spying

Eight years after it was passed, the USA Patriot Act remains among the most controversial pieces of counterterrorism legislation in the so-called “war on terror.”

Whether Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) is the “member of Congress” whose National Security Agency-tapped phone calls were referenced in last week’s New York Times piece seems unlikely, for reasons I’ll get into in a second. But Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly has a monster story: the NSA wiretapped recorded Harman’s calls as part of a [...]

You’re a maddening figure, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). You seem like a nice enough gentleman. And then you say things like this — via Josh Orton at MyDD –  during last year’s debate over amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (video after the jump):

The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency improperly wiretapped a member of Congress who was “part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006.” Greg Sargent wants to know who it was. Don’t we all. To the Googling stations!

Dear Tea Partiers,
I’d like to address you in good faith for a moment. I noticed today you had some strong feelings about what you consider to be President Obama taking away your freedom. You had some problems, I saw, with a recent Department of Homeland Security report assessing that your outrage is coterminous with prospective [...]

It’s a Washington tradition. Outgoing administrations try to ram through a slew of new federal regulations. But the Bush administration has expanded on this, seeking to push through at least 90 changes that can affect the health and safety of millions. Here are five examples.