Top Items:
Josh Barro / Business Insider:
Massive Government Spying Is The Result Of A Public Obsessed With Eliminating Terrorism — The revelations about massive National Security Agency snooping in Americans' phone records and Internet activities appear to be shocking, but they aren't. — The reason programs like these exist …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, The PJ Tatler, Crooks and Liars, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The Daily Caller and New York Times
RELATED:
Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:
On whistleblowers and government threats of investigation — No healthy democracy can endure when the most consequential acts of those in power remain secret and unaccountable — We followed Wednesday's story about the NSA's bulk telephone record-gathering with one yesterday …
Discussion:
Wonkblog, ThinkProgress, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Hit & Run, ODNI Newsroom Feed, Law Blog, The Daily Caller and The Week, more at Mediagazer »
Brett LoGiurato / Business Insider:
GLENN GREENWALD: The US Wants To ‘Destroy Privacy Around The World’
GLENN GREENWALD: The US Wants To ‘Destroy Privacy Around The World’
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers, Atlas Shrugs and The Gateway Pundit
Wall Street Journal:
Thank You for Data-Mining — The NSA's ‘metadata’ surveillance is legal and necessary.
Thank You for Data-Mining — The NSA's ‘metadata’ surveillance is legal and necessary.
Discussion:
Guardian, Bloomberg, National Review, Althouse, Yahoo! News, Law Blog, The Huffington Post, The Hill, Politico, New Republic, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Lawfare, The Caucus, Mashable, The Week, Outside the Beltway, GigaOM, USA Today, Right Turn, Washington Post, American Prospect, The Hugh Hewitt Show, The Atlantic Wire, PoliticusUSA and The Hill, more at Mediagazer »
Justin Sink / The Hill:
President: I could become NSA target
William Saletan / Slate:
Stop Freaking Out About the NSA
Stop Freaking Out About the NSA
Discussion:
Hit & Run, The Hill, American Prospect, Wonkblog, The PJ Tatler, New York Times, Washington Post and News Desk
New York Times:
Anti-Surveillance Activist Is at Center of New Leak
Anti-Surveillance Activist Is at Center of New Leak
Discussion:
Firedoglake, ProPublica, Washington Post, msnbc.com, Guardian, The Maddow Blog, The Verge, Gawker, TechCrunch, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mediaite, Taking Note, Hit & Run, Pressing Issues, Daily Kos, The Daily Caller, naked capitalism, The Huffington Post, Althouse, Towleroad News #gay, The Hill, BBC, Conservative Intelligence …, The Dish, Taylor Marsh, The BLT, Lawfare and Outside the Beltway, more at Mediagazer »
Nick Hopkins / Guardian:
UK gathering secret intelligence via covert 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:
ThinkProgress, GigaOM, Daily Mail, BBC, Weasel Zippers, TechCrunch, Yahoo! News, The Next Web, Engadget, The Hill, Boing Boing and Washington Post
RELATED:
The Official Google Blog:
What the ...? — You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google's CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts.
Discussion:
Yahoo! News, Hit & Run, Wonkblog, TechCrunch, The Next Web, GigaOM, Washington Post and The Huffington Post, more at Mediagazer »
Politico:
Republican lawmakers: NSA surveillance news to us — Several Republican lawmakers said they had not been briefed on the Obama administration's classified programs to monitor cellphone and Internet traffic. — That's in direct contradiction to President Barack Obama's assertion.
Discussion:
American Spectator
Jonathan Easley / The Hill:
Dem. Senator disputes Obama's claim that Congress was briefed — Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday disputed a claim President Obama made at a press conference only moments earlier, when the president said that every member of Congress had been briefed on the National Security Agency's (NSA) domestic phone surveillance program.
Discussion:
Politico, The Hill and Weasel Zippers
Dana Bash / CNN:
Udall: ‘I did everything’ to alert public to gov't snooping
Udall: ‘I did everything’ to alert public to gov't snooping
Discussion:
Guardian, The Next Web and Hullabaloo
Guardian:
Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks — Exclusive: Top-secret directive steps up offensive cyber capabilities to ‘advance US objectives around the world’ — • Read the secret presidential directive here — Barack Obama has ordered his senior national security …
RELATED:
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:
LifeNews.com, Weasel Zippers, Hot Air, Yahoo! News, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Jammie Wearing Fools and ViralRead
RELATED:
Toddstarnes / Fox News:
Soldier Told Not to Read Levin, Limbaugh or Hannity in Uniform — A veteran member of the U.S. Army Band said he is facing retribution and punishment from the military for having anti-Obama bumper stickers on his car, reading books written by conservative authors like Mark Levin and David Limbaugh …
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit, American Spectator, Weasel Zippers and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
U.S. News:
Texas woman arrested in ricin letters to Obama, Bloomberg: Officials — A Texas woman has been arrested in connection with the mailing of three letters containing a form of the poison ricin to President Obama, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, federal authorities said.
Discussion:
Politico, CNN, The Raw Story, Sense of Events and Clayton Cramer's Blog
Andrew Blankstein / Los Angeles Times:
Three shot, suspect detained at Santa Monica College — The suspect was located in the school's library and was taken into custody. — Three people were wounded Friday during a shooting in the Santa Monica College area, law enforcement sources told The Times.
Discussion:
CBS Detroit, Guardian, The Gateway Pundit, Gawker, Post Politics, Pressing Issues and The Hinterland Gazette
David Simon:
We are shocked, shocked... Is it just me or does the entire news media — as well as all the agitators and self-righteous bloviators on both sides of the aisle — not understand even the rudiments of electronic intercepts and the manner in which law enforcement actually uses such intercepts?
Discussion:
Firedoglake and Little Green Footballs
Stephen Carter / Bloomberg:
Detroit's Van Gogh Would Be Better Off in L.A. — When the news broke that if Detroit goes into bankruptcy the city might cover some of its $15 billion debt by selling Detroit Institute of Arts treasures, the reaction was predictable and the language harsh. — The DIA's director, Graham Beal, called the idea “sickening.”
Discussion:
Hit & Run and National Review
Fox News:
‘Uhhh...Uh...Uhhh....People!’ Obama at Total Loss for Words When Staff Forgets His Speech — President Obama strolled out to the podium today in San Jose, CA and was immediately at a loss for words. Not only did the President not have teleprompter, his aides forgot his speech.
Discussion:
Townhall.com, Little Green Footballs and The PJ Tatler
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” …
CNN:
Obama speech-less — (CNN) - President Barack Obama got off to an awkward and unusual start Friday morning as he took the stage to give a speech on health care reform. — Once he took the podium, he realized he didn't have anything to talk about. — “Good morning everybody.
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 …
Discussion:
Conservative Intelligence …
Maggie Fox / Vitals:
Get used to killer heat waves, CDC warns — People crowd at the beach at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 2012, as heat waves and thunderstorms hit the eastern United States — Think last summer was bad? You better get used to it, federal health officials warned Thursday.
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars and susiemadrak.com
Daniel Strauss / The Hill:
Manchin urges Holder to consider resigning — Attorney General Eric Holder should consider resigning, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in an interview released Friday. — “Let me just say that — that any public official — no matter whether it be the attorney general or anybody in public office …
Discussion:
CNN
BBC:
Rape suspect buried alive in Bolivia — A man suspected of rape has been buried alive by villagers in the southern highlands of Bolivia. — Police had identified the 17-year-old as the possible culprit in the rape and murder of a 35-year-old woman near the municipality of Colquechaca.
Discussion:
Gawker
Jon Hilsenrath / Wall Street Journal:
Fed on Track to Ease Up on Bond Buying Later This Year — Federal Reserve officials are likely to signal at their June policy meeting that they're on track to begin pulling back their $85-billion-a-month bond-buying program later this year, as long as the economy doesn't disappoint.
Discussion:
MoneyBeat, Calculated Risk and Business Insider
Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly:
Behind the Obamacare Derangement Syndrome — At TNR today, Noam Scheiber looks at the deep investment Republican pols and conservative scribblers and gabbers seem to have in the failure of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, and sees a concentration of the biases we have all called the Obama Derangement Syndrome on this one issue.
Discussion:
Hullabaloo, New Republic and Politico