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	<title>SwamplandCategory: National Security &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
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	<description>Political insight from the Beltway and beyond</description>
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		<title>SwamplandCategory: National Security &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
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		<title>NSA Director Says Plot Against Wall Street Foiled</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/18/nsa-director-says-plot-against-wall-street-foiled/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/18/nsa-director-says-plot-against-wall-street-foiled/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:31:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Kimberly Dozier</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=98106</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) — The director of the National Security Agency said Tuesday the government&#8217;s sweeping surveillance programs have foiled some 50 terrorist plots worldwide, including one directed at the New York Stock Exchange, in a forceful defense of spy operations that was echoed by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee. Army Gen. Keith Alexander said the two recently disclosed programs — one that gathers U.S. phone records and another that is designed to track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism — are critical in the terrorism fight. Intelligence officials have disclosed some details on two thwarted attacks, and Alexander offered some information on other attempts. (MORE: PRISM by the Numbers: A Guide to the Government’s Secret Data Mining Program) He said the NSA was monitoring a known extremist in Yemen who was in contact with an individual in the United States. Identifying that person and other individuals, Alexander said, officials &#8220;were able to detect a nascent plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. &#8230; The FBI disrupted and arrested these individuals.&#8221; The programs &#8220;assist the intelligence community to connect the dots,&#8221; Alexander told the committee in a rare, open Capitol Hill hearing. Alexander got no disagreement from the leaders of the panel, who have been outspoken in backing the programs since Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton, disclosed information to The Washington Post and the Guardian newspapers. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the committee, and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the panel&#8217;s top Democrat, said the programs were vital to the intelligence community and assailed Snowden&#8217;s actions as criminal. &#8220;It is at times like these where our enemies within become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside,&#8221; Rogers said. Ruppersberger said the &#8220;brazen disclosures&#8221; put the United States and its allies at risk. The general counsel for the intelligence community said the NSA cannot target phone conversations between callers inside the U.S. — even if one of those callers was someone they were targeted for<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=98106&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>U.S. and Taliban to Start Talks in Qatar Office</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/18/u-s-to-begin-meetings-with-taliban/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/18/u-s-to-begin-meetings-with-taliban/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:33:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Patrick Quinn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=98098</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(KABUL, Afghanistan) — In a major breakthrough, the Taliban and the U.S. announced Tuesday that they will hold talks on finding a political solution to ending nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan as the Islamic militant movement opened an office in Qatar. American officials with the Obama administration said the office in the Qatari capital of Doha was the first step toward the ultimate U.S.-Afghan goal of a full Taliban renouncement of links with al-Qaeda. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said U.S. representatives will begin formal meetings with the Taliban at the office in a few days. The decision was a reversal of months of failed efforts to start peace talks while Taliban militants intensified a campaign targeting urban centers and government installations. In Doha, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naim said the group opposes the use of Afghan soil to threaten other countries and supports the negotiating process, two key demands of both the U.S. and Afghan governments before talks could begin. He made the statement shortly after the deputy foreign minister of Qatar said the Emir of the gulf state had given the go ahead for the office to open. Naim said the Taliban are willing to use all legal means to end what they called the occupation of Afghanistan. He thanked the leader of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani for allowing them to open the office. The Obama administration officials say the U.S. and Taliban representatives will hold bilateral meetings, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai&#8217;s High Peace Council is expected to follow up with its own talks a few days later. (MORE: Unease in Afghanistan as Foreign Troops WIthdraw and Aid Shrinks) The administration officials acknowledged the process will be &#8220;complex, long and messy&#8221; because of the ongoing level of distrust between the parties. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, vowed to continue to push the Taliban further and said that ultimately the Taliban must also break ties with al Qaida, end violence and accept Afghanistan&#8217;s constitution — including protections for<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=98098&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/afghanistan_yang.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Hamid Karzai, Fogh Rasmussen</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>Still More Noise Than Signal, As U.S. Spies Promise More Transparency</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/17/still-more-noise-than-signal-as-u-s-spies-promise-more-transparency/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/17/still-more-noise-than-signal-as-u-s-spies-promise-more-transparency/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:45:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Scherer</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97987</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Transparency is the new hot thing in American spycraft, say U.S. spies. “We are trying to be transparent,” promises Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA). “The American people deserve to understand what we are doing,” announced an unsigned white paper released by the Director of National Intelligence over the weekend. Yet as we approach the second week mark since documents leaked by Edward Snowden’s first made it into the mainstream press, it remains difficult to separate the signal from the noise. The testimonies of public officials remain opaque and at times contradictory. The reporting on the story is still not definitive. And new revelations raise more questions than they answer. This weekend saw three large information dumps on the scope and specifics of the U.S. signals intelligence apparatus—one from the Associated Press, one from the Washington Post, and one from the intelligence community itself, which is still struggling to regain credibility for its previous public statements that appear to contradict the Snowden disclosures. The flood of information was further added to by a distracting online controversy about the alleged—and since denied—contents of a classified briefing to lawmakers last week. The intelligence community dump is the simplest to digest, though the story it tells is almost certainly incomplete.  It discusses the two programs that Snowden revealed: a massive data collection program for phone record “metadata” in the United States, and a narrower program for collecting digital records from foreign targets through U.S. Internet companies. According to the spooks, both programs have been effective, disrupting “dozens of potential terrorist plots here in the homeland and in more than 20 countries around the world.” The 20 countries are not named, and the impact is specifically described for only one plot, the 2009 attempt by Najibullah Zazi to blow up New York subways. (The Associated Press, citing mostly public records, has argued separately that Zazi probably could have been caught without the classified programs.) The document also reveals that in 2012, less than 300 “unique identifiers” were searched in<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97987&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/2013-06-12t210344z_1933500332_gm1e96d0.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">General Keith Alexander arrives at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in Washington</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">michaelscherer</media:title>
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		<title>Brennan Rocks the Boat With Deputy CIA Pick</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/14/brennan-rocks-the-boat-with-deputy-cia-pick/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/14/brennan-rocks-the-boat-with-deputy-cia-pick/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:00:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97865</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Let’s say you’re the newly appointed head of the CIA and you’re plotting a strategy to wrangle the famously unruly work force. Now imagine your deputy, a widely-admired CIA veteran, announces he’s going to step down after 33 years of hard service. What do you do? You could replace him from within the Agency ranks—that’s a surefire crowd pleaser. Or you could tap an experienced former intelligence officer who is known and respected at Langley and has gone on to success elsewhere. Many DCI’s have taken that route and succeeded. Or you could do what President Barack Obama’s new CIA chief John Brennan just did: go for a virtually unknown person who has no intelligence community experience but who does have the two qualifications guaranteed to make Agency hands uneasy: “White House official” and “lawyer.” On Wednesday, the White House announced that Obama would appoint Avril Haines to be the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. She has been the top lawyer at the National Security Council, and previously was a lawyer at the State Department’s Office of Treaty Affairs, and at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. (MORE: Brennan’s Ordeal: The Beginning of the End) Haines, who has a physics degree as well as a JD, is by all accounts very smart. And she has deep experience in the oversight of covert operations thanks to her time as NSC’s top lawyer, a position that means she’s included in key meetings of national security officials and their deputies. But that won’t necessarily help her when she arrives at the CIA, which does a lot more than run secret missions. The agency is wary above all of being burned by political appointees and lawyers. The fear is rooted in four decades of scandals, from Nixon to Clinton to George W. Bush, in which the CIA feels it was hung out to dry by politicians, often when lawyers changed their minds about what was legal. The White House announcement has been met with surprise among Agency veterans, and Haines skeptics are already piping up.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97865&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/14/brennan-rocks-the-boat-with-deputy-cia-pick/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/94450347-1.jpg?w=130</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">CIA</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/afd9484b1bca74216e145d2c49c8af45?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Lawmakers: Terrorists Change Tactics After Leaks</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/13/lawmakers-terrorists-change-tactics-after-leaks/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/13/lawmakers-terrorists-change-tactics-after-leaks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Jun 2013 01:46:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Kimberly Dozier</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97877</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) — Two senior Republican lawmakers said Thursday that terrorists are already changing their behavior after leaks about classified U.S. data gathering programs, but they offered no details. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said it&#8217;s part of the damage from disclosures by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden of two NSA programs, which collect millions of telephone records and track foreign Internet activity on U.S. networks. Snowden fled to Hong Kong in May and has granted some interviews since then, saying he hopes to stay there and fight any charges that may yet be filed against him. Rogers said there are &#8220;changes we can already see being made by the folks who wish to do us harm, and our allies harm&#8221; and that the revelations might also &#8220;make it harder to track bad guys trying to harm U.S. citizens in the United States.&#8221; Later Thursday, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, used similar language in criticizing Snowden. &#8220;The bad guys are now changing their methods of operation,&#8221; Chambliss said. &#8220;His disclosures are ultimately going to lead to us being less safe in America because bad guys will be able to figure out a way around some of the methods we use, and it&#8217;s likely to cost lives down the road.&#8221; Rogers and Chambliss spoke after closed briefings with top administration officials on the matter. (NEW TIME POLL: Support for the Leaker—and His Prosecution) The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, said he&#8217;s concerned that Snowden fled to Hong Kong, a part of China, &#8220;a country that&#8217;s cyberattacking us every single day.&#8221; &#8220;It seems unusual that he would be in China and asking for the protection of the Chinese government &#8230; but we&#8217;re going to investigate,&#8221; Ruppersberger said. &#8220;He&#8217;s obviously now decided that he wants to relay information about foreign-type (intelligence) collection,&#8221; Rogers said. &#8220;Clearly, we&#8217;re going to make a thorough scrub of what his China connections are,&#8221; or whether he has a connection to any other foreign government, the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97877&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>CIA Deputy Director Morell Steps Down</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/12/cia-deputy-director-morell-steps-down/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/12/cia-deputy-director-morell-steps-down/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:24:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Kimberly Dozier</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97752</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who managed the resignation of CIA chief David Petraeus over an extramarital affair and defended the agency&#8217;s performance over the attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, retired Wednesday. &#8220;While I have given everything I have to the Central Intelligence Agency and its vital mission for a third of a century, it is now time for me to give everything I have to my family,&#8221; Morell said in a statement released by the agency. Morell retired after 33 years at the CIA, including two stints as acting director and one as deputy director. He was passed over for the top CIA spot by President Barack Obama in favor of the president&#8217;s counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, who announced Morrell&#8217;s departure. &#8220;I was most looking forward to &#8230; the opportunity to work side-by-side once again with Michael Morell,&#8221; said Brennan, noting that they&#8217;d begun their careers at the CIA in 1980. &#8220;As much as I would selfishly like to keep Michael right where he is for as long as possible, he has decided to retire to spend more time with his family and to pursue other professional opportunities.&#8221; Brennan said Morell will be replaced by Avril Haines, the first woman to hold that position. Haines has been a White House deputy assistant and deputy counsel for national security affairs since 2010. Before that, she was assistant legal adviser for treaty affairs at the State Department, according to a White House statement. Obama said Morell has been appointed to the President&#8217;s Intelligence Advisory Board, a body of mostly retired people who help advise the White House on intelligence policy. During the latter years of his career, Morell drew criticism for stating that the CIA&#8217;s interrogation program produced some useful information. The CIA is reviewing a lengthy, still-classified Senate Intelligence Committee report that says techniques like waterboarding produced no useful intelligence. Morell also made the final edit on the memo of talking points on the Libya attack, deleting references to the CIA warning the State Department of previous militant attacks in Benghazi.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97752&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/cia-morell-resigns_grod.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/cia-morell-resigns_grod.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Michael Morell</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>NSA Head Says Spy Programs Thwarted Terror Attacks</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/12/nsa-director-programs-disrupted-dozens-of-attacks/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/12/nsa-director-programs-disrupted-dozens-of-attacks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jun 2013 19:32:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Donna Cassata</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97746</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) — Once-secret surveillance programs were crucial in enabling the U.S. government to thwart dozens of terrorist attacks, says the director of the National Security Agency in a forceful defense of spy operations that have stirred fears of government snooping and violations of privacy rights. Army Gen. Keith Alexander, in his first congressional testimony since disclosure of the secretive programs, offered few details on Wednesday about the disrupted terror plots but asserted that the two government programs — they have collected millions of telephone records and kept tabs on Internet activity — were imperative in the terror fight. The director of national intelligence has declassified some details on two thwarted attacks — Najibullah Zazi&#8217;s foiled plot to bomb the New York subways and the case of David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American who used his U.S. passport to travel frequently to India, where he allegedly scouted out venues for terror attacks on behalf of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist organization. Alexander said he is pressing for the intelligence community to provide details on the other plots. &#8220;I do think it&#8217;s important that we get this right and I want the American people to know that we&#8217;re trying to be transparent here, protect civil liberties and privacy but also the security of this country,&#8221; Alexander told a Senate panel. (MORE: Snowden in Hong Kong: The Legal Complications of ‘One Country, Two Systems’) He described the steps the government takes once it suspects a terrorist organization is about to act — all within the laws approved by Congress and under stringent oversight from the courts. He said the programs led to &#8220;disrupting or contributing to the disruption of terrorist attacks,&#8221; without offering specifics. Half a world away, Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former contractor who fled to Hong Kong and leaked documents about the programs, said he would fight any U.S. attempts to extradite him. American law enforcement officials are building a case against him but have yet to bring charges. &#8220;I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality,&#8221; Snowden<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97746&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><letterbox>1</letterbox><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/nsa-phone-records_grod.jpg?w=151</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">John Dingell</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>Senators Look to Prevent Another Snowden</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/12/senators-look-to-preventing-another-snowden/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/12/senators-look-to-preventing-another-snowden/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:45:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97662</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Correction Appended: June 12, 2013 The Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed-door session grilled Army General Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, on Tuesday for the leaks of highly classified information by Edward Snowden, a low-level NSA contractor, according to members of the committee. This was first of what is likely to be many such uncomfortable sessions before congressional committees. Alexander is “perplexed by it too,” Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Republican on the panel, told TIME. “Obviously, General Alexander does not review or interview every applicant. But he is concerned about the process, about the use of contractors versus NSA employees. All of this is going to be looked at in light of these leaks taking place.” For her part, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Diane Feinstein, who has called Snowden a traitor, wants to know how so many contractors are given access to such sensitive information. &#8220;I’m very concerned that we have government contractors doing what are essentially governmental jobs and, I think, particularly with highly classified information,&#8221; Feinstein said. &#8220;Government people, who take an oath to keep that information secure, should be the ones&#8221; handling sensitive intelligence. (LIST: What’s Next for Snowden: 10 Notorious Leakers and How They Fared) On Sunday, Snowden revealed himself as the source of last week&#8217;s explosive Guardian and Washington Post stories. The articles revealed that the NSA had logs of every phone call being made to, from and within the U.S. as well as their duration, and that the NSA runs a program called PRISM which prowls the servers of major internet companies like AOL and Google for potential terrorist communications. Snowden, who said he was in Hong Kong seeking asylum from various countries, called himself a whistle blower and said he was hoping to start a national debate about America’s surveillance of its people. Lawmakers almost universally expressed shock that 29-year-old Snowden, who dropped out of high school and never finished college, had been given a reported $122,000-a-year job with top-secret clearance with the government subcontractor Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii. &#8221;I have a lot of questions that<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97662&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/170033754-copy.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">From left: Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Saxby Chambliss speak to members of the media about the NSA collecting phone records on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 2013.</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Rice Resurrected</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/05/obama-to-name-susan-rice-national-security-adviser/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/05/obama-to-name-susan-rice-national-security-adviser/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:28:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97158</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Barack Obama is expected to announce he’s naming United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice as his new national security adviser. Second term teams are often about bringing in longtime friends, allies and appointees that Presidents want, rather than big names people expect them to have. Rice, who early in 2007 betrayed her Clinton roots to endorse Obama, is one such friend. Rice was originally Obama’s top pick to succeed Hillary Clinton at State, a job that eventually went to John Kerry. Obama felt Rice, with whom he often dines, would know his mind without him having to tell her what to do. But Republicans objected to Rice because five days after the Benghazi attack in September she went on the Sunday shows blaming outrage over American-made video ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed for the attack, rather than terrorists. Republicans say she was politicizing the incident, trying to protect Obama’s claim that he’d rooted out al Qaeda. Democrats say she was speaking from talking points approved by the Central Intelligence Agency. Rice tried and failed to court Republican senators, all but dooming her nomination. The position of national security adviser does not require Senate confirmation. At the UN, Rice was known for her brash ways. She once presented Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Chrurkin with a cartoon of the Grinch with his face stuck on it. So, the role of national security adviser &#8211; who in addition to being the president’s top foreign policy adviser is sometimes required to fly out and deliver tough, undiplomatic messages behind the scenes &#8212; is widely seen as a better fit for Rice. Rice will replace Tom Donilon, who had said he planned to leave after Obama’s first term but stayed on to ease the transition of the new secretaries of Defense and State. Donilon, who served in the Carter and Clinton administrations, is the personification of the little-seen but nonetheless potent White House staffer, rarely giving speeches and avoiding television appearances. It is unlikely that Rice will take that route. Obama on Tuesday also plans to nominate Samantha Power, one of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97158&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/rtx10czo.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">U.N. Ambassador Rice speaks next to U.S. President Obama after being named to be new national security advisor in the White House Rose Garden in Washington</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Why Obama Wants a Top Bush Lawyer to Head the FBI</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/29/obama-taps-top-bush-lawyer-to-head-fbi/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/29/obama-taps-top-bush-lawyer-to-head-fbi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 May 2013 00:50:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96680</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Barack Obama has tapped former deputy attorney general James Comey to head the FBI, according to Administration officials. A Republican, his selection is likely to be met with broad bipartisan support. That has much to do with his sterling résumé, which includes his time at the Department of Justice and his record as the top prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. But it has even more to do with Comey’s leadership during the most important confrontation between U.S. law enforcement and the White House since Watergate. Comey is rightly viewed as a hero for his handling of the famous hospital incident of March 10, 2004, during which George W. Bush’s top White House aides, Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales, attempted to get bed-stricken, delirious Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize an electronic-surveillance program that Justice Department lawyers had determined was illegal. Every article written about Comey in coming days will refer to the incident. None of them will capture it as Comey did himself in his testimony May 15, 2007: One historical sidenote: Comey was persuaded to testify in part by a young aide to Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, Preet Bharara, whom Comey had mentored when he was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara now holds that job.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96680&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/99612748.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey at a hearing investigating the firings of U.S. attorneys, May 3, 2007, in Washington.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Can Obama End the War on Terror?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/24/can-obama-end-the-war-on-terror/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/24/can-obama-end-the-war-on-terror/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 May 2013 09:45:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Crowley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96411</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In his broad address on drone strikes, al Qaeda terrorists, and the prison at Guantanamo Bay Thursday, Barack Obama wrestled with some of the hardest moral questions that have defined national security policy since September 11: Who is the enemy? Who can we kill, and where, and how? What to do with suspected terrorists we hold in captivity? And when, if ever, will this war as we know it end? Along the way, Obama issued a strong defense of his reliance on drones to kill suspected terrorists in places where other military means are infeasible or risk more civilian deaths. He announced higher standards for drone strikes, limiting them to situations where the confidence about a target&#8217;s location is extremely high and the possibility of civilian casualties is virtually nil. He reiterated his belief that the Guantanamo prison is a stain on America&#8217;s honor and image around the world and should be closed, and vowed new action to make that long-delayed goal a reality. (VIDEO: Obama Press Conference April 30, 2013) But while Obama has an obviously sincere desire to bring the war against al Qaeda to a close and close the books on Guantanamo, however, he also lacks the power to make these things happen on his own. The future of the terror war that Obama inherited from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney depends on some very open questions: Will Republicans Play Along? The initial GOP response to Obama&#8217;s speech was skeptical. &#8220;The theme of the speech was that this war is winding down&#8230; [but] the enemy is morphing and spreading, there are more theaters of conflict today than in several years,&#8221; said GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. &#8220;The President&#8217;s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,&#8221; declared Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. Some of Obama&#8217;s plans require no Republican sign-off—he can change the rules governing drone strikes, for instance, by presidential directive. And he can transfer the dozens of Yemeni detainees at the camp who have been cleared for release back to their home<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96411&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/obama3.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">U.S. President Barack Obama makes a point at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., on May 23, 2013.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">crowley100</media:title>
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		<title>Obama Sees Narrower Terror Threat, Defends Drones</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/23/obama-defends-drone-strikes-but-says-no-cure-all/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/23/obama-defends-drone-strikes-but-says-no-cure-all/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2013 19:29:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Julie Pace and Lara Jakes</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96394</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) — President Barack Obama sought Thursday to advance the U.S. beyond the unrelenting war effort of the past dozen years, defining a narrower terror threat from smaller networks and homegrown extremists rather than the grandiose plots of Osama bin Laden&#8217;s al-Qaida. In a lengthy address at the National Defense University, Obama defended his controversial drone-strikes program as a linchpin of the U.S. response to the evolving dangers. He also argued that changing threats require changes to the nation&#8217;s counterterrorism policies. Obama implored Congress to close the much-maligned Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba and pledged to allow greater oversight of the drone program. But he plans to keep the most lethal efforts with the unmanned aircraft under the control of the CIA. He offered his most vigorous public defense yet of drone strikes as legal, effective and necessary as terror threats progress. &#8220;Neither I, nor any president, can promise the total defeat of terror,&#8221; Obama told his audience of students, national security and human rights experts and counterterror officials. &#8220;What we can do — what we must do — is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend.&#8221; (MORE: What Happens When Drones Return to America) Obama&#8217;s address came amid increased pressure from Congress on both the drone program and the status of the Guantanamo prison. A rare coalition of bipartisan lawmakers has pressed for more openness and more oversight of the highly secretive targeted strikes, while liberal lawmakers have pointed to a hunger strike at Guantanamo in pressing Obama to renew his stalled efforts to close the detention center. The president cast the drone program as crucial in a counterterror effort that will rely less on the widespread deployment of U.S. troops as the war in Afghanistan winds down. But he acknowledged the targeted strikes are no &#8220;cure-all&#8221; and said he is deeply troubled by the civilians unintentionally killed. &#8220;For me, and those in my chain of command,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96394&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rtxzyae.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rtxzyae.jpg?w=200" />
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			<media:title type="html">U.S. President Barack Obama talks at the National Defense University in Washington</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/cbef58d71daefb9ddab6c6b20018290c?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>Obama to Address Drones, Gitmo in Security Speech</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/23/obama-to-push-for-transparency-in-face-of-threats/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/23/obama-to-push-for-transparency-in-face-of-threats/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2013 08:40:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Lara Jakes and Lolita C. Baldor</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96357</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) — President Barack Obama on Thursday is expected to address some of the thornier aspects of national security policy, including drone strikes, the prison at Guantanamo Bay and the dire threats Americans continue to face &#8212; even from fellow citizens. On the eve of a speech Thursday at the National Defense University, the Obama administration revealed for the first time that a fourth American citizen had been killed in secretive drone strikes abroad. The killings of three other Americans in counterterror operations since 2009 were known before a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy acknowledged the four deaths. Obama&#8217;s speech is expected to reaffirm his national security priorities — from homegrown terrorists to killer drones to the enemy combatants held at the military-run detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — but make no new sweeping policy announcements. The White House has offered few clues on how the president will address questions that have dogged his administration for years and, critics say, given foreign allies mixed signals about U.S. intentions in some of the world&#8217;s most volatile areas. Obama will try to refocus an increasingly apathetic public on security issues as his administration grapples with a series of unrelated controversies stemming from the attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, the IRS&#8217; targeting of conservative groups and government monitoring of reporters. His message will also be carefully analyzed by an international audience that has had to adapt to what counterterror expert Peter Singer described as the administration&#8217;s disjointed and often short-sighted security policies. (PHOTOS: Everyday Drones: Photographs by Gregg Segal) &#8220;He is really wresting with a broader task, which is laying out an overdue case for regularizing our counterterrorism strategy itself,&#8221; said Singer, director of the Brookings Institution&#8217;s 21st Century Security and Intelligence Center in Washington. &#8220;It&#8217;s both a task in terms of being a communicator, and a task in term of being a decider.&#8221; The White House said Obama&#8217;s speech coincides with the signing of new &#8220;presidential policy guidance&#8221; on when<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96357&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/cbef58d71daefb9ddab6c6b20018290c?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>Holder: Obama&#8217;s New Drone-Strike &#8216;Playbook&#8217; Has Arrived</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/22/holder-obamas-new-drone-strike-playbook-has-arrived/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/22/holder-obamas-new-drone-strike-playbook-has-arrived/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 21:46:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Crowley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96306</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The big story this afternoon is the formal admission by the Obama Administration, via a letter to Congress from Attorney General Eric Holder, that it has killed four American citizens in drone strikes. That&#8217;s an interesting sign of the pressure Obama is under to be more transparent about his targeted killing operations in the fight against al-Qaeda. But the information itself is not surprising: it has long been known that Obama approved the killing of the al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, and that other Americans (including al-Awlaki&#8217;s teenage son) have been killed inadvertently — although one of the deaths, Jude Kenan Mohammad, had not previously been reported. Perhaps more significant, however, is something Holder&#8217;s letter mentions only briefly in its second-to-last paragraph: the Attorney General writes that Obama has approved a policy document that &#8220;institutionalizes the Administration&#8217;s exacting standards and processes for reviewing and approving operations to capture or use lethal force against terrorist targets.&#8221; This appears to be the &#8220;disposition matrix&#8221; that Obama officials, led by former counterterrorism adviser (and now CIA director) John Brennan, spent much of last year assembling. Casually referred to as the drone &#8220;playbook,&#8221; the document reportedly aspired to clear up questions like who should pull the trigger on drone strikes — some are conducted by the Pentagon, some by the CIA — and just what legal authorities and restrictions apply to them. It may codify a reported shift of some drone activity from the CIA to the Defense Department. So while the deaths of Americans by drone — including the targeting of al-Awlaki — aren&#8217;t really news, the implementation of a formal new policy guiding Obama&#8217;s targeted killing against suspected al-Qaeda terrorists is a big deal. But the veil of secrecy is not being lifted entirely. Holder writes that the new policy document will remain classified, although &#8220;relevant congressional committees&#8221; will be briefed on its contents. We may hear more about it, in broad unclassified terms, when President Obama gives a big speech on his counterterrorism policies.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96306&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/dbff773489594267945b5394c3ccc364-0.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">An X-47B Navy drone does a flyby the USS George H.W. Bush after it was launched from the ship off the coast of Virginia, on May 14, 2013.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">crowley100</media:title>
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		<title>Four Americans Killed Since 2009 in Drone Strikes</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/22/four-americans-killed-since-2009-in-drone-strikes/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/22/four-americans-killed-since-2009-in-drone-strikes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 20:56:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Associated Press</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96307</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder says four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes since 2009. The attorney general said that in conducting U.S. counterterrorism operations against al-Qaida and its associated forces, the government has targeted and killed one American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, Holder says the U.S. is also aware of three other American citizens who have been killed in such counterterrorism operations over the same time period.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96307&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rtr3df74.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Drone</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>Benghazi Again</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/benghazi-again/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/benghazi-again/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 12:20:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95089</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Republicans, apparently with nothing better to do, are still chasing their tails over the tragic events in Benghazi on September 11. Actually, no. That&#8217;s not true. They&#8217;re chasing their tails over what happened after the tragic events of September 11. They&#8217;re mostly concerned that the Obama Administration tried to cover up the fact that this was a terrorist attack by a local militia (translation: local street gang) which aspired toward bad-butt Al Qaeda status. This is a pretty hard sell since, the day after the attack, the President called it an &#8220;act of terror.&#8221; It does seem that the Administration&#8217;s talking points were massaged a bit after the President&#8217;s candor. This may have been attributable to the presidential campaign and the Administration&#8217;s desire to low-ball the Al Qaeda threat. If so, this was a venial, not a mortal, sin. It affected not one life. More likely, though, the wording was scrubbed as a result of the nature of the investigation going on at the time&#8211;it may have been deemed premature to announce that it was a pre-meditated act of terror. Perhaps the local militia lucked into a situation where they showed up at the consulate and found very little security protection. Hard to say. There were protests all over the middle east that night, ginned up by jihadis using the excuse of a near-unseen anti-Muslim You Tube video. But let&#8217;s say the street gang had been casing the joint in advance. Who&#8217;s to blame  for  the lax security? This is the real substance of the case. Could it have been the Secretary of State? Undoubtedly, no. This sort of question is well below her pay grade. Could it have been the person in charge of embassy security issues? More likely, and that person resigned after the subsequent investigations&#8230;and even that might have been unfair for two reasons. Security was up to the Ambassador and Chris Stevens was well known for erring on the side of greater public access to U.S. facilities. Or, more plausibly, reason number two&#8230; Could it<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95089&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/benghazi.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">A protester in front of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, on Sept. 11, 2012.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Homeland Insecurity: After Boston, The Struggle Between Liberty and Security</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/01/homeland-insecurity-after-boston-the-struggle-between-liberty-and-security/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/01/homeland-insecurity-after-boston-the-struggle-between-liberty-and-security/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2013 00:15:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi and Michael Crowley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Magazine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boston Marathon bombings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94641</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The contest between liberty and security has been with America since its founding. It has been fought on the public stage by every President from George Washington to Barack Obama. Each generation, from those facing rebellion in the 1860s to those pushing back against government intrusions a century later, has debated where to strike a balance. But in the dark world of 21st century law enforcement, where terrorist threats can hide behind our most cherished freedoms, the battle sometimes takes place in government documents so obscure that they escape public notice. Take the case of the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide. In October 2011, Obama’s Justice Department, mindful of increasing signs of homegrown terrorism, quietly granted FBI agents new powers that disturbed civil libertarians. Federal agents could now data-mine vast stores of information about individuals without making a reviewable record of their actions. They could conduct extensive physical surveillance of suspects without firm evidence of criminal or terrorist activity. They could interview people under false pretenses. They even had wider freedom to rummage through the trash of potential sources. (MORE: A Dead Militant in Dagestan: Did This Slain Jihadi Meet Tamerlan Tsarnaev?) But the new guidelines also featured added restrictions on an especially sensitive area of FBI counterterrorism work: mosques. Under the new rules, agents could no longer enter a religious organization without special new approval—in some cases directly from FBI headquarters. Moreover, according to still-classified sections of the new rules made available to Time, any plan to go undercover in a place of worship—a tactic employed by the bureau after Sept. 11, 2001, that drew protests from Muslim Americans and at least one lawsuit from a California mosque—would now need special approval from a newly established oversight body at Department of Justice headquarters called the Sensitive Operations Review Committee, or SORC. (PHOTOS: Joy and Relief in Boston After Bombing Suspect&#8217;s Arrest) On January 18, 15 months after those guidelines were issued and just a few days before Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, a young immigrant from the Russian region of Dagestan,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94641&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Magazine</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/magazine/</primary_category_link><letterbox>1</letterbox><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/securitycover.jpg?w=150</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">TIME Magazine Cover, May 13, 2013</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Battle Lines Emerge in the Boston Blame Game</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/25/battle-lines-emerge-in-the-fight-over-missed-boston-bombing-clues/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/25/battle-lines-emerge-in-the-fight-over-missed-boston-bombing-clues/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:02:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94117</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Things took another bad turn for the U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement community as Reuters reported yesterday that U.S. officials put Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the accused instigator of the Boston Marathon bombing who was killed during the manhunt last week, on one of the U.S. databases of potential terrorists 18 months before he and his brother allegedly launched the attack. That revelation has prompted an unsurprising response from Capitol Hill. Asked if Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was responsible for not tracking Tsarnaev before the bombing, Lindsey Graham told CNN on Thursday, “I have no idea who bears the blame, I just know the system is broken. The ultimate blame I think is with the Administration.” House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, initially cautious in his response to the bombing, is growing increasingly critical of the performance of government agencies as well. At a Washington intelligence conference on Thursday, McCaul said Tsarnaev’s “departure from the U.S. would warrant a second look.” The more indications emerge that the elder Tsarnaev had come to the attention of U.S. officials before the bombing, the stronger the case becomes that law enforcement could have convinced a judge to allow the FBI to monitor him for signs he intended to do something violent. But that doesn’t mean we know for sure that the FBI or Department of Homeland Security or some other government agency dropped the ball. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told the same conference that Americans should “not hyperventilate for a while before we get all the facts.” With regard to the handling of the Tsarnaevs by law enforcement and the intelligence community before the attack, Clapper said, “The rules were abided by, as best as I can tell at this point &#8230; the dots were connected.” Even more robust in his defense of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence was Philip Mudd, a former top CIA and FBI terrorist hunter, who told a Brookings conference on Wednesday that those labeling the Tsarnaev case an intelligence failure have a “misunderstanding of how national-security operations work in this country.” Mudd makes a useful distinction between<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94117&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/rtr3ewkj.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Clapper testifies at Security threat hearing on Capitol Hill  in Washington</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>The Bureau Vs. the Boston Bomber</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/18/the-bureau-vs-the-bomber/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/18/the-bureau-vs-the-bomber/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:33:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=93341</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The contest between law enforcement and the bomber who killed three and wounded more than 175 at the Boston Marathon on Monday is taking place in a very different arena from past investigations. Where the Unabomber used the deep woods and isolation to hide, the Boston bomber is using the anonymity of crowds and the open-source knowledge of the Internet in his attempt to elude justice. But over the past few years, the cops have learned to fight on that field too. By all accounts, the FBI started cold on the case, meaning they had no prior information of the bomb plot to guide them as they began the hunt. From the start, the feds pursued traditional modes of investigation to begin generating the evidence for an eventual conviction of the murderer. They sealed the bomb site within minutes of the blast and soon enough found the telltale pieces of a pressure-cooker bomb of the kind favored by Islamic extremists and admired by right-wing militias. At first, the bomber seemed to have the advantage. He had chosen a crowded public event as his target, making it hard for potential witnesses to differentiate him from thousands of innocent bystanders and increasing the likelihood that evidence might have been destroyed in the mayhem after the explosion. And he had used a crude but effective bomb design that is widely available on the Web, and the parts to which can be bought at major retail stores or at hardware stores. But the cops have new tools to fight back against this approach, some of them the product of technological advances, others given to them by law after 9/11. Pressure-cooker bombs are sometimes detonated remotely by cell phone. If the bomber used that method, the FBI will have access to all calls made at or around the time of the explosions, thanks to detailed records of traffic through local cell towers that are routinely kept by carriers and are made available to law enforcement often without a court order (though in this case a<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=93341&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/rtxyn8u.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">FBI at the Boston Marathon</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Richard DesLauriers: The Special Agent in Charge</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/17/richard-deslauriers-the-special-agent-in-charge/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/17/richard-deslauriers-the-special-agent-in-charge/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:30:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=93144</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On Friday, July 9, 2010, FBI special agent Richard DesLauriers disembarked from a chartered Vision Airlines jet on the tarmac of Vienna’s Schwechat International Airport, accompanied by 10 Russian sleeper agents and their families. Nearby, four Russian prisoners got off a plane that had just landed from Moscow. The two groups headed toward each other under the baking Central European summer sun for a rare and unusually large exchange of captured spies. It was the culmination of what a former senior Justice Department official calls “one of the most complicated and impressive counterintelligence operations” in recent U.S. history. Less than three years later, DesLauriers is facing a very different challenge. As special agent in charge of the FBI office in Boston, DesLauriers, 53, is running the Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into the Boston Marathon attacks, the first successful terrorist bombings on U.S. soil since 9/11. The bombing is a different kind of case from the one DesLauriers spent his career investigating: a 25-year veteran of counterintelligence, he made his bones running operations against foreign spies, not tracking down and busting terrorists. For DesLauriers and the FBI, the Boston Marathon bombing is a high-visibility test. Former and current colleagues at the FBI and Justice Department say DesLauriers and the FBI are up to the task, and they say the roll-up and exchange of the Russian spies, dubbed Operation Ghost Stories, shows it. After 9/11 the FBI was criticized for failing to coordinate with other agencies and for being stuck in a Cold War–era mind-set. In the roll-up of Ghost Stories the FBI pulled off a politically and diplomatically delicate operation that involved coordination with multiple intelligence agencies, U.S. attorney&#8217;s offices and local field agents. “Rick is the real deal,” says David Kris, former assistant attorney general for National Security during the Russian roll-up, “He’s very, very good, extremely methodical and organized.” On paper, DesLauriers looks like a classic FBI special agent. He grew up in Longmeadow, Mass., went to Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., and then got a J.D. at Catholic<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=93144&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/the-special-agent-in-charge.jpeg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Boston Marathon crime scene</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/afd9484b1bca74216e145d2c49c8af45?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Richard DesLauriers </media:title>
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