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Search: self-defense

08 Nov

News involving Saddam to report: Saddam’s principal defense attorney, Khalil Duleimi, has accused the U.S. military of confining the defense team in the Green Zone since the verdict was announced, preventing them from returning to Amman. Dulemi believes that their confinement represents a deliberate attempt on the part of the military to deprive them of access to the media and human-rights organizations. Saddam’s defense team is also demanding that the IHT investigate last month’s ransacking of their office in the Green Zone. Intruders damaged and stole dozens of documents. Unless...
08.11.06 | |

02 Apr

...the earliest stage of development. The mission of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is “to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security.” It has a strong track record of doing so, having developed prototype stealth technology, miniaturized GPS devices, the micro-electro-mechanical systems which are now used in everything from air bags to video games, the technology that allows for voice-based interaction with handheld devices, and the digital protocols that enabled the Internet. It arguably has “the longest-standing, most consistent track record of radical invention in...
02.04.24 | |

17 Dec

Steve testified yesterday about WikiLeaks in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Here is a snippet of his testimony, which discussed five major flaws in the Espionage Act: Second, the Espionage Act does not focus solely on the initial party who wrongfully discloses national defense information, but applies, in its terms, to anyone who knowingly disseminates, distributes, or even retains national defense information without immediately returning the material to the government officer authorized to possess it. In other words, the text of the Act draws no distinction between the leaker,...
17.12.10 | |

01 Apr

AI or more traditional process automation components.  There are other important risk evaluation parameters to consider when assigning AI-enabled weapon systems to the unacceptable, high, or medium risk categories. These include whether the system is platform-centric (entirely self-contained), network-centric (the final engagement decision is made at a node external to the platform itself), or part of an intelligent swarm; lethality (non-lethal or lethal); level of autonomy (remotely controlled, semi-autonomous, fully autonomous, or fully autonomous and capable of online learning); intent (primarily offensive or defensive); reversibility (reversible or irreversible effects); and...
01.04.24 | |

03 Dec

...diplomats may respond to WikiLeaks’ disclosures by self-censoring and by avoiding written communications. But it is difficult to believe that WikiLeaks will have any significant or lasting effect on the US’s ability to engage in diplomacy with friendly or unfriendly governments; after all, this is hardly the first time in U.S. history that diplomatic secrets have been disclosed. Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense, said it best a couple of days ago: Let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government...
03.12.10 | |

01 Nov

...Judy Garland), in violation of Nazi racial purity laws. When the prosecutor (played by Richard Widmark) introduces the footage of the Nazi death camps, it prompts an emotional and eloquent objection from Janning’s defense counsel (played by Maximillian Schell, who won a best actor Oscar for his performance). Janning accuses the prosecution of trying to implicate Janning—and by necessity, the German people as a whole—in the full horrors of the Holocaust without any evidence connecting them to the mass exterminations. That the film gives such an important role to defense...
01.11.23 | |

19 Jan

Samuel Morison, Appellate Defense Counsel with the Office of the Chief Defense Counsel, Department of Defense, has posted a superb new esssay on SSRN entitled “Accepting Sosa‘s Invitation: Did Congress Expand the Subject Matter Jurisdiction of the ATS in the Military Commissions Act?” Here is the abstract: The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) provides a federal forum for aliens to seek tort damages for certain violations of customary international law, including war crimes. In Sosa, the Supreme Court admonished the lower courts to exercise caution when creating new causes of action...
19.01.12 | |

30 Nov

...— Saddam’s former Defense Minister — secretly assisted Kurdish efforts to overthrow Saddam: “Personally, I will not support executing Sultan Hashim,” he said at a news conference in Sulaimaniyah, a city in the autonomous Kurdish region 160 miles northeast of Baghdad. “If the court will carry out its verdicts without referring them to the presidency council that is something else,” he said. “But if they will refer them, then we will register reservations these verdicts.” He said the reservations would include executing former Iraqi army officers because many of them...
30.11.07 | |

20 Mar

Indian defense ministry’s annual air show. Do you: (a) buy expensive gifts for New Delhi’s generals; (b) treat the press to Kingfishers and samosas; (c) produce a Bollywood-esque video featuring bare-midriff girls, flower-draped missiles, and the catch phrase “dinga dinga dee?” Unfortunately for us, Israeli arms-maker Rafael chose C. Which means we may have just found the most atrocious defense video of all time… I don’t know if there’s a real substantive point here. Who am I fooling? I don’t have a substantive point here. Just check out the video....
20.03.09 | |

23 Apr

conform to a demanding application of constitutional law and international law.” The bottom line is that I am not fully in a position to judge, but neither really are those students who chose to express their views as they did, nor are the academics who were asked and chose to sign the petition. Petitions that purport to know what is unknowable and not in the public domain are neither good individual defenses, nor are they robust defenses that advance the protection of human rights in the United States or elsewhere....
23.04.15 | |

12 May

...Statute. The Office of the Prosecutor should not have to go to great pains to convince the Chamber to reject the Defense request. Although a Chamber may refer facts to the Prosecutor, the choice of whether and how to proceed, including what safeguards against possible conflicts of interests to put in place, is clearly hers. Specifically, pursuant to article 41(2) of the Statute, the Office shall act independently, and neither solicit, nor accept instructions from any external source. However, the Ruto Defense may reconsider the relief sought and ask the...
12.05.16 | |