By Larry Shaughnessy
Fort Hood massacre suspect Army Maj. Nidal Hasan argues that he sought to protect Taliban leaders during a shooting rampage at the sprawling Texas military base that killed 13 people.
Representing himself against murder charges, Hasan explained his "defense of others" strategy at a pre-trial hearing on Tuesday without offering details, according to a statement from the military base.
That prompted the military judge overseeing the long-delayed court-martial to give him a day to present any facts to underpin his case, the statement said.
Editors Note: Jane Harman is director, president and chief executive officer of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She was a nine-term congresswoman from California, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee from 2002 to 2006, and a principal coauthor of the Intelligence Reform Law of 2004 and the FISA Amendments of 2008.
By Jane Harman, Special to CNN
Many disagree with Sen. Rand Paul on many issues, but he is spot-on about the need for a crystal clear framework regarding the domestic and international use of drones.
Inside the United States, without exception, an American suspected of plotting a terror attack should never be targeted by an armed drone. Period.
Rand Paul was right to end the 13-hour filibuster after getting a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder that provided modest clarification about presidential authority over drone use in the United States.
"Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" Mr. Holder wrote. "The answer to that question is no."
Still, the letter left more questions unanswered than answered. Indeed, a simple "no" is hardly reassuring when the policy it supports is not clear.
Time is running out: unless Congress acts by March first - $85 billion in massive spending cuts will kick in automatically. Two million federal workers face furloughs.
But one way or another the impact may be felt by most Americans.
The White House warns that 10-thousand teacher jobs would be at risk and 70-thousand children could be removed from Head Start.
The cuts would hit during tax season - meaning millions of taxpayers would have an even tougher time getting answers from the IRS.
CNN's Chris Lawrence has been looking at other areas where you may feel the sting.
By Pam Benson
Some of the nation's biggest banks are at risk of a massive cyber attack next year that could potentially siphon funds from unsuspecting customers, according to a leading digital security firm.
The fraud campaign, known as Project Blitzkrieg, is a credible threat, the Internet security firm McAfee Labs concluded in a new report.
The malware has been lying dormant in U.S. financial systems and is scheduled to go active by the spring of 2013, McAfee researchers concluded.
The project "appears to be moving forward as planned," the report states.
People familiar with the study said some 30 financial institutions are targets of the campaign.
By Greg Seaby and Carol Cratty
Misconduct with prostitutes by U.S. Secret Service agents handling travel security for the president in April was not a one-off episode, according to a media report citing an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, issued a statement Friday complaining about unfair "selective leaks" and said he will wait for the final report "before making any judgments."
The Homeland Security inspector general's results "contradict" previous testimony before Congress by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan about the incident during President Obama's trip to Colombia to attend the Summit of the Americas, ABC News reported Thursday.
But a Secret Service official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN on Thursday that Sullivan's statements in a hearing in May had been "truthful."
FULL STORYCNN's Suzanne Kelly reports on a scathing report from a Senate Homeland Security Sub-committee which is critical of the way fusion centers–the post 9/11 groups set up to share information among local, state and federal law enforcement–operate.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano acknowledged Friday her Luddite-like ways, despite the fact her position puts her in a critical leadership role when it comes to defending the nation's infrastructure from cyberattacks.
Napolitano said she does not use email "at all."
"For a whole host of reasons. So, I don't have any of my own accounts and that, you know, I'm very secure," Napolitano noted at a Washington conference about cyber security.
"Some would call me a Luddite but you know. But that's my own personal choice and I'm very unique in that regard I suspect," Napolitano added.
The Obama administration has been pushing Congress to revisit legislation that would have given DHS authority to enforce security standards. Legislation faltered earlier this year over concerns that it was too intrusive in requiring business to share data about intrusions, rather than it being voluntary.
In the meantime, an executive order is being drafted by the Obama administration that would help clarify security standards, Napolitano said. She said President Barack Obama has not reviewed it yet.
Napolitano said legislation would not dictate to companies how to run their security but rather would be a public-private partnerships to defend critical infrastructure.
The website WikiLeaks has posted emails stolen from a private security company that detail a surveillance system originally intended to help counter terrorism.
According to those WikiLeaks emails, 'TrapWire' is a program that was originally intended to provide law enforcement with information about suspicious activity captured by surveillance cameras in U.S. cities in an effort to help connect the dots and prevent a terrorist attack. But as Suzanne Kelly reports, it turns out that while this system may not be all that widely used, the notion of being watched around the clock isn't such a stretch.
By Suzanne Kelly
CNN Intelligence Correspondent
A new study being released by a private Internet security company highlights cyberworld weaknesses when it comes to gathering intelligence on hackers and suggests that businesses take a more military-minded approach to defense.
The cybersecurity company CounterTack polled 100 information security executives at companies with revenues greater than $100 million. Nearly half of the respondents said their organization had been the victim of a targeted cyberattack within the past year.
Some 80% of those polled believe that taking a more military-minded approach to the cyberwar could benefit business, according to CounterTack CEO Neal Creighton, whose firm released the poll Monday. For Creighton, that means incorporating more military-style intelligence gathering into companies' cyberworld defenses. FULL POST
By Suzanne Kelly
President Barack Obama is considering whether to issue an executive order to fill a gap in the country's cybersecurity defenses after Congress failed to move forward cybersecurity legislation last week.
Homeland Security adviser John Brennan said failure to pass legislation that would grant the government more authority in heading off cyber intrusions and attacks, has left a gap that the executive branch is working to fill on an interagency basis, using the resources of the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency and the FBI.
"Executive Orders are a good vehicle to actually direct the departments and agencies to do some certain things to make sure that the nation is protected," Brennan said during a question and answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "We can't wait, so we're doing things, DHS in conjunction with NSA, FBI, others are working to make sure that we are able to better safeguard our environment but also be able to respond but also be able to be resilient."
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