Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian citizen and alleged terrorist born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,commonly known as the 9/11 Commission,was set up on November 27,2002,to investigate all aspects of the September 11 attacks,the deadliest terrorist attack in world history. It was created by Congressional legislation,which charged it with preparing "a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks",including preparedness by the U.S. federal government for the attacks,the response following the attacks,and steps that can be taken to guard against a future terrorist attack.
Richard Alan Clarke is an American national security expert,novelist,and former government official. He served as the Counterterrorism Czar as the National Coordinator for Security,Infrastructure Protection,and Counter-Terrorism for the United States between 1998 and 2003.
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive,causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboarding,the captive's face is covered with cloth or some other thin material and immobilized on their back at an incline of 10 to 20 degrees. Torturers pour water onto the face over the breathing passages,causing an almost immediate gag reflex and creating a drowning sensation for the captive. Normally,water is poured intermittently to prevent death;however,if the water is poured uninterruptedly it will lead to death by asphyxia. Waterboarding can cause extreme pain,damage to lungs,brain damage from oxygen deprivation,other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints,and lasting psychological damage. Adverse physical effects can last for months,and psychological effects for years. The term "water board torture" appeared in press reports as early as 1976.
The Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the supervision of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
John Choon Yoo is a Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California,Berkeley. Yoo became known for his legal opinions concerning executive power,warrantless wiretapping,and the Geneva Conventions while serving in the George W. Bush administration,during which he was the author of the controversial "Torture Memos" in the War on Terror.
James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his termination in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adult life;however,in 2016,he described himself as unaffiliated.
Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States,in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism,refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. In this context,the U.S. government is maintaining torture centers,called black sites,operated by both known and secret intelligence agencies. Such black sites were later confirmed by reports from journalists,investigations,and from men who had been imprisoned and tortured there,and later released after being tortured until the CIA was comfortable they had done nothing wrong,and had nothing to hide.
John Dudley Hutson is a former United States Navy officer,attorney,and former Judge Advocate General of the Navy. He is a former dean and president of University of New Hampshire School of Law in Concord,New Hampshire,having served in the position from 2000 to 2010.
In February 2006,three men in Toledo,Ohio were arrested and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists in Iraq and engage in violent jihad in their home town,as well as making verbal threats against the President of the United States. The investigation was conducted by the FBI and the Toledo Joint Terrorism Task Force,with the cooperation of an informant called 'The Trainer' who has a U.S. military background in security. The Cleveland FBI Special Agent in Charge C. Frank Figliuzzi and the U.S. attorney's general office credited the local Muslim and Arab-American community for passing along the information that lead to the arrest of the three terror suspects.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Bagram,Guantanamo Bay,Abu Ghraib,and Bucharest—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating,binding in contorted stress positions,hooding,subjection to deafening noise,sleep disruption,sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination,deprivation of food,drink,and medical care for wounds,as well as waterboarding,walling,sexual humiliation,rape,sexual assault,subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold,and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures,to which he himself was subjected,were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration","rectal fluid resuscitation",and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees,there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children,and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
Criticism of the 9/11 Commission includes a variety of criticisms of the 9/11 Commission,the United States commission set up to investigate by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by then U.S. President George W. Bush to investigate the September 11,2001 attacks,the deadliest terrorist attack in world history.
Ali H. Soufan is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 New Yorker article described Soufan as coming closer than anyone to preventing the September 11 attacks and implied that he would have succeeded had the CIA been willing to share information with him. He resigned from the FBI in 2005 after publicly chastising the CIA for not sharing intelligence with him which could have prevented the attacks.
Erroll G. Southers is an American expert in transportation security and counterterrorism. He is the author of Homegrown Violent Extremism (2013). Southers is a Professor of the Practice in National &Homeland Security,the Director of Homegrown Violent Extremism Studies and the Director of the Safe Communities Institute at the University of Southern California (USC) Sol Price School of Public Policy. He is also the research area leader for Countering Violent Extremism at the DHS National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) and managing director,counter-terrorism &infrastructure protection at TAL Global Corporation. He was assistant chief of the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) police department's office of homeland security and intelligence. He is a former special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was deputy director of homeland security under California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2009 he was nominated by President Barack Obama to become head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA),but Southers withdrew.
The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) is a U.S. three-agency intelligence-gathering entity that brings together intelligence professionals from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),and the United States Department of Defense (DoD). It is administratively housed within the FBI's National Security Branch.
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee,head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency,the United States Department of Defense,and the President on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation,binding in stress positions,and waterboarding—and stated that such acts,widely regarded as torture,might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
A Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response team,sometimes Visible Intermodal Protection and Response (VIPR) is a Transportation Security Administration program. Various government sources have differing descriptions of VIPR's exact mission. It is specifically authorized by 6 U.S.C. § 1112 which says that the program is to "augment the security of any mode of transportation at any location within the United States". Authority for the program is under the Secretary of Homeland Security. The program falls under TSA's Office of Law Enforcement/Federal Air Marshal Service. TSA OLE/FAMS shares responsibility for the program with the Office of Security Operations and Transportation Sector Network Management.
Douglas Hofsass is a former Assistant Administrator in the United States Department of Homeland Security,assigned to the Transportation Security Administration. In addition to his role as the Assistant Administrator overseeing risk based security and trusted traveler programs,he also served as the Federal Security Director in New York City. As part of his responsibilities in New York City,he oversaw the first implementation of federal security operations under DHS at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport and the East 34th Street Heliport for commercial helicopter flights to John F Kennedy International Airport,Newark Liberty International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. Hofsass also held the posts of General Manager of Commercial Aviation and Deputy Assistant Administrator for Policy and Industry Engagement for the Transportation Security Administration. He was heavily involved in launching the TSA Pre-Check Program,and claimed a collaborative partnership with the US Customs Department and their Global Entry Program. Hofsass served at the Transportation Security Administration from 2002 until 2013,including several years working directly for Administrators John S. Pistole,Kip Hawley and Gale Rossides. Prior to his Federal executive service,Hofsass was with United Airlines management for nearly 10 years. Hofsass returned to the commercial aviation sector in 2013.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 9/11 Review Commission was formed by Congress in January 2014 to conduct a comprehensive review of the recommendations related to the FBI that were proposed by the original 9/11 Commission. The commission,which was publicly announced by Republican Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia,consisted of three congressionally appointed members supported by an executive director and staff.
