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Tag: Terrorism & Security

The Takeaway

Presidential Leadership and the Origins of the "Kill List"

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The "Kill List": It's the President's shifting roster of names of high-profile targets. If you're a suspected terrorist, it could be the last list your name appears on before the US government ends your life. The Obama administration appears to be the first presidential administration to keep such a list.  What does the president's hands-on role in monitoring this list says about his leadership style?

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The Leonard Lopate Show

The Art of Intelligence

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Henry Crumpton discusses leading the CIA's global covert operations against terrorists, including al Qaeda. His book The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service, details how the campaign changed the way America wages war.

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The Leonard Lopate Show

The Hunt for KSM

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Josh Meyer and Terry McDermott give an account of the decade-long pursuit and capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Their book The Hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind tells the story of the 18 months between the 9/11 attacks and the capture the actual mastermind of the attacks, the man behind bin Laden himself.

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WNYC News Blog

NYPD Increases Passover Security Following Overseas Attacks Against Jewish Targets

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

After two recent terrorism incidents against Jewish targets overseas, the New York City police department says it is approaching the Passover holiday this year with heightened awareness.

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The Leonard Lopate Show

The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Journalist Ahmed Rashid examines the complicated relationship between the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan as America prepares for its withdraw from Afghanistan. In Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, he investigates the future of international terrorism, the Taliban, and strategies to bring stability to a fractured region saddled with a legacy of violence and corruption.

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The Takeaway

Eric Holder: US Can Target Citizens Overseas

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Attorney General Eric Holder outlined the United States’ legal defense of using lethal force against U.S. citizens overseas if that citizen is posing a terrorist threat. Holder’s speech, delivered Monday afternoon at Northwestern University, argued in part that the U.S. Constitution’s definition of due process defends the use of lethal force, even without the written consent of the president.

Until now, no legal defense was given for the U.S. mission in Yemen which killed al-Qaeda’s leading figure Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki, who was born in the US, was the radical cleric who successfully took al-Qaeda’s message to YouTube.

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The Takeaway

The End of the US-Pakistan Security Partnership?

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Since a NATO airstrike on November 26 accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two military check points along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the United States has had a difficult time maintaining its already strained relationship with Pakistan. "We’ve closed the chapter on the post-9/11 period," an anonymous senior United States official was quoted telling The New York Times. "Pakistan has told us very clearly that they are re-evaluating the entire relationship." 

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The Leonard Lopate Show

Backstory: Omar Khadr & Guantanamo

Thursday, September 29, 2011

In July 2002, 15-year-old Omar Khadr was picked up in Afghanistan by U.S. forces and accused of killing an American soldier with a hand grenade. Although he is a Canadian citizen, Kadhr remains in the U.S. Prison at Guantanamo Bay and is the only Westerner still held there. Filmmakers Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez talk about about their documentary "You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo," which includes excerpts from Khadr’s 2003 videotaped interrogation by Canadian intelligence officers. “You Don’t Like the Truth” is currently playing at Film Forum through October 4. 

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WNYC News

NYPD Can Take Down Small Planes: Kelly

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly clarified a statement he made that the NYPD could shoot down a plane, adding the department only had the ability to shoot down small planes, like crop dusters.

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The Leonard Lopate Show

Fawaz Gerges on the Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda

Friday, September 16, 2011

Fawaz Gerges gives a history of al-Qaeda, showing its emergence from the disintegrating local jihadist movements of the mid-1990s-not just the Afghan resistance of the 1980s. In The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, he reveals that transnational jihad has attracted only a small minority within the Arab world and possesses no viable social and popular base. He also describes how the democratic revolutions that swept the Middle East in early 2011 show that al-Qaeda has no influence over Arabs' political life. Gerges argues that the West has become trapped in a "terrorism narrative," but that Al-Qaeda is no longer a serious threat.

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The Leonard Lopate Show

Dana Priest on Top Secret America

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Award-winning reporter Dana Priest investigates the top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State, she writes that it has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or exactly how many agencies duplicate work being done elsewhere. The system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger.

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The Brian Lehrer Show

Homegrown Terror Hearings

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at NYU, discusses the hearings, being held right now by NY Rep. Peter King, which address the national security threat of homegrown terror and the radicalization of Muslim Americans. 

→Watch and chat about the hearings at It's a Free Country.

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The Takeaway

After The Takeaway: John Hockenberry Reacts to the Oslo Terror Attacks

Monday, July 25, 2011

The Takeaway’s co-host John Hockenberry reacts to today’s discussion of the Oslo terrorist attacks that took place on Friday. With nearly one hundred dead and the same number injured, Hockenberry questions the role of the internet in either fueling or deflating the hunger for violence in extremists such as Anders Behring Breivik, the confessed-suspect of the attacks. Does the passivity of the internet allow extremists to follow an easier path to violence? Hockenberry discusses this and freedom of assembly and expression in the digital age.

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The Takeaway

Norway Suspect Wanted to Wear Outfit, Deliver Public Message in Court

Monday, July 25, 2011

Today's arraignment of Anders Behring Breivik, the already-confessed suspect in terror attacks that left nearly 100 people dead across Norway on Friday, was closed to the press. So too will be Breivik's trial, a judge has ruled, preventing the Christian fundamentalist and apparent right-wing extremist who wanted to "defend Europe" from Muslim immigration and liberal governmental policies from wearing an outfit reportedly bearing a crusader's cross. 

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The Takeaway

Norway Attacks Spotlight Europe’s Extremists

Monday, July 25, 2011

As Europe struggles with issues of integration and assimilation, Norway’s attacks have exposed the danger of the continent's right-wing extremists. The suspect’s tirades against multiculturalism and Islam come at a time when governments across the continent work to ease immigration and cultural differences. The country must now face the prospect of more violence.

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The Takeaway

Your Take: The Challenges of Multiculturalism in The U.S. and Abroad

Monday, July 25, 2011

In the wake of twin terror attacks in Norway — apparently carried out by one Christian fundamentalist man who targeted liberal policies on immigration and Muslims — we've been asking you: What are the challenges of increasing multiculturalism in the U.S., and how do those challenges impact your life? Today we listen to and read your responses, as well as hear audio from one of the survivors of the attacks. 

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The Takeaway

After Oslo Attack, Challenges of Multiculturalism Brought to Light

Monday, July 25, 2011

The country of Norway observed a period of silence this morning for the victims of the attacks that took place on Friday. Anders Behring Breivik, an apparent right-wing extremist and Christian fundamentalist, is being held after apparently targeting Norway's government institutions for their liberal policies toward immigration. The combined death toll from the bombing in Oslo and shooting on the island of Utoya now stands at 93, with 97 injured. 

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The Leonard Lopate Show

Underreported, Part II: Concerns about Terrorism Delay US Aid to Somalia

Thursday, July 21, 2011

More than 2.5 million Somalis are now in desperate need of food, but it wasn’t until late Wednesday that the State Department announced that it would send food aid to the country. The reason? Concerns that sending food aid would be aiding al-Shabab, which controls parts of southern Somalia and which the United States views as a terrorist organization. On today’s Underreported, Eliza Griswold, Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of The Tenth Parallel, describes why the State Department was concerned that al-Shabab would use the food as a weapon and the challenges of providing food aid to areas where aid workers were banned until quite recently.

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The Leonard Lopate Show

The Eleventh Day

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan explain the circumstances of 9/11 by examining not only the sequence of events leading up to the disaster and the persons involved, but also the response of the U.S. government on that day and the efforts of U.S. intelligence immediately before and after the attack. Their book The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden draws on previously classified records and raw transcripts, investigates the response of President Bush and the U.S. military that day, and examines the failure to intercept the hijacked airliners. They document the untruths told afterward by U.S. officials and examine the “9/11 truth” movement, and look at where we stand now, ten years later.

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The Takeaway

US to Try Somali Terror Suspect in Civilian Court

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that it will prosecute a Somali man accused of having ties to two terrorist groups in a civilian court.

The man, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame was charged with nine counts related to accusations that he provided support to the Shabab in Somalia and Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. Though he is reported to be in his mid-20s and has not been charged with plotting any specific attacks, the Justice Department has called Warsame a "Shabab leader."

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