July 30, 2007

FISA and the Power to Defend from Terror

Uncovering terror cells is going to require us to maximize our technological advantages. One obstacle is FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.The New York Times recently revealed that a data mining program was the subject of the legal disp...

May 30, 2007

Fitzgerald, Plame, CIA Director Hayden and Scooter Libby

Like the shape-shifting T-1000 cyborg of Terminator 2, Patrick Fitzgerald's claim that Valerie Plame was a covert agent, and that therefore Scooter Libby deserves a harsh sentence for supposedly outing her, not only won't die a proper death due to la...

May 16, 2007

Comey's testimony yesterday (updated)

On the face of it, there was little of interest in former Deputy Attorney General Comey's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.  No wrongdoing was alleged against AG Gonzalez or any Administration official, and the matters d...

April 5, 2007

Rethinking the FBI?

Would the United States be better off with a new counterterrorism agency? Serious people have called for something like Britain's MI5, a real world precendent for Jack Bauer's omniscient CTU. Last month Judge Richard Posner ran a slightly reworked ve...

March 10, 2007

"More oversight" and national security

I was greatly amused this morning when I heard on the radio the news of the latest misstep by the FBI.  I only caught the tail end of the broadcast, and as I heard the story the bottom line was that Attorney General Gonzalez had stated that the ...