I had two reactions to President Obama's address,  one general and another specific. First the general.  President Obama made a good speech today, both for what he said and what he didn't say.  He has a...

The President’s speech and accompanying Policy Directive together announce all manner of changes; it will take a while to grasp them all. In the meantime, here's an off-the-cuff reaction: I reckon we wil...

Huawei Denies US Compromised Security Equipment.  Here's the opening of this report from Australia: Chinese tech giant Huawei, which has long been dogged by security suspicions, has denied a report its t...

Hmmmm. Here's a very interesting few paragraphs from the Wall Street Journal: The president's speech, to be delivered at the Justice Department, caps a process that was similar to the one he undertook on...

Last fall, during the debate on airstrikes in Syria, commentators argued that the United States needed to act in order to preserve the credibility of American threats.

The Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law is putting out a series of short essays, starting today, called "The Briefing: Secrecy and Accountability in the Digital Age." Here is the...

David Sanger and Thom Shanker have a lengthy story in the NYT about various NSA techniques for penetrating foreign computers and networks, including a strategy for accessing seemingly air-gapped computer...

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge John Bates sent over two documents----a summary cover letter and a more detailed analysis---to the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Delivered in Bates's capacity as the Dire...

Since Edward Snowden unveiled the existence of NSA's mass surveillance programs in June, various government officials have gone on the record to claim that the programs have prevented terrorist attacks a...

On Friday, President Obama is scheduled to announce his response to his Review Group on NSA matters, whose report I have been evaluating in this series of posts. The Review Group report covers a huge ran...

I just came across this excellent article, "Tinker, Tailor, Leaker, Spy: The Future Costs of Mass Leaks," by David V.

We come, at endlessly-long last, to the final set of recommendations in the Review Group report: the recommendations in Chapter VIII, which deal with "Protecting What We Do Collect." I tend to agree wit...