Scott Shane

Heidi Beirich, director of research at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and New York Times reporter, Scott Shane, walk us through items from the Oslo suspect's manifesto - specifically the references to American bloggers and writers who have warned about the threat from Islam for years now.

With the death of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida is now calling on all its followers to prepare do-it-yourself plans of attack against America. And it’s a sharp contrast to the strategy taken on by bin Laden, which focused on long-term planning for one big attack on U.S. soil. This message from the terror network’s online presence is just among the first signs that a change in leadership will also mean a change in strategy. And it seems that without a prominent candidate, the future of the organization is in limbo. We talk with Scott Shane, national security reporter for The New York Times who broke this story for the paper.

After poring over documents and hard drives taken out of the compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden was killed, intelligence analysts have surmised that the al-Qaida leader was consistently in touch with the terrorist network he helped create, and still intimately involved in plotting more attacks. A story in The New York Times details the data found and C.I.A. surveillance conducted before the mission to take out bin Laden was completed. We're joined by Scott Shane, a New York Times reporter who worked on the story. 

There is growing debate among Democrats and Republicans over which president's tactic helped find and kill Osama bin Laden. Was it the harsh interrogation techniques under the Bush administration, that included waterboarding and sleep deprivation of detained al-Qaida members? Or was it old fashioned surveillance and intelligence gathering methods that got bin Laden? Scott Shane, national security reporter for The New York Times says that until all the documents are declassified, it may be difficult to know.

The New York Times obtained a trove of more than 700 classified documents holding new information about the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. The documents show that most of the 172 prisoners who remain locked up at Guantanamo are “high risk” and pose a threat to our national security if released without proper rehabilitation. But more alarmingly, the documents reveal that nearly 200 of the 600 detainees already released were also rated high risk. Also, surprisingly, one of the prisoners who was released is now fighting with the rebels in Libya. Scott Shane, reporter for The New York Times helps analyze the documents.

Egypt's autocratic leader, Hosni Mubarak announced his plans to remain president of Egypt, yet, more and more voices begin to consolidate power both inside the government, and outside its walls. Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei tweeted out, "Egypt will explode. Army must save country now," in response to Mubarak. Furthermore, some reports suggest Egypt's Army is deeply divided over how to deal with Mubarak. The question now is, how much longer can Mubarak count on the military’s support? 

WikiLeaks struck again this weekend, this time releasing a trove of over 250,000 documents containing cable messages between international diplomats. The New York Times and four other major international newspapers received the documents from WikiLeaks early, and agreed to publish their reports today. The confidential messages are plentiful and far-reaching, and reveal the tangled workings of diplomats behind the scenes as they relay messages about a potentially-nuclear Iran, contingency plans for North Korea and various coordinated efforts in the Middle East.

Can the U.S. government or its agents kill an American citizen even if he is a non-combatant? Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim Cleric born in America and hiding in Yemen, has called for a Jihad against America and is clearly inciting violence against his native land. But as his own father will argue in front of a federal judge today, that may not mean he should be marked for death or capture by the C.I.A.. The law suit, filed in Washington by two human rights organizations on behalf of al-Awlaki's father, argues that the U.S. government shouldn't be allowed to kill an American citizen who isn't on the battlefield without a judicial review.

 

 

Alleged Russian spies were arrested in the NYC area. 

The FBI announced yesterday the arrests of 11 people associated with an alleged Russian spy ring. The arrests were made on Sunday in Massachusetts, Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Details coming out of the FBI reports read like a Russian spy novel — if not stranger.  Authorities worked for at least seven years to gather information about the suspects, who were all charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and failing to register as guests of a foreign government. The maximum sentences for these crimes are five to 20 years.

The Pentagon is searching for Julian Assange, founder of the website Wikileaks, amidst concerns that the site could publish thousands of international cables from the State Department. The cables are allegedly part of a larger package of material given to Wikileaks by 22-year-old Army Specialist Bradley Manning. In late May police arrested Manning, an intelligence analyst in Iraq, accusing him of downloading confidential material from computers on his base and posting it to WikiLeaks.

We speak with Scott Shane, the National Security reporter for The New York Times. He says that while President Obama's administration was elected on a campaign of government transparency, it is actually following a doctrine of extreme media secrecy. Shane says Obama has, in two years, prosecuted more information-leakers than any other president in history.

The question everybody is asking this week has been, who is 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad, the man held and accused of placing a car bomb in New York's Times Square over the weekend? After two days of intense interrogation efforts, news continues to trickle in about the motives and connections behind the attempted attack.

Details are still trickling out on how the alleged Christmas Day 'bomber' managed to board a Detroit-bound plane despite several intelligence agencies having some information on him. ...

Over the weekend, federal authorities charged a 23-year-old Nigerian man with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. That man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, claims ...

National Security Takeout: New York Times National Security Reporter Scott Shane talks about five Muslim-American men being detained in Pakistan on possible connections to terrorism...

At a memorial for victims of the Fort Hood shootings, President Obama said the killer will "be met with justice in this world and the next." We focus on the legal challenges for the a...

New details are emerging in the case of the suspected Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who shot and killed 13 people and wounded 29 others during a shoo...

The war in Afghanistan continues to drag on, and the Obama administration is waiting for the country's presidential election runoff before deciding whether to send additional troops t...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke out on Fox News yesterday against the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the alleged abuse of prisoners by CIA interrogato...

Attorney General Eric Holder will appoint federal prosecutor John Durham to investigate alleged prisoner abuses at CIA prisons during the Bush administration.  Durham has a long reput...