Outside the Beltway

The most widely honored General from the Iraq and Afghanistan War has plead guilty to sharing classified information with his mistress.

David Petraeus provided highly classified secrets to his mistress. Will he be charged?

President Obama criticized Sony for backing down, and said that the U.S. would respond to North Korea’s cyber attack “at a place and time we choose,”

The U.S. Government has formally charged North Korea with responsibility for the hacking attack on Sony. How to respond to that attack is a more complicated question.

Vice-President Cheney’s amoral defense of torture has come to define how most conservatives view the issue, and that’s a problem.

What now?

A dark and regrettable time in American history is finally seeing the light of day.

The House Intelligence Committee has concluded that the conspiracy theories regarding the 9/11/2012 attack in Benghazi are not supported by the evidence. That’s unlikely to change anyone’s mind, though.

The CIA has always separated its core spying and analysis functions; that may soon change.

Not surprisingly, a law passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks has been used mostly for things that have nothing to do with terrorism.

Yesterday’s apparent terrorist shooting in Ottawa reveals again a phenomenon that seems difficult if not impossible to stop in advance.

A new report from the New York Times confirms the adage that, in war, the first casualty is the truth.

Last week’s security breach just became a lot more serious.

Apparently, the buck doesn’t stop in the Oval Office these days.

WaPo’s Emily Wax-Thibodeaux reports that, “At CIA Starbucks, even the baristas are covert.”

The C.I.A. has admitted spying on Senate investigators.

Someone took down a Boeing 777 over Ukraine today.

The US intelligence community is gambling that it can be more efficient through a public-private partnership than going it alone.

The NSA and FBI are doing more spy stuff.

There’s a new round of allegations about American spying on Germany.

The justice system works, there’s no need to scrap it.

Retired General Keith Alexander is hawking his services to banks at princely sums.

Ahmed Abu Kattalah, the alleged ringleader of the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, has been arrested.

The Supreme Court rejected another opportunity to clarify Federal Law on testimonial immunity for journalists.

For the first time, Edward Snowden is talking to the American media.

Some odd developments in Nigeria

Not every tragedy can be resolved with a military response.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, the Washington Post and the Guardian are Pulitzer Prize winners.

Bill Clinton seems far more understanding of Edward Snowden than the current President

Middle East peace talks are apparently in such bad shape that the U.S. is thinking of releasing Jonathan Pollard as an incentive to Israel.

If something is going to be done about an out of control National Security State, it’ll be because the American people demand it.

President Obama’s new rules for killing Americans with drones are proving inconvenient.

A new book by former SecDef Robert Gates is making political waves in Washington power circles, but will it matter to ordinary Americans?

The “paper of record” joins the call for some kind of deal with Edward Snowden.

The New York Times Benghazi report raises as many questions as it purports to answer.

.Many have tried to justify N.S.A. data mining on the theory that it could have prevented 9/11. Is that true?

Another Federal District Court ruling on the Constitutionality of the NSA’s data mining program, this time more favorable to the NSA.

In a new interview, Edward Snowden explains his motives for absconding from the country with NSA secrets.

Newly disclosed details about the US role in Colombia.

Does a determination that NSA data collection practices are likely unconstitutional mean that Edward Snowden’s actions were, in some sense, justified?

A potentially big legal setback for a big National Security Agency program.