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The release of the White House “Government Assessment” on August 30, providing the purported evidence to support a bombing attack on Syria, defused a conflict with the intelligence community that had threatened to become public through the mass resignation of a significant number of analysts. The intelligence community’s consensus view on the status of the Syrian chemical-weapons program was derived from a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) completed late last year and hurriedly updated this past summer to reflect the suspected use of chemical weapons against rebels and civilians. The report maintained that there were some indications that the regime was using chemicals, while conceding that there was no conclusive proof. There was considerable dissent from even that equivocation, including by many analysts who felt that the evidence for a Syrian government role was subject to interpretation and possibly even fabricated. Some believed the complete absence of U.S. satellite intelligence on the extensive preparations that the government would have needed to make in order to mix its binary chemical system and deliver it on target was particularly disturbing. These concerns were reinforced by subsequent UN reports suggesting that the rebels might have access to their own chemical weapons. The White House, meanwhile, considered the somewhat ambiguous conclusion of the NIE to be unsatisfactory, resulting in considerable pushback against the senior analysts who had authored the report.

In a scenario unfortunately reminiscent of the lead up to Iraq, the National Security Council tasked the various intelligence agencies to beat the bushes and come up with more corroborative information. Israel obligingly provided what was reported to be interceptions of telephone conversations implicating the Syrian army in the attack, but it was widely believed that the information might have been fabricated by Tel Aviv, meaning that bad intelligence was being used to confirm other suspect information, a phenomenon known to analysts as “circular reporting.” Other intelligence cited in passing by the White House on the trajectories and telemetry of rockets that may have been used in the attack was also somewhat conjectural and involved weapons that were not, in fact, in the Syrian arsenal, suggesting that they were actually fired by the rebels. Also, traces of Sarin were not found in most of the areas being investigated, nor on one of the two rockets identified. Whether the victims of the attack suffered symptoms of Sarin was also disputed, and no autopsies were performed to confirm the presence of the chemical. 

With all evidence considered, the intelligence community found itself with numerous skeptics in the ranks, leading to sharp exchanges with the Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. A number of analysts threatened to resign as a group if their strong dissent was not noted in any report released to the public, forcing both Brennan and Clapper to back down. This led to the White House issuing its own assessment, completely divorcing the process from any direct connection to the intelligence community. The spectacle of CIA Director George Tenet sitting behind Secretary of State Colin Powell in the United Nations, providing him with credibility as Powell told a series of half-truths, would not be repeated. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

Despite being a member of Congress possessing security clearance, I've learned far more about government spying on me and my fellow citizens from reading media reports than I have from "intelligence" briefings. If the vote on the Amash-Conyers amendment is any indication, my colleagues feel the same way. In fact, one long-serving conservative Republican told me that he doesn't attend such briefings anymore, because, "they always lie".Many of us worry that Congressional Intelligence Committees are more loyal to the "intelligence community" that they are tasked with policing, than to the Constitution. And the House Intelligence Committee isn't doing anything to assuage our concerns.

And why do Generals Alexander and Clapper remain in office, when all the evidence points to them committing the felony of lying to Congress and the American people?

The number of deaths caused by the Iraq war has been a source of intense controversy, as politics, inexact science and a clamor for public awareness have intersected in a heated debate of conflicting interests. The latest and perhaps most rigorous survey, released Tuesday, puts the figure at close to 500,000. The study, — a collaboration of researchers in the U.S., Canada and Iraq appearing in the journal PLoS Medicine — included a survey of 2,000 Iraqi households in 100 geographic regions in Iraq. Researchers used two surveys, one involving the household and another asking residents about their siblings, in an attempt to demonstrate the accuracy of the data they were collecting. Using data from these surveys, researchers estimated 405,000 deaths, with another 55,800 projected deaths from the extensive migration in and emigration from Iraq occurring as a result of the war. The researchers estimated that 60 percent of the deaths were violent, with the remaining 40 percent occurring because of the health-infrastructure issues that arose as a result of the invasion — a point they emphasized in discussing their research, since the figure is higher than those found in previous studies.

Spagat said the public should be largely aware of the death toll from the Iraq war by now, but it’s not clear that that is the case. While even the most conservative estimates of mortality in Iraq — including the Iraq Body Count — have reached six figures, polling in the U.S. (PDF) and U.K. (PDF) have shown public perception to be that the civilian death toll from the war is in the neighborhood of 10,000.

First Twitter, now YouTube. The Turkish telecoms authority TIB said the move to was an "administrative measure." But only a few hours before the measure came into force, a rather provocative recording was posted on the site. According to the official view, the audio clip is one of the most flagrant among the many that anonymous opponents of the government have been leaking online over the last few months. It exposes the Islamic-conservative government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan just before the municipal elections scheduled to take place on March 30. The conversation that was leaked this time is between Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and several heads of the intelligence service and the military. Participants of the conversation were apparently looking for a reason to go to war with Syria.

According to reports from the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, the Turkish foreign ministry has confirmed the authenticity of the recording and has explained that the conversation took place in the foreign ministry. The ministry also emphasized, however, that the contents of the recording were distorted. In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this explanation was given: "Monitoring such a meeting of a highly confidential nature which was held at a location such as the office of the foreign minister, where the most sensitive security issues of the state are discussed; and releasing these conversations to the public are a despicable attack, an act of espionage and a very serious crime against the national security of Turkey. This incident reveals the extent the threats of cyber and electronic attacks that Turkey encounters." The statement called the perpetrators "enemies of our state" and said they would be identified and severely punished as soon as possible.

But according to the legal expert, another aspect of the problem is at stake here. "This is a case of espionage. The alleged conversation took place in a secure location and it is on a very sensitive topic - the question of whether there should or should not be a war with Syria," he says. Tokuzlu added that the content of the conversation was clearly supposed to be released to the public in order to influence the results of this Sunday's (30.03.2014) local elections. But blocking the whole YouTube site was never an appropriate solution, Tokuzlu maintains. "There is no reason to block entire sites. You could block individual accounts or videos; that would be legitimate in this sort of a case," he said. Tokuzlu also explained that blocking YouTube could not be compared with the move to block Twitter: "The Security Council in Turkey held an emergency meeting. Right after, YouTube was blocked. That shows how important this case is."

In the duration of the “revolutionary frenzy” that categorized western media coverage of the Libyan Civil War in 2011, public audiences were captivated with both tales of rebels aspiring for “democracy” and with complimenting stories of unabated brutality by Gaddafi forces. Without any serious mainstream criticism, an imperialist mythology centered on the interventionist doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect” was cemented in public consciousness with even usually non-mainstream and “anti-imperialist” figures such as Juan Cole deliberately misrepresenting the situation in Libya. In Cole’s perspective, no reference to armed militants from the start of the conflict or the role of extremism and western premeditation found its way into the narrative and he predicted a simplistic narrative where the overthrow of Gaddafi would lead the region into an era of unity, prosperity and freedom. Libya Today How is Libya today? If one denied the existence of hell, they need not look further than Libya to observe a case of hell on Earth. Libya as a functioning, cohesive state has virtually ceased to exist, having been replaced by a myriad of conflicting factions divided on tribal and religious lines. While mainstream media tends to obscure the identity of these factions and their connection to western imperialists, Eric Draitser in his analysis, “Benghazi, the CIA, and the War in Libya” shows the beyond the fractious infighting, both primary factions engaging in direct combat have been beneficiaries of the NATO imperialist powers in their systematic aggression against the Libyan state.

“Confirmed: U.S. Armed Al Qaeda to Topple Libya’s Gaddaffi” with a very astonishing admission by “top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers” confirming the obvious truth that “conspiracy theorists” have been saying since 2011. The US backed Al Qaeda in Libya and that the Benghazi attack was a byproduct of this. Washington’s Blog notes that in 2012, it documented that: The U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. According to a 2007 report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda’s main headquarters – and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq – prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi: The Hindustan Times reported last year: “There is no question that al Qaeda’s Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition,” Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times. It has always been Qaddafi’s biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi. Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya.  Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled. What was once deemed conspiracy theory became confirmed reality when the Daily Mail reported as Washington’s Blog subsequently pointed out:

A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn’t been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier. ‘The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,’ Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline. She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants. ‘Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,’ Lopez claimed. ‘They were permitted to come in. … [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed.. ‘The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.’

Raymond Maxwell claims he witnessed top Hillary Clinton aides purge State Department files. Here's why you should believe him.

Ray Maxwell has a helluva story: Hillary Clinton’s most senior aides participated in a Benghazi cover-up. Maxwell says he knows because he was there. Proving or disproving his allegations will be an uncertain task. People will claim he is nothing more than a disgruntled employee with an agenda. I don’t think that’s true. Because I was once in his place. Raymond Maxwell was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, covering Libya. Soon after Ambassador Chris Stevens and others were killed in Benghazi, Maxwell participated in a secret Sunday session, he says, where Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan oversaw a document review with the aim to “pull out anything that might put anybody in the front office or the seventh floor in a bad light.” (“Seventh floor” is slang for the Secretary of State.)

As the House Select Committee on Benghazi held its first hearing Wednesday, the focus was on the Secretary of State’s role in securing American embassies and consulates abroad. Maxwell did not testify, and may or may not be eventually called to speak publicly to the Committee, but his allegations loom in the background. I’ve met Maxwell and talked with him, though he did not confide in me. When you join State, you serve whomever is in the White House, and like myself Maxwell worked from Reagan through Obama. “For any Foreign Service Officer, being at work is the essence of everything,” Maxwell told a reporter after he was ultimately pushed into an early retirement following State’s internal review of the Benghazi debacle. In 2013, Maxwell spoke to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Oversight Committee yet kept quiet about the bombshell information. Maxwell impresses as a State Department archetype, dedicated to the insular institution, apolitical to the point of frustration to an outsider, but shocked when he found his loyalty was not returned.

A recent article written by this writer for Global Research posted last Saturday – “The Benghazi Scandal Is Obama’s Watergate But Worse” – was written in an effort to seek and uncover the truth. Accurate reporting on major world events is a challenge in today’s world where propaganda and disinformation are mainstream media norms and where virtually all major players in American politics simply lie through their teeth every time they open their mouths in constant effort to look good and cover up the truth. The American public knows this pathetic and sobering fact that deception has come to rule in the world of both politics and the media. People today neither believe their newscasters nor their political leaders. That is why examining the content of the tidal wave of assertions and opinions spewing forth from politicians and pundits in the aftermath of the latest Benghazi revelations must be taken with a grain of salt. Again, truth in today’s world is hard to come by. But as an investigative reporter, presenting a brief overview of recent comments and statements for any informed citizen to process and digest seems a worthwhile and important enterprise.

A timeline of recently unfolding events: On 10/12/12 exactly one month after the Benghazi incident, the legal conservative group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents related to the Benghazi attack on September 11th, 2012 that killed the US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Obama, who had campaigned on a promise of transparency in the criminal wake of the Bush regime, has proven to be anything but open and transparent. Having to sue the US government for access to the records, on April 18th, 2014, a full year and a half later, the Obama administration’s stonewalling ultimately failed and Judicial Watch successfully got hold of 41 State Department Benghazi related documents. Emails between high level White House officials discussing damage control strategies in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi assault were released last week. Jubilant Republicans are now calling one of those emails their “smoking gun,” believing it is so incriminating that it will do in their would-be opponent Hillary Clinton from potentially competing in the 2016 presidential election.

The newly declassified email written by Obama’s then Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes specifically directed then UN Ambassador Susan Rice in preparation for her Sunday morning talk show appearances on September 16th, 2012 to explain the administration’s take on what it knew of the Benghazi murders. Rhodes advised Rice to attribute the Benghazi uprising as “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy,” pushing talking points designed to bolster Obama’s presidential image as a cool-as-a-cucumber-under-fire kind of wise and benevolent leader and statesman. The major emphasis of the email instructed Rice to blame the bogus anti-Moslem video as inciting a spontaneous protest like in other countries in the region that apparently grew violently out of control, of course all the while knowing that that was a boldface lie. This crucial piece of evidence proves that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both knew that the video did not cause the attack but that they chose to willfully deceive the American public in order to protect their own political careers and hence was born the infamously never ending Benghazi cover-up. Obama and Hillary withheld this damning email evidence even from the House Oversight Committee led by Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) requesting all documents pertaining to Benghazi more than a year ago. With the presidential election less than two months away at the time of the attack, Obama and Hillary were determined at all cost to keep hidden from Americans the real truth of criminal Benghazi activity they were guilty of engaging in during the months leading up to the attack. Last Thursday an angry Issa subpoenaed current Secretary of State John Kerry to appear before the committee on May 21st to further explain why those critical State Department records recently given to Judicial Watch were not among the 3200 documents originally handed over to his committee well over a year ago.

The House voted Wednesday to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress and to instruct the Justice Department to probe her for criminal charges. The actions mark the culmination of two simultaneous committee investigations into allegations that Lerner knowingly presided over the improper targeting of conservative outside groups seeking tax-exempt status with the agency, including stalling the application process and giving special scrutiny to organizations that appeared to be affiliated with the tea party movement.

One resolution (H Res 574), agreed to on a 231-187 vote, will make Lerner the sixth public official since 1982 to be held in contempt for her refusal to testify before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Lerner cited her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in an appearance last year. The other resolution (H Res 565), referred by the Ways and Means Committee and supported Wednesday by a 250-168 vote, would call upon Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to appoint a special prosecutor to evaluate whether Lerner should face criminal charges on specific counts of misconduct related to the scandal. Neither resolution is likely to yield results: The Justice Department is actually under no obligation to appoint a special counsel, and the criminal contempt statute says the U.S. attorney has a “duty” to convene a grand jury in an event of a contempt citation, but it doesn’t appear to be mandatory.

Three activist groups flew a blimp emblazoned with the words "Illegal Spying Below" over the National Security Agency's data center in Utah on Friday in protest against the federal government's mass surveillance programs. The one-hour flight over the high-tech facility was launched by the environmental group Greenpeace, digital rights activists the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a conservative political organization, the Tenth Amendment Center. The 135-foot-long (41-meter-long) blimp, which is owned by Greenpeace, was adorned with a sign that read, "NSA Illegal Spying Below." In an email to Reuters, the agency declined to comment. But a spokesman did note there is no restricted airspace over the data center, housed on the grounds of the Utah National Guard's Camp Williams, in Bluffdale, 23 miles (37 km) south of Salt Lake City.

The blimp protest coincided with the launch of an online campaign that rates members of Congress on actions the activists say either further or stop data collection efforts by the NSA. Greenpeace said the report cards on the site standagainstspying.org were created with input from the more than 20 grassroots groups and companies that are partners in a lawsuit against the NSA. "Our right to privacy is not a partisan issue. It's a human rights issue," said Tom Boldin, founder of Tenth Amendment Center, which advocates for decentralized government. "This coalition gives great hope for the future because it shows that people across the political spectrum can set aside differences to work together."

The Luxembourg operations of Barclays, through which of much of the bank's controversial tax planning services are channelled, generated £1.4bn of profits in 2013 – £100m for each of the 14 people employed there.In published details about the turnover, tax and headcount of the main countries in which its operates, Barclays also revealed it paid just £20m of tax in Luxembourg.Barclays' chief executive, Antony Jenkins, pledged in February 2013 to close down the bank's tax avoidance unit, known as structured capital markets (SCM), as part of his efforts to clean up the reputation of the bank. However, he said the process would take several years.Much of the SCM activity was driven through Luxembourg. Lord Lawson, the former Conservative chancellor, described the business as orchestrating tax avoidance on an "industrial scale".

The data was published by Barclays to comply with a new European Union directive and refers to the 2013 calendar year.

Hungary's conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban says the EU is harming itself by imposing sanctions on Russia, describing the measures as "shooting oneself in the foot". He was speaking after his Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, had also criticised the EU sanctions. Russia is Hungary's main trading partner outside the EU. Both Hungary and Slovakia depend on Russian gas.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, January 8, 2015, on Charlie Hebdo shootings: “When a trio of hooded men struck at some of our most cherished democratic principles, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, they assaulted democracy everywhere . . . They have declared war on anybody who does not think and act exactly as they wish they would think and act . . . . they have declared war on any country, like ourselves, that values freedom, openness and tolerance.”

CBC, today: “Ottawa threatening hate charges against those who boycott Israel” The Harper government is signaling its intention to use hate crime laws against Canadian advocacy groups that encourage boycotts of Israel. Such a move could target a range of civil society organizations, from the United Church of Canada and the Canadian Quakers to campus protest groups and labour unions. If carried out, it would be a remarkably aggressive tactic, and another measure of the Conservative government’s lockstep support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. . . . The government’s intention was made clear in a response to inquiries from CBC News about statements by federal ministers of a “zero tolerance” approach to groups participating in a loose coalition called Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS), which was begun in 2006 at the request of Palestinian non-governmental organizations.

Has a #JeSuisBDS hashtag started trending yet on Twitter? Under the new Charlie Hebdo standard — it’s not enough to defend free speech; one must praise and even express the speech targeted with suppression — have all of the newfound free speech crusaders begun organizing pro-Israel-boycott rallies in order to defy these suppression efforts? In a zillion years, could anyone imagine the popularity-craving officials who run PEN America bestowing one of their glamorous awards on advocates of the Israel-targeted Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions movement? The answer to all of those questions is and will remain “no,” because (as I discussed last week here with Bob Wright) the Charlie Hebdo ritual (for most, not all) was about many agendas having nothing to do with the free expression banner under which it paraded. In that regard, Stephen Harper is the perfect Poster Boy for how free expression is tribalistically manipulated and exploited in the West. When the views being suppressed are ones amenable to those in power (e.g., cartoons mocking Islam), free speech is venerated; attempts to suppress those kinds of ideas show that “they have declared war on any country, like ourselves, that values freedom, openness and tolerance.” We get to celebrate ourselves as superior and progressive and victimized, and how good that feels. But when ideas are advocated that upset those in power (e.g. speech by Muslims critical of Western nations and their allies), the very same people acquiesce to, or expressly endorse, full-scale suppression. Thus can the Canadian Prime Minister pompously parade around as some sort of Guardian of Enlightenment Ideals only, three months later, to act like the classic tyrant.

Casting aside U.S. concerns about aiding extremist groups, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have converged on an aggressive new strategy to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad. The two countries — one a democracy, the other a conservative kingdom — have for years been at odds over how to deal with Assad, their common enemy. But mutual frustration with what they consider American indecision has brought the two together in a strategic alliance that is driving recent rebel gains in northern Syria, and has helped strengthen a new coalition of anti-Assad insurgents, Turkish officials say. That is provoking concern in the United States, which does not want rebel groups, including the al-Qaida linked Nusra Front, uniting to topple Assad. The Obama administration worries that the revived rebel alliance could potentially put a more dangerous radical Islamist regime in Assad’s place, just as the U.S. is focused on bringing down the Islamic State group. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues, said the administration is concerned that the new alliance is helping Nusra gain territory in Syria.

The coordination between Turkey and Saudi Arabia reflects renewed urgency and impatience with the Obama administration’s policy in the region. Saudi Arabia previously kept its distance and funding from some anti-Assad Islamist groups at Washington’s urging, according to Turkish officials. Saudi Arabia and Turkey also differed about the role of the international Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, in the Syrian opposition. Turkey supports the group, while the Saudi monarchy considers it a threat to its rule at home; that has translated into differences on the ground — until recently. “The key is that the Saudis are no longer working against the opposition,” a Turkish official said. He and other officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. Turkish officials say the Obama administration has disengaged from Syria as it focuses on rapprochement with Iran. While the U.S. administration is focused on degrading the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, they say it has no coherent strategy for ending the rule of Assad, Iran’s key ally in the region.

The new Turkish and Saudi push suggests that they view Assad as a bigger threat to the region than groups like Nusra. Turkish officials discount the possibility that Nusra will ever be in a position to hold sway over much of Syria. Under Turkish and Saudi patronage, the rebel advance has undermined a sense that the Assad government is winning the civil war — and demonstrated how the new alliance can yield immediate results. The pact was sealed in early March when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Riyadh to meet Saudi’s recently crowned King Salman. Relations had been tense between Erdogan and the late King Abdullah, in great part over Erdogan’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Saudi shift appears to be part of broader proxy war against Iran that includes Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The new partnership adds Saudi money to Turkey’s logistical support.

America doesn’t “win” its wars, because winning a war is secondary to other goals in our war making. Winning or losing has little immediate consequence for the United States, because the wars we start, Wars of Choice, are not of vital national interest; losing doesn’t mean getting invaded or our cities being destroyed. The following are some of the interests Washington has in not winning, reasons for our unending wars.

America doesn’t “win” its wars, because winning a war is secondary to other goals in our war making. Winning or losing has little immediate consequence for the United States, because the wars we start, Wars of Choice, are not of vital national interest; losing doesn’t mean getting invaded or our cities being destroyed. The following are some of the interests Washington has in not winning, reasons for our unending wars.

A federal judge who seems keen on blocking the National Security Agency's phone records collection program has a clear path to doing so after a federal appeals court removed a potential obstacle Tuesday.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit formally ended an appeal in the case Tuesday, effectively returning control over the underlying lawsuit to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon.Leon could now act at any time to require the NSA to shut the program down, but such a move seems most likely after Thursday, when a hearing is scheduled on the suit filed by conservative activist Larry Klayman.

Nearly two years ago, Leon ruled that the NSA program--sometimes known as the Section 215 business records program--was likely unconstitutional and he ordered the program halted. That time he put his order on hold pending appeal, but at a hearing last month the judge sounded eager to issue a permanent injunction in the case before the program's scheduled end next month."The clock is running and there isn't much time between now and November 29," Leon told Klayman at the Sept. 2 session. "This court believes there are millions and millions of Americans whose constitutional rights have been and are being violated, but the window ... for action is very small ... It's time to move."

In May, the New York-based 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the NSA phone metadata program was unlawful because the Patriot Act provision used to authorize it did not in fact provide authority for bulk collection of records largely unrelated to terrorism. The appeals court heard a new round of oral arguments on that case last month, focusing on the impact the law passed in June will have on the litigation.

Pat Buchanan | Aug 14, 2015

In the Cleveland debate, Donald Trump refused to commit to support whomever the Republican Party nominates in 2016. Trump would be wise to maintain his freedom of action.For there is a plot afoot in The Washington Post Conservative Club to purge Trump from the Republican Party before the primaries begin.

UK's High Court found the rushed Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) to be illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, both of which require respect for private and family life, as well as protection of personal data in the case of the latter. DRIPA was challenged by two members of Parliament (MPs), Labor's Tom Watson and the Conservative David Davis, who argued that the surveillance of communications wasn't limited to serious crimes, that individual notices for data collection were kept secret, and that no provision existed to protect those who need professional confidentiality, such as lawyers and journalists. DRIPA was pushed through in three days last year after the European Court of Justice ruled that the EU data retention powers were disproportionate, which invalidated the previous data retention law in the UK. The UK High Court also ruled that sections 1 and 2 of DRIPA were unlawful based on the fact that they fail to provide precise policies to ensure that data is only accessed for the purpose of investigating serious crimes. Another major point against DRIPA was that it didn't require judicial approval, which could limit access to only the data that is strictly necessary for investigations.

DRIPA passed in only three days, but the Court allowed it to continue for another nine months, to give the UK government enough time to draft new legislation. Although this almost doubles the time in which this law will exist, it might be better in the long term, as it gives the members of Parliament enough time to debate its successor, without having to rush yet another law fearing that the government's surveillance powers will expire. This court ruling arrived at the right time, as the UK government is currently preparing the draft for the Investigative Powers Bill (also called Snooper's Charter by many), which further expands the government's surveillance powers and may even request encryption backdoors. It also joins other recent reviews of the government's surveillance laws that called for much stricter oversight done by judges rather than the government's own members. "Campaigners, MPs across the political spectrum, the Government's own reviewer of terrorism legislation are all calling for judicial oversight and clearer safeguards," said James Welch, Legal Director for Liberty, a human rights organization.

In the aftermath of the historic nuclear deal with Iran, as attention increasingly focuses on Iran’s supposedly menacing regional policies, the European Parliament (EP) has turned to a different target. At its plenary session in Strasbourg in mid-July, it adopted a strongly worded resolution condemning Saudi Arabian aggression in Yemen.

What is novel about the EP resolution is that it also explicitly condemns the Saudi Arabian-led, pro-Hadi, anti-Houthi coalition for airstrikes killing civilians in violation of international humanitarian law. Also known as the Law of Armed Conflict or the Law of War, these international rules requires combatants to take all possible steps to prevent or minimize civilian casualties. The resolution also condemns the Saudi-imposed blockade of Yemen. According to the UN, the blockade has had a dramatic impact on the civilian population, with 22 million people—almost 80% of population—in urgent need of food, water, and medical supplies. It also criticized Saudi use of internationally banned cluster bombs. It concludes that Saudi actions further destabilized the country and created better conditions for the expansion of terrorist and extremist organizations like the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The resolution is notable as well for what it does not say. Contrary to alarmist reports about the Iranian role in inciting Houthis to violence and attempts of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group to insert such language, the final text does’t even mention Iran once. In this, it reflects the prevailing view of European officials, including the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, that although Iran has increased its support for the Houthis—for example, with an air transport agreement and by dispatching additional advisors—there is no evidence of a substantial direct Iranian military involvement in Yemen.

With the Supreme Court knocking down regulations with a wrecking ball, the FEC out of commission, and an election heating up that will likely redefine the term “big money,” there are few avenues left for regulation of American elections. And now, Congress is set to close one off.On June 17, the House Appropriations Committee passed 2016 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill including a collection of provisions that ensure that the so-called “dark money” of elections—money that passes through supposedly non-political social welfare nonprofits, such as the Koch Brothers’ Crossroads GPS or the League of Conservation Voters, and is therefore free from disclosure—remains very much dark.Section 129 of the bill prevents the IRS from taking any action to investigate whether these social welfare groups are acting exclusively for social welfare; Section 625 prevents the SEC from requiring disclosure of political donations for publicly traded companies; Section 735 prevents a rule requiring that government contractors disclose their contributions to political groups, nonprofits, and trade unions.

Rules like these are aimed at preventing what some campaign watchdog groups refer to as the dark money system. Though Federal Election Commission regulations require disclosure of all donations to political candidates, 501(c)(4) groups—groups determined by the IRS to be for social welfare, not political campaigning, and exempt from taxes and donor disclosure—can be used as a workaround. Corporations and individuals do not have to disclose their donations to these groups, meaning that these groups can make donations to political campaigns using money donated by others without those original donors revealing it.An executive order requiring disclosure rules of this sort had been one of the last hopes for election watchdogs looking for a way to keep campaign finance under control in the coming election. This action by the House Appropriations—part of a large government funding bill for which passage will likely not hinge on such small sections—has left them even more enraged at the state of current campaign finance regulations.