How did the authorities learn about the suspected plot? ABC News reports:
Intelligence and law enforcement authorities in the US and Europe said the threat information is based on the interrogation of a suspected German terrorist allegedly captured on his way to Europe in late summer and now being held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
Was this suspected German terrorist arrested by the FBI or a parallel European police force? Was he Mirandized and given access to a lawyer? How’d he end up at Bagram? If there were no Bagram, where would he have ended up and under what authority?
These questions are not academic, but this is a “teachable moment.” Would we have gotten this potentially life-saving intelligence if our counter-terror policy were fully civilianized?