Feinstein, in Letter About KSM Trial, Suggests Follow-Ups to Christmas Attack Are Possible

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has released a letter she sent to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder asking them to reconsider trying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, in Manhattan. Significantly, Feinstein urged Obama and Holder to More…

Feinstein, Bond & the Blair Imbroglio

Following on Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair’s star-crossed testimony in the Senate yesterday about Northwest Airlines Flight 253 — which the GOP leadership is using as a political cudgel against the Obama administration — the Senate intelligence committee heard from Blair and his intelligence colleagues in a More…

FBI Director Mueller Thinks You Can Get Good Intel From the Criminal Justice System

Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, may think the interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab went haywire when the would-be bomber was Mirandized instead of being subject to the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. But FBI Director Robert Mueller had a different take about the value of intelligence collected within the More…

A Last-Minute Push to End Insurers’ Anti-Trust Exemption

A group of powerful Senate Democrats is urging leadership today to repeal the federal anti-trust exemption that insurance companies have enjoyed for more than six decades. In a letter to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democrats More…

Feinstein, Brennan Back NCTC Chief

Today has been filled with news of National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter taking a vacation during the aftermath of the failed attack on Northwest Flight 253. But not only did President Obama say he couldn’t single any one individual out for failure, his counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, actually stepped More…

DHS Still Doesn’t Know Who Overstays Visas

In October, The New York Times reported that “Eight years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and despite repeated mandates from Congress, the United States still has no reliable system for verifying that foreign visitors have left the country.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano today confirmed that More…

Feinstein’s CIA Inquiry Will Finish ‘Early Next Year’

It may not be the 9/11 Commission, and may not have the force of, say, John Durham’s Justice Department inquiry into prospective CIA illegality in the Bush administration’s so-called ‘enhanced interrogation program.’ But a panel helmed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, has gone More…

Feinstein: All Health Insurance Should Be Nonprofit

TWI reader ajm8127 wrote in this afternoon with a thought on the insurance industry: “For profit health care insurance providers are a conflict of interest.”

Well, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) agrees.

Senators Debate NYT Editorial

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was none too pleased with The New York Times this morning. At the Senate Judiciary Committee’s markup session of the Patriot Act Sunset Extension Act, which would extend several provisions of the controversial law with only minor modifications, she went out of her way to read More…

Sen. Specter Emerges as Key Civil Liberties Advocate in Patriot Act Markup

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) just gave a remarkable speech at the Senate Judiciary Committee markup session explaining why he’s voting against reauthorization of the Patriot Act provisions because the substitute Leahy-Feinstein bill, which I described earlier today, doesn’t adequately protect American civil liberties.

Responding to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s More…