Today's Headlines and Commentary

Happy 10th birthday to the Patriot Act! Carrie Johnson at NPR celebrates the big day with a look at the the still-controversial legislation and an interview with Nicholas Merrill, who challenged a gag order issued in connection with a national security letter -- and won the limited right to discuss the matter. Merrill himself has an op-ed in the Washington Post about his experience. Meanwhile, Ellen Nakashima of the Post reports on the FBI's increasing requests for Internet usage information, saying "the FBI made more than four times as many business records requests in 2010 than in 2009." Ryan Singel of Wired covers a spike in U.S. government requests for Google user data. Al-Jazeera announces that Libya's transitional leaders have asked NATO to be involved in the country until the end of the year, while Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta states that the U.S. will defer the question of future security involvment in Libya to NATO.   In other news, days after the U.S. ambassador pulled out of Syria, the opposition calls for international protection from President al-Assad's crackdown, according to Nada Bakri of the New York Times. The Obama administration's decision to send 100 troops to Uganda came under fire from some in Congress, say John T. Bennett and Daniel Strauss at The Hill. Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times has more on the story. Mark Thompson at Battleland and John H. Cushman Jr. at the Times discuss how electronic parts made in Minnesota ended up in Iran and are being used to control enemy bombs in Iraq. Enjoy your moment of Zen. For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter and visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief. Feel free to email me noteworthy articles I may have missed at singh.lawfare@gmail.com.