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 …

NSA taps into internet giants' systems to mine user data, 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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” …

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.