National Security

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In Guantanamo, Have We Created Something We Can't Close?

7:26pm May 11, 2013

by NPR Staff

The crisis at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp keeps growing in size and intensity. According to the military's own count, 100 of the 166 men held in the prison there are now on hunger strike. The strike has brought renewed attention to the issue of closing the prison, but some wonder if that's even possible.

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Benghazi Investigator Reacts To Criticism Of His Report

7:25pm May 10, 2013

Robert Siegel speaks with former top diplomat Thomas Pickering, who led the State Department's investigation into the September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Pickering's report was criticized by witnesses at this week's congressional oversight hearing about the administration's handling of the attacks.

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This 12-story building in Shanghai's northern suburb of Gaoqiao allegedly houses a Chinese military-led hacking group.

U.S. Turns Up Heat On Costly Commercial Cybertheft In China

1:04pm May 08, 2013

by Tom Gjelten

U.S. official displeasure has grown over the problem of Chinese cyber-espionage. The Obama administration has signaled that it will step up the investigation and prosecution of trade-secret theft and has not ruled out punitive measures.

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A model of a drone is hoisted in the air at a protest of the U.S. military's use of drones during a demonstration on April 3 in New York.

National

The Hidden Cost Of The Drone Program

4:02pm May 06, 2013

by NPR Staff

One expert says the administration is operating drones with a "kill-not-capture" policy, adding that you don't get intelligence from those killed. But there's also a human toll — from the pilots who remotely operate the drones to those people who live in the areas that are targeted.

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Gen. Antonio Indjai (left), Guinea-Bissau's army chief of staff, at the funeral of the country's late president, Malam Bacai Sanha, on Jan. 15, 2012. The U.S. says Indjai has been involved in drug trafficking, an allegation he denies. He recently eluded a

U.S. Faces Fight At Intersection Of Crime And Extremism

3:27pm May 06, 2013

by Tom Bowman

The Justice Department says about half of all international criminal organizations have links to extremist groups, such as Hezbollah, the Taliban and FARC rebels in Colombia. But diffuse priorities are hindering U.S. efforts to combat this growing problem of transnational, organized crime.

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Diplomacy, Sanctions And A Nearing Red Line With Iran

2:30pm May 03, 2013

Sanctions have hurt the Iranian economy, but have so far failed to convince Tehran to abandon nuclear ambitions. A report from the Iran Project argues that it's time to re-examine the balance of sanctions and diplomacy. Others argue it's time to consider military options.

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Employers using the E-Verify program are required to post an E-Verify Participation Poster, shown here in a handout photo. A Senate bill would make participation in the system, used to check employees' immigration status, mandatory for all employers.

National

Bill Would Put Immigration Verification System To The Test

5:27pm May 02, 2013

by Ted Robbins

The Senate's immigration bill would require all U.S. employers to use E-Verify, a federal database that checks a worker's immigration status instantly. While businesses have had difficulty using the system in the past, officials say its results are now accurate 98 percent of the time.

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National

Boston Bombing Investigators Cover A Lot Of Ground

10:51am May 01, 2013

Investigators in the Boston Marathon bombing case are still trying to determine whether the suspects — Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar — worked alone. DNA that appears to belong to a woman was found on a bomb.

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An Intimate Portrait Of The Tsarnaev Family

2:58pm April 30, 2013

As the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings continues, countless questions remain about the suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Washington Post senior editor Marc Fisher, discusses his in-depth profile of the Tsarnaevs and their journey to the U.S.

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National

FBI Criticized For Failing To 'Connect Dots' In Boston Case

4:47pm April 26, 2013

by Tom Gjelten

The failure of the FBI and the CIA to keep track of Tamerlan Dsarnaev in the months preceding the Boston Marathon bombing has prompted criticism that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials ignored important warning signs. The case is reminiscent of criticism leveled at counterterrorism officials after Army Maj. Nidal Hasan's shooting rampage at Fort Hood Texas in November 2009 and after the al-Qaida-directed attempt to blow up a civilian airliner on Christmas Day of that year. In both cases, counterterrorism officials subsequently acknowledged that mistakes had been made. Whether authorities missed important evidence of Dsarnaev's intentions, however, is far less clear. Veteran intelligence officers say resource and legal constraints make it very difficult to follow suspicious individuals closely unless their behavior is genuinely alarming.

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