Snowden
Petraeus reaches plea deal with Justice Department
Petraeus reaches plea deal with Justice Department
Kevin Johnson and Tom Vanden Brook, reporting for USA Today:
The explosive details in the agreement show that Petraeus lied to investigators, divulged a massive amount of sensitive data to Paula Broadwell and worried about how she handled them in an interview she taped with him.
Those who want former NSA analyst Edward Snowden’s head on a plate for disseminating classified information based on his ideals, with which you may or may not agree, and then admitting it, must be really angry at former CIA director General David Petraeus for disseminating classified information to his mistress and then lying about it to FBI agents.
Right?
Judges are, and aren't, competent to rule on intelligence issues
Judges are, and aren’t, competent to rule on intelligence issues
Lots to parse on this one, although it looks like a new chapter in the “Surveillance Wars” Edward Snowden started with his leaks.
Two choice quotes really stood out to me in this article, though, especially because they are in sequence:
Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of both NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency, said […] judges “are not really in a good position to judge the merits of intelligence collection programs.”
That’s funny, because the very next paragraph cites consistent judicial approval of the program as a defense to its continued use:
An Obama administration official said that on 35 occasions in the past, 15 separate judges assigned to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court had declared bulk communications of telephone metadata lawful.
Which one is it? Well, as usual with the law, it’s probably both. Judges are human too, despite what some litigators may say, and their job is to decide.
Whether that decision is sufficiently informed in every case is up for debate, but if the former head of the NSA and the CIA doesn’t think judges are well-equipped to render decisions on intelligence collection programs, it’s curious the Obama administration would rely on that judgment in defending the collection programs.
Perhaps the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) should be amended to mandate an intelligence background for all judges appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance panel.
As it stands now, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court can quite literally appoint whomever he wants to the FISA court, whether they have any experience in intelligence or not.
How intelligent is that?
NYT managing editor: Guardian story on Israel and N.S.A. Is Not 'Surprising' Enough to Cover
NYT managing editor: Guardian story on Israel and N.S.A. Is Not ‘Surprising’ Enough to Cover
New York Times news editor Dean Baquet suffered a serious lapse in editorial judgment. I mean, he can’t be serious, can he?