Judge: “NSA exceeded the scope of authorized acquisition continuously” Yet another Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judge has blasted United States intelligence officials for disregarding the court’s guidelines for domestic surveillance of American e-mail metadata traffic, a program that ran for around a decade before ending in 2011. “[National Security Agency’s] record of compliance with these rules has been poor,” wrote Judge John D. Bates in a 117-page opinion (PDF) whose date was redacted. The opinion is just one of a series of documents released and declassified late Monday evening by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). “Most notably, NSA generally disregarded the special rules for disseminating United States person information outside of NSA until it was ordered to report such disseminations and certify to the FISC that the required approval had been approved. The Bates opinion is the second of the two most revealing documents in this new tranche. Not your father's pen/trap application RAS-ma-tazz
How the Deficit Got This Big With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions. Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non-defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. A few lessons can be drawn from the numbers. In future decades, when rising health costs with an aging population hit the budget in full force, deficits are projected to be far deeper than they are now.
Everything You Wanted to Know About the DoJ/AP Controversy Since news that the Justice Department had secretly obtained journalists’ phone records broke, the story has been developing quickly. Here is a quick overview of the issues. Check back for updates. What Happened? On May 13 Mark Sherman, of the Associated Press reported : “The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the agency's top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news.” The records listed outgoing calls made during April and May of 2012 from 20 phone lines at AP offices in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the AP’s line in the House of Representatives press gallery. Why Did it Happen? Reports have suggested, and recent comments by Attorney General Holder seem to confirm, that this is part of an ongoing Department of Justice criminal investigation into leaks that led to an Associate Press story in May of 2012. Why Does it Matter?
The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling - James Fallows - Politics It's this one, from yesterday's New York Times. Click for a more detailed view, though it's pretty clear as is. It's based on data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its significance is not partisan (who's "to blame" for the deficit) but intellectual. It demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts. An additional significance of the chart: it identifies policy changes, the things over which Congress and Administration have some control, as opposed to largely external shocks -- like the repercussions of the 9/11 attacks or the deep worldwide recession following the 2008 financial crisis. The point is that governments can respond to but not control external shocks. But to me it doesn't matter. From this item three months ago:
Syria Dossier: Another Failed Argument by Virginia Tilley The U.S. Government has released an "Assessment of the Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons," which argues that the Syrian regime was responsible for a devastating chemical weapons attack on civilians. The statement is presented as justification for U.S. military intervention in Syria, as punishment or deterrent against Syria for violating the international norm prohibiting use of chemical weapons. This document requires our closest attention. The following is a point-by-point response to the document’s claim that President Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government on 21 August 2013. The full text document is extracted here for the main points. The Syrian regime maintains a stockpile of numerous chemical agents, including mustard, sarin, and VX and has thousands of munitions that can be used to deliver chemical warfare agents. The evidence supporting these assessments is the our entire concern here. Proximity to the attack is no explanation.
The Nauseating Debt-Ceiling 'Solution' - James Fallows - Politics I agree with Matt Miller: (needless) disaster averted, decline embraced. >>So this is what we've driven the global economy and America's credit rating to the brink for? ...This is the best the White House could salvage after inexplicably failing to insist that the debt ceiling be raised as part of December's deal to extend the Bush tax cuts -- which would have let the country avoid this unprecedented exercise in self-inflicted damage?If you put aside the talking points both sides will peddle, the disappointing contours of the emerging endgame run as follows:First, Washington will do nothing more to boost jobs and growth. The best that can be said is that the spending cuts will be tiny in the next two years, so the feds won't be contracting demand, save for the end of the stimulus. America will no doubt muddle through, as it has done so often before. Still, the major steering decisions in national policy make a difference in the long term. I hope things will look better tomorrow.
Kafka’s America – In a bizarre and ludicrous attempt at “transparency,” the Obama administration has announced that it asked a secret court to approve a secret order to allow the government to keep spying on millions of Americans, and the secret court has granted its request. Late on Friday, July 19, 2013, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)—a secret court which operates out of an undisclosed federal building in Washington, DC—quietly renewed an order from the National Security Agency to have Verizon Communications hand over hundreds of millions of Americans’ telephone records to government officials. In so doing, the government has doubled down on the numerous spying programs currently aimed at the American people, some of which were exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, who temporarily pulled back the veil on the government’s gigantic spying apparatus. Deference to government requests for surveillance has only been exacerbated since 9/11. The Best of John W. Whitehead
The debt deal: Disaster averted, decline straight ahead This is the best the White House could salvage after inexplicably failing to insist that the debt ceiling be raised as part of December’s deal to extend the Bush tax cuts — which would have let the country avoid this unprecedented exercise in self-inflicted damage? If you put aside the talking points both sides will peddle, the disappointing contours of the emerging endgame run as follows: First, Washington will do nothing more to boost jobs and growth. Next — as to long-term deficit reduction, supposedly the reason the GOP put the country through this costly fiasco — the deal remains utterly inadequate, even if the joint congressional committee the plan would empower to address this succeeds. Here’s why. In other words, the numbers sound big and can be sold as “historic,” but they’re not even close to what’s needed. Sen. Politically, however, it’s a sufficient escape hatch. There’s a good chance this package will pass with majority Republican support.
Declassified CIA Docs: Cheney is a Flagrant Liar The National Security Archive has obtained through a FOIA request newly released CIA documents pertaining to 9/11 . There do not appear to be any great revelations in the release, although one of them further illustrates what a liar former Vice President Dick Cheney is. The fact that the Bush administration, and Dick Cheney in particular, actively promoted the falsehood that Saddam Hussein was somehow tied to al-Qaeda and the attacks of September 11th is at this point uncontroversial. Two months after the 9/11 attacks, on December 9, 2001, Dick Cheney went on Meet the Press and, when asked by Tim Russert whether “Iraq was involved in September 11,” mentioned a “report that’s been pretty well confirmed , that [9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.” MR.
Harold McGraw III McGraw at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, 2011. Harold Whittlesey "Terry" McGraw III (born 1948)[1] is the chairman of the board of McGraw Hill Financial, formerly McGraw-Hill Companies. He served as chief executive officer of the company from 1998 until November 2013, and was president from 1993 to 2013. He is the Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce and very active on trade issues on the world stage. He is formerly Chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of American companies. At McGraw-Hill[edit] McGraw was elected president and chief operating officer of McGraw-Hill in 1993, CEO in 1998, and chairman in December 1999. As CEO, he led the consolidation of 15 diverse units into three business segments, each a market leader.[1] In 1999, McGraw and his father Harold McGraw, Jr. accepted the Honor Award from the National Building Museum on behalf of the McGraw-Hill Companies, which were recognized for their contributions to the U.S.' Notes[edit]
Fighting Facebook, a Campaign for a People’s Terms of Service Reuters Facebook is on the defensive again. Members of the social networking site sued the company for co-opting their identities in online ads, and Facebook agreed to revise its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” and offer a $20 million settlement. The case has drawn less attention than the dorm disputes portrayed in The Social Network, but the impact is far wider. While a few of the particulars here are new—filtered photos or copyrightable tweets—the legal dilemma is actually very old. In return for driving the profits of social media companies, users get free software. This is a classic example of form contract abuse—when a single, powerful party pushes a contract onto a disparate group of other parties. Think of that cellphone contract you didn’t read, or the waiver you must sign to go river-rafting. The problem, however, extends beyond the ruthless profitability imperative. The impact of boilerplate is especially acute for minors. So, what is the best way forward?
Reading Between the Lines The establishment verdict is in: President-elect Bush made an astute choice by tapping Rod Paige, Houston's School Superintendent, to head his Education Department. The New York Times blessed the nomination as "wise," and both major teachers' unions have chimed in with support. On most of the hot-button questions, Paige is a relatively uncontroversial pick. About vouchers, he has written, "We believe that public funds should go to students, not institutions, and there may be a time when vouchers will be part of the mix." (A limited voucher program in Houston was so modest and so narrowly designed that virtually no one took advantage of it.) Paige is a supporter of "performance pay" for teachers and a fairly strong proponent of a skills-based curriculum, especially phonics, but not to the point where he has openly horrified anyone in the teachers' unions or on the educational left. The basis for Paige's seeming pragmatism, and the core of his relationship with Bush, is "accountability."