Even after the murder of a physician and the attack at the Holocaust museum by individuals with strong ties to violent ultrarightist movements -- and as new reports of violence linked to ultra right-wing groups emerge -- Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano still thinks that an April...

Pending bills could strengthen judicial branch review of Federal "state secret" claims and legislative branch oversight of intelligence activities.

The House of Representatives version of the State Secrets Protection Act has been approved by House Subcommittee on Constitution Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and is currently...

Senior intelligence community hacks like Michael Hayden and his peers are responsible for scuttling senior CIA analyst Phil Mudd's nomination to the senior DHS intelligence post.

Ex CIA chief Michael Hayden's opinion piece in the Washington Post on Friday, 19 June 2009, decried how "today's atmosphere"...

Over the past few weeks, Leon Panetta has emerged as an obstacle to real reform and accountability at the CIA. Rather than exerting strong leadership, Panetta is toeing the line on CIA's pet parochial concerns, such as protecting CIA officers and contractors from investigative scrutiny and insisting on suppression of...

A 9/11 Commission report on intelligence sharing -- declassified this week -- concluded "there was no legal reason why the [9/11 terrorist] information could not have been shared."

Different parts of the US Government -- CIA, NSA, FBI, State Department -- had important clues about the...

The latest Washington espionage arrest replays the same old story of a senior intelligence official getting away with decades of spying against the US. Will US security officials ever fix their broken spy catching system?

A weekend ago, the Washington Post reported that the FBI had...

Some old intelligence scandals and foul-ups seem to keep turning back up to take a toll on government employees here in Washington.

Take metro Washington resident Sabrina DeSousa, for example, whose case Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly reported several weeks ago. Italian authorities charged DeSousa with participating in the...

In one of those under-the-table announcements that Washington power players like to make on Friday afternoons, the Obama administration announced its sweeping new "Cyberspace Policy Review." The idea of an overarching national IT policy has been around for decades, but it looks like the Big Idea President is going...

In the coming weeks, the new Obama administration will run out of excuses for blowing off demands for an investigation into the full extent of Bush-era intelligence abuses.

On his first two full days in office, Barack Obama took a series of dramatic steps to roll back a number of...

Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States today. Our familiy went down to the national mall to get in on the excitement, of which there was plenty!

Good manners and good cheer were the rule. Everyone in the throngs on the mall and on the streets...

Supposedly, there's an entrenched, influential pro-torture constituency that is threatening to thwart President-Elect Obama's pledge to bring an end to ruinous detention and torture policies.

A front page Washington Post article on Saturday entitled "Obama Under Pressure On Interrogation Policy" promised, but ultimately failed, to make the case that...

John Brennan, Obama's former leading pick for a top intelligence post, will get a seat at the table, where he can make a valuable contribution to counterterrorism policy. But DNI Blair and CIA Director Panetta will need to keep Brennan at arms length on thorny resource issues-especially contracting.

The

CIA's spokesman came down out of his tree in time for the Wednesday media cycle to let everyone know: CIA is not happy that everyone thinks it's an agency that could use some fixing by the likes of Leon Panetta.

Spokesman Mark Mansfield told the Washington Post and

Finally, adult supervision comes to CIA.

The announcement Monday afternoon that the Obama team had named veteran Democratic politician Leon Panetta as CIA Director was greeted by the national security reporters and bloggers first with surprise and derision, then with grudging acknowledgement of the value he...

The incoming Obama administration has moved quickly to assemble a cabinet, but has stumbled in finalizing its national security team as inauguration approaches. In particular, the Obama transition team has had a hard time finding suitably qualified candidates for the top two intelligence positions, Director of National Intelligence and Director...

Notorious security company Blackwater is back in the news, just in time to remind us (again) how over-reliance on contractors for sensitive security missions is hurting American effectiveness abroad.

Last week, a Federal court indicted five Blackwater guards on 35 counts of manslaughter related to the September...

Much of the discussion over how the Obama administration will re-make US counterterrorism strategy had focused on closing the Guantanamo detention facility and devising an effective justice process for alleged terrorists. While it's true that Guantanamo has been a blow to US prestige and moral leadership, the policy of rendition...

Amid the talk of how last week's terrorist siege in Mumbai has re-energized international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, it's easy to lose sight of how the US campaign against terrorism has lost America its friends and alienated it allies. Following--and attempting to stop--terrorist money is a cornerstone of...

On Thursday after his election, President-Elect Obama met with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and top CIA analyst Mike Morrell to receive his first intelligence briefing. Though CIA chief Mike Hayden (does every senior intelligence official go by "Mike?") has issued one of those "keep on working, nothing...

Our government is spying on us.

I'm sure you've heard or read that before. It's been reported in a variety of contexts--President Bush's warrantless wiretap program, for example. Intelligence fusion centers have sprung up nationwide, blurring the lines between federal- and local level intelligence and law enforcement...