German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed outrage at reports that the American National Security Agency allegedly intercepted conversations to and from her mobile cell phone. This comes on the heels of a similar claim from France that the National Security Agency collected tens of thousands of French phone records between December 2012 and January 2013.

The Chancellor argued that such spying constitutes a breach of trust, and that the United States will need to rebuild that trust going forward. The revelation about National Security Agency surveillance is merely the latest in a string of similar stories since former U.S. analyst Edward Snowden leaked that the United States had a very wide-ranging intelligence and surveillance program.

In light of the incident, the German Chancellor suggested limiting the current data-sharing agreement in place between Washington and the nations of the European Union. The article points out that any additional limitations on the free flow of information between the United States and its European allies could have damaging repercussions in the American effort to combat terrorism.

This revelation might prompt the European Union to additionally tighten data privacy rules it is already in the process of drafting. Such new legislation might hinder companies collecting data in Europe and then disseminating that information to non-European nations. The legislation might also impose stiff financial penalties on any country caught violating the new rules.

Any new laws would also affect a program called Swift, based in Europe, which collects data on an international scale about electronic money transfers. Leaks by Edward Snowden indicate that the United States may bee repeatedly violating the agreement underlying the Swift program by retrieving more information than it is permitted to. The article does not indicate whether this suggests the United States pulls more data, or rather collects data about an impermissible range of subjects. The European Union has moved to suspend operation of the program until data sharing laws and policies can be put in place, while the United States has voiced concern that limiting access to the information collected by the program would greatly impede our ability to conduct effective counter-terrorism.

The article ends with a quote from the former head of France’s secret services, Bernard Squarcini, “I’m bewildered by such worrying naiveté. You’d think the politicians don’t read the reports they’re sent – there shouldn’t be any surprise, [t]he agencies know perfectly well that every country, even when they cooperate on anti-terrorism, spies on its allies. The Americans spy on us on the commercial and industrial level like we spy on them, because it’s in the national interest to defend our businesses. No one is fooled.”

This article deals with the moral and legal gray area that is the use of intelligence directed against international allies. In the absence of any binding agreements prohibiting it, should the United States continue gathering secret information about its allies? Should international law reflect a belief that allies are prohibited from spying on each other? Despite the international backlash, are there policy reasons why it might be beneficial to allow allies to spy on each other without explicit knowledge or consent?

Obama Administration Questioning Suspected Terrorists On Ships Rather Than CIA ‘Black’ Sites

This article discusses the Obama Administration’s emerging trend of detaining and questioning suspected terrorists aboard United States vessels at sea. This approach is the current administration’s response to George W. Bush’s reliance on Guantanamo and other “black sites” as locations for prolonged detention.

Bush’s policy engendered a great deal of controversy on political, legal and moral grounds, as United States citizens dealt with the reality that the federal government was detaining individuals far outside the reach of constitutional due process and typical criminal law procedures.

As part of his campaign platform, Obama insisted that Guantanamo Bay would be closed down, and that his administration was committed to prosecuting suspected terrorists within the currently established boundaries of criminal law and procedure.

While this is clearly a laudable goal from a civil liberties perspective, Obama’s administration has run into difficulty because their civil liberties approach is not the most efficient method of waging the War on Terror and protecting national security interests.

The United States population is generally familiar with the concept of Miranda Rights: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you…” and so on. The reality of the situation is that a suspected terrorist who is “Mirandized” is less likely to talk in order to minimize the government’s criminal case. Inevitably, this lack of information hurts the operators in the national security arena because they must protect national interests with less intelligence than if suspected terrorists were forced or encouraged to give up their information.

The administration’s solution to resolving the tension between these two objectives has been to detain suspects on at-sea vessels, classifying them as enemy combatants under the laws of war and the Laws of Armed Conflict while subjecting them to interrogation for valuable intelligence. Once this phase is completed, these suspected terrorists are re-questioned in accordance with constitutional criminal procedure so that the government can build a case against them for civil prosecution; any information given by the suspect before being read their rights is inadmissible in a court of law.

While the Obama Administration’s position is understandable, their solution is not all that distinguishable from the Bush Administration’s approach. Under both approaches, individuals suspected of terrorist activities are detained in an adversarial location and subjected to various “interview” techniques in the hope of gathering national security information.

It is easy to consider that the Obama approach might be more about satisfying the popular conscience than providing meaningful civil liberty protection.

Does the Obama Administration’s approach do a meaningful job of protecting the civil liberties of individuals suspected of terrorist activity? Is the population concerned with the civil rights of non-American citizens accused of suspected terrorist activity? Is there are more effective or efficient way of resolving the tensions between civil rights and the need for the best intelligence for the national security establishment?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/obama-terrorists-ships_n_4063003.html?ir=World&ref=topbar