Posts Tagged ‘Politics’

 

Presidential candidates split over telecom immunity

The Senate has voted to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that assisted the government with electronic surveillance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Here’s the roll call of votes. The immunity amendment is part of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bill to modify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The three senators running for president split […]

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RNC goes Daisy

The Republican National Committee has a new ad warning that Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama are playing into terrorists’ hands by trying to block permanent changes to surveillance law. Not that Republicans haven’t been playing tough over this issue. They’ve also tried to assert that if the Protect America Act is allowed to […]

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France says "non" to Iran NIE

So now, in addition to the Director of National Intelligence, and the President of the United States, add the French government to the dissent column on the explosive National Intelligence Estimate on Iran‘s nuclear weapons program. Herve Morin, the French defense minister, was in Washington yesterday, and he said that “coordinated information from a number […]

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Presidential dissent on the NIE?

President Bush offered fresh evidence in his State of the Union address last night that not all decision-makers share the intelligence community’s view on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Although he was remarkably restrained in his rhetoric–particularly in comparison to years past–Bush homed in on Iran’s uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs to remind us that the […]

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FISA has hit political rock bottom

The Protect America Act, a six-month modification to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that directly affects the National Security Agency’s terrorist surveillance program, expires on Feb. 1. It’s looking more and more like the Congress will punt on this one, passing another temporary extension–perhaps as short as one month–while lawmakers try and sort out a […]

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The Other About-Face on Iran

In releasing a bombshell about Iran’s nuclear program, intelligence director Mike McConnell reversed a vow of secrecy. But he probably had no choice. “You will be disappointed,” Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told a gathering of journalists in Washington on November 13. U.S. spy agencies were putting the finishing touches on a National […]

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Telecoms as Trojan Horses

The debate in Congress about whether to allow Americans to sue companies that participated in the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance activities has little to do with punishing Big Telecom for its role in domestic spying. Rather, keeping alive an estimated 38 pending civil suits against AT&T, Verizon, and other companies has become congressional Democrats’ […]

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A Court at the Crossroads

As Democrats and Republicans debate legislation that would alter 30-year-old limits on intrusive electronic and physical searches by the government, the secretive 11-member court that oversees surveillance of foreign-intelligence targets in the United States finds itself in the middle of a very public power struggle.Regardless of where law and policy makers fall on the question, […]

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"Part-time help" at DHS is leaving

The No. 2 official at the Homeland Security Department, Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson, is leaving his post for financial reasons, he announced in an e-mail to colleagues today. Jackson has been at DHS since March 2005. He said he’ll leave next month. I interviewed Jackson in May about his efforts to prepare DHS for the […]

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Why Michael Chertoff is a radioactive pick for AG

Just when you thought it was safe to come back from vacation… At the same moment we learned Alberto Gonzales would step down as attorney general, that favorite Washington parlor game, “Replacement Pick,” kicked into high gear. Initial speculation focused on Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, a former prosecutor, federal judge, and senior Justice Department […]

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