of electronic surveillance). [The unclassified report is here.(pdf)]

Today's report, prepared by five inspectors general from government intelligence agencies, was mandated by Congress in legislation last year that updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to accommodate new technologies. The bulk of the review remains highly classified.

...The inspectors general from the Departments of Justice and Defense, as well as the CIA, the NSA and the office of the Director of National Intelligence, said they reviewed thousands of documents and interviewed more than 200 people in connection with the report, including Bush era officials John Negroponte, who served as director of national intelligence, National Security Agency Director Michael V. Hayden, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

[More...]

In its article today on President Obama's consideration of an executive order authorizing indefinite detention of terror suspects without charges or trial, The Washington Post quotes an unnamed Adminsitration official as saying:

"Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order," the official said. Such an order could be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should be prosecuted or released.

The civil liberties groups I'm familiar with have all issued unequivocal opposition to indefinite detention. [More...]

Richard Falkenrath, head of NYPD's terrorism squad is truly clueless...and spreading fear-engendering disinformation.

Falkenrath is arguing against trying terrorism suspects in U.S. courts. Who is this guy? A former senior domestic security official in the Bush administration.

Falkenrath Complaint Item #1: The cases will eat up valuable federal court resources. Does it not occur to him that the answer is to reserve the federal courts for serious federal crimes and take drug crimes and other cases that can be equally tried in state courts to them? We have over-criminalized the federal courts for the past few decades. Tell Congress to stop passing laws that put these offenders in the federal system. And tell the DOJ to decline prosecution in favor of state courts. Problem solved. [More...]

Sen. Russ Feingold has written this letter (pdf)to President Obama, calling upon him to renounce the warrantless wiretapping. It begins:

I am writing to reiterate my request for you to formally and promptly renounce the assertions of executive authority made by the Bush Administration with regard to warrantless wiretapping. As a United States Senator, you stated clearly and correctly that the warrantless wiretapping program was illegal. Your Attorney General expressed the same view, both as a private citizen and at his confirmation hearing. It is my hope that you will formally confirm this position as president... [More...]