Today's Headlines and Commentary

Suliman Abu Gaith was convicted of conspiring to kill Americans today. The Al Qaeda spokesman was also convicted of providing material support to terrorists and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The jury returned its verdict after less than two full days of deliberations. The New York Times covers the story.  As Ritika noted yesterday, a proposal to end the NSA’s practice of bulk metadata collection was announced yesterday by members of the House Intelligence Committee. But not everyone’s behind it; there’s still support in Congress for the White House proposal, due to be unveiled next week. Politico reports that Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Diane Feinstein (D – Calif.), joined by many other Senate Democrats, is standing behind President Obama and his proposal. Politico dubs the proposals offered by the different sides of the U.S. government a result of the “Snowden Effect”. The Hill tells us that the NSA has reassured Jimmy Carter that the government is not spying on his emails. President Carter explained on NBC’s Meet the Press that he thought the NSA was spying on his emails---motivating him to use snail mail to reach the world’s leaders rather than email. The Daily Beast reports that the top negotiator for the Syrian Opposition Coalition has said that there will be no more Syrian peace talks in Geneva. The leaders of the Syrian Opposition Coalition has said that unless the Assad regime radically changes its approach to the peace talks, the coalition has no intention of coming back to Geneva. The SOC claims that, thus far, the meetings have been confrontational and counterproductive. Meanwhile, the United States is becoming increasingly worried about the presence of Al Qaeda militants in Syria. The Times reports that the U.S. government is concerned about militants from Pakistan seeking base in Syria, not only because these are individuals whose whereabouts the American government would prefer to know, but also because of the counter-productive “skills” they bring to the Syrian battlefield At a security summit in the Hague, President Obama dismissed Russia as a “regional power” and said that President Vladimir Putin’s recent actions in the Crimea were a display of weakness rather strength. The Washington Post explains the President Obama does not see Russia as a threat to the United States. While the President was the Netherlands for the nuclear security summit, three U.S. Secret Service members who were supposed to be on his security detail were not.  Three agents were sent back to the U.S. shortly before the president’s arrival for disciplinary reasons. President Obama will also be traveling to the Gulf in the coming month, including to Saudi Arabia. Fully 52 members of Congress wrote to the President urging him to confront Saudi leaders about the country’s “serious human rights violations.” The Daily Beast has the story. The BBC reports that North Korea has “test-fired two medium-range ballistic missiles.” The test took place just as talks between South Korean and Japan finished in the Netherlands. The South Korean government deemed the test a “great provocation” and explained that the missiles would be capable of reaching Japan and even parts of Russia and China.