The Solitary Leaker  —  From what we know so far, Edward Snowden appears to be the ultimate unmediated man.  Though obviously terrifically bright, he could not successfully work his way through the institution of high school.  Then he failed to navigate his way through community college.

U.S. disrupts al-Qaeda's online magazine  —  U.S. intelligence operatives covertly sabotaged a prominent al-Qaeda online magazine last month in an apparent attempt to sow confusion among the group's followers, according to officials.  —  The operation succeeded, at least temporarily …

Asking the U.S. government to allow Google to publish more national security request data  —  This morning we sent the following letter to the offices of the Attorney General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Read the full text below.  -Ed.  —  Dear Attorney General Holder and Director Mueller

Kelly Ayotte, GOP star, changes mind on immigration … Immigration wasn't the main issue in the 2010 New Hampshire Senate race.  But it was a topic of great interest for many Republican voters, and GOP candidate Kelly Ayotte took a pretty hard line.  —  Rather than calling …

Hillary's sorry state of affairs  —  Probes into her department's sex scandals were quashed, memo says  —  WASHINGTON — A State Department whistleblower has accused high-ranking staff of a massive coverup — including keeping a lid on findings that members of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton's security detail …

The New York Times takes down Anthony Weiner story  —  The New York Times “inadvertently” posted an article on the women involved in Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal — and then deleted it.  —  “For Women in Weiner Scandal, Indignity Lingers” by Michael Barbaro was posted on the Times's website Monday …

Durbin: FISA declassification bill dead on arrival  —  A bipartisan effort to declassify key federal court opinions justifying domestic surveillance of American citizens is dead on arrival, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat said Tuesday.  —  “I encourage this, though I think it is going to be ill-fated …

RUTGERS-EAGLETON POLL: DEMOCRATS GIVE BOOKER EARLY LEAD IN SEN. PRIMARY; MOST VOTERS OPPOSE SPECIAL ELECTION SCHEDULING GIVEN COST  —  Click here for a PDF of the full text of the release with Questions and Tables.  —  DEMOCRATS GIVE BOOKER EARLY LEAD IN SEN. PRIMARY BUT MOST VOTERS OPPOSE SPECIAL ELECTION SCHEDULING GIVEN COST

Why Should We Even Care If the Government Is Collecting Our Data?  —  Kafka, not Orwell, can help us understand the problems of digitized mass surveillance, argues legal scholar Daniel J. Solove.  —  As people have tried to make sense of the recent revelations about the government's mass …

US senators bid to force government to reveal secret surveillance rulings  —  Bill would compel government to disclose opinions of secret Fisa court whose judgments underpin US surveillance programs  —  A bipartisan group of eight senators will introduce a bill on Tuesday that would force …

What to Make of a Warming Plateau  —  As unlikely as this may sound, we have lucked out in recent years when it comes to global warming.  —  The rise in the surface temperature of earth has been markedly slower over the last 15 years than in the 20 years before that.

NBC News/WSJ poll: Affirmative action support at historic low  —  As the Supreme Court prepares to once again weigh in on the issue of affirmative action, a record-low number of Americans support such programs, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.