The National Interest August 24, 2018 Retired Adm. Bill McRaven, who became a household name after special operators under his command killed Osama bin Laden, is once again in the spotlight. In a terse August 16 op-ed for the Washington Post, he castigated President Donald Trump for revoking the security clearance of former CIA Director…
Category: Intelligence
James Joyner and Butch Bracknell War on The Rocks October 27, 2016 In the third and, thankfully, final presidential debate of the 2016 cycle, Republican nominee Donald Trump doubled down on his contention that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, “should never have been allowed to run for the presidency based on what she did with e-mails and…
The National Interest December 11, 2014 Despite more than a decade of reports that the U.S. government had tortured high-level terrorist suspects, including a frank, if detached, admission from President Obama that the nation had “tortured some folks,” Tuesday’s release of the Senate study of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program was chilling. We learned…
Butch Bracknell and James Joyner The National Interest July 7, 2014 The September 11, 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya were, according to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence sources, designed and led by Ahmed Abu Khattala, a Libyan jihadist. Recently, Khattala was captured by U.S. special-operations forces and transported to a U.S. Navy…
The National Interest August 20, 2013 Winston Churchill declared, “In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” In the current environment, it’s difficult to know where the truth ends and the lies begin. Last week the Washington Post reported, “The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or…
The National Interest July 24, 2013 Revelations that the government’s ability to access American citizens’ phone records without probable cause is much broader than previously contemplated got Congress’ attention last week, drawing rebukes and warnings from both sides of the aisle. The startling new insight came from NSA Deputy Director John Inglis, who testified before…
The Atlantic June 13, 2013 The New York Times editorial board complains, “Except for a few leaders and members of the intelligence committees, most lawmakers did not know the government was collecting records on almost every phone call made in the United States or was able to collect anyone’s e-mail messages and Internet chats.” Further, it adds, “since…
The National Interest June 11, 2013 Glenn Greenwald, the civil-liberties columnist who broke the story about the National Security Agency’s massive collection of metadata on U.S. phone and Internet usage patterns, contends that, despite its being classified Top Secret, “There’s not a single revelation that we’ve provided to the world that even remotely jeopardizes national security.” Director…
TCS Daily September 29, 2006 Reports in the Sunday editions of the New York Times and Washington Post that an April National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the Iraq War has increased the danger to the United States from terrorists created a media feeding frenzy. Critics of the war said “I told you so” while supporters questioned the motives of…
TCS Daily December 21, 2005 Last Friday, the New York Times unleashed a bombshell with a front page story reporting that the Bush administration had repeatedly ordered the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance within the United States without a warrant. Congressmen, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, immediately called for hearings. Some, including California Senator Barbara Boxer and Georgia…