memeorandum: George W. Bush critics turn wrath on President Obama (Darren Samuelsohn/Politico)

11:20 AM ET, June 7, 2013

Top Items:

U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program — The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs …

Guardian:

NSA taps in to user data of Facebook, Google and others, secret files reveal — • Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple — • Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007

New York Times:

President Obama's Dragnet — Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every …

New York Times:

Anti-Surveillance Activist Is at Center of New Leak — After writing intensely, even obsessively, for years about government surveillance and the prosecution of journalists, Glenn Greenwald has suddenly put himself directly at the intersection of those two issues, and perhaps in the cross hairs of federal prosecutors.

Discussion: naked capitalism, Althouse, Hit & Run, Towleroad News #gay, The Daily Caller, Pressing Issues, Daily Kos, Conservative Intelligence …, The BLT, Guardian and The Verge, more at Mediagazer »

Wall Street Journal:

Thank You for Data-Mining — The NSA's ‘metadata’ surveillance is legal and necessary. — Well, another day, another Washington furor. This one is over a National Security Agency phone data monitoring program, but unlike the other White House scandals there seems to be little here that is scandalous.

Discussion: Althouse, Right Turn and National Review

Dylan Byers / Politico:

N.Y. Times changes scathing editorial — The New York Times editorial board has quietly changed the language in the most widely cited line from Thursday's scathing editorial about the Obama administration's surveillance of U.S. citizens. — The line — “The administration has now lost all credibility” …

Discussion: Hot Air, Mediaite, National Review and Althouse

ODNI Newsroom Feed:

DNI Statement on Activities Authorized Under Section 702 of FISA — The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies.

Discussion: Guardian, Weekly Standard, Business Insider, The Daily Caller, Mashable, Hit & Run and The Next Web, more at Mediagazer »

ODNI Newsroom Feed:

DNI Statement on Recent Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information — The highest priority of the Intelligence Community is to work within the constraints of law to collect, analyze and understand information related to potential threats to our national security.

Discussion: protein wisdom, The Volokh Conspiracy, Guardian, The Hinterland Gazette, The Verge, Yahoo! News and RT

Nick Hopkins / Guardian:

UK gaining secret intelligence via NSA operation — Exclusive: UK security agency GCHQ gaining information from world's biggest internet firms through US-run Prism programme — The UK's electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence …

Discussion: The Next Web, GigaOM, Engadget and Boing Boing

Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Collects Vast Data Trove

Discussion: Firedoglake, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Huffington Post, Washington Examiner, Outside the Beltway, ThinkProgress, Associated Press, Weasel Zippers, Mashable and The PJ Tatler

Hugh Hewitt / Townhall.com:
Data Collection Isn't Data Abuse — Yet

Discussion: The Hugh Hewitt Show and LewRockwell.com Blog

Jamie Weinstein / The Daily Caller:
New York Times quietly changes published editorial to make it less damning of Obama

Discussion: NewsBusters, JustOneMinute, Twitchy, Gawker and Yahoo! News

Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic Online:
Admit It, Rep. Sensenbrenner: You Were Wrong About the Patriot Act

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Politico, emptywheel and Lawfare

Washington Post:
Documents: U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms; companies deny knowledge

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, The Week, susiemadrak.com, News Desk, Firedoglake, Business Insider, Daily Kos, TechCrunch and Towleroad News #gay

Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:
DNI: WaPo, Guardian Articles Contained ‘Numerous Inaccuracies’

Discussion: Business Insider

Washington Post:
NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program

Discussion: The Next Web, Politico, Business Insider, The Hill, The Week, ThinkProgress, Yahoo! News and The PJ Tatler

Brendan Sasso / The Hill:
Obama sponsored bill that would have made Verizon order illegal

Discussion: Politico, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo and Mediaite

Carlo Muñoz / The Hill:
Clapper denied NSA surveillance before Senate panel in March testimony

Discussion: Hot Air, Forbes and The Hill

Cord Jefferson / Gawker:
The New York Times Quietly Softened Its Scathing Obama Editorial

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Pressing Issues and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

BBC:
US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

Discussion: New York Times and Guardian

Washington Post:
The government needs to explain about the NSA's phone data program

Discussion: Business Insider

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner:
Author of Patriot Act: FBI's FISA Order is Abuse of Patriot Act

Discussion: msnbc.com, Hit & Run, Mediaite and Post Politics

New York Times:
U.S. Confirms That It Gathers Online Data Overseas

Michael D. Shear / The Caucus:
Leaks Overshadow Obama's Meeting With President of China

Discussion: New York Times and TechCrunch

Guardian:
PRISM scandal: tech giants flatly deny allowing NSA direct access to servers

Discussion: Business Insider, Gawker, Weasel Zippers, Reuters and Mediaite

Darren Samuelsohn / Politico:

George W. Bush critics turn wrath on President Obama — A club of Capitol Hill liberals made life hell for George W. Bush in his second term. — Now the gang is back — and they don't care that this time the president is their guy. — In the last few weeks, some of the loudest anti-Bush voices …

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, White House Dossier and BuzzFeed

Bloomberg:

Why Obama Keeps Losing at the Supreme Court — In cases before the Supreme Court last year, President Barack Obama's Justice Department relied on outlandish legal theories that pushed a constitutional interpretation of extreme federal power. That posture led to unanimous losses in three …

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

President Obama's let's-have-a-debate defense — The Obama administration has a familiar refrain on the surveillance of Americans' telephone records: the president and his team are eager to have the debate. — Eager, that is, only after others have brought the tactics to light and the administration has spent years employing them.

Discussion: Hot Air and Pirate's Cove

Reuters:

Misfired 2010 email alerted IRS officials in Washington of targeting — (Reuters) - A misfired email from a U.S. Internal Revenue Service employee in Cincinnati alerted a number of Washington IRS officials that extra scrutiny was being placed on conservative groups in July 2010 …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers and Jammie Wearing Fools

Ronald Brownstein / NationalJournal.com:

Why Republicans Can Get Away With Ignoring Their Problems — The GOP can enjoy another strong midterm election in 2014 without doing much more to attract young or minority voters. — Republicans have a problem with young voters. Democrats have a problem with young nonvoters.

Discussion: Yahoo! News

Rupert Darwall / Wall Street Journal:

Global Warming and the Gipper — Critics of America's policy on carbon emissions accuse it of being a prisoner of free-market ideology. On the contrary, it was the product of hardheaded pragmatism. — Might it be that it was Ronald Reagan and not Barack Obama who began to slow the rise of the seas?

Discussion: National Review