Blog Entries

Sibel Edmonds Requests Attorney General Review the Invocation of State Secrets Privilege

August 10, 2009 - 2:08pm

CONTACT: National Whistleblowers Center [1]
Stephen M. Kohn (202) 342-6980
Lindsey M. Williams (202) 342-1903

Sibel Edmonds Requests Attorney General Review the Invocation of State Secrets Privilege

Edmonds to Testify in Ohio Case Unless Attorney General Re-Invokes the Privilege

Review of the Big REAL ID Hearing Posted by Jim Harper

July 16, 2009 - 9:33am

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing yesterday on the REAL ID Act and the REAL ID revival bill, known as PASS ID. I attended and want to share with you some highlights.

Good News!

Little good came from the hearing, as it was primarily focused on how to get the states and people to accept a national ID. But there is some good news.

First, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared REAL ID dead (much as I did in my testimony two-plus years ago). “DOA” is how she referred to it.

Does the PASS ID Act Protect Privacy? by Jim Harper

July 8, 2009 - 5:56pm

I’ve written about PASS ID here a couple of times before - first on whether or not it’s a national ID [1] and, second, on the politics of this REAL ID revival bill [2]. Now I’ll take a look at whether it fixes the privacy issues with REAL ID. Privacy is complicated. Buckle up.

The day the bill [3] was introduced, the Center for Democracy and Technology issued a press release [4] giving it a privacy stamp of approval.

NSA’s Russ Tice on CyberCom & StratCom (Edmonds Blog reprinted)

June 25, 2009 - 4:27pm

While we were busy covering the ‘Iranian Twitter Revolution’ and gobbling up the latest ‘sex’ news involving Sanford:

Robert Gates issued his anticipated order to establish the U.S. Cyber Command which ‘supposedly’ will be responsible for defending the military portion of cyberspace. Of course the preoccupation with Sanford’s hanky panky and playing cheerleader for our twitter buddies didn’t allow for any in-depth coverage of this gigantic development.

Jim Bunning and Ron Paul: Fed trendsetters? By VICTORIA MCGRANE |

June 25, 2009 - 11:31am

Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will line up Thursday to take their shots at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

To which Ron Paul and Jim Bunning might say: Where have you been?

Paul and Bunning — viewed by their colleagues as among the most eccentric members of Congress — were anti-Fed before anti-Fed was cool.

Paul, a Republican representative from Texas, has railed against the Federal Reserve for so long that his supporters sometimes chanted “End the Fed! End the Fed!” at rallies during his long-shot 2008 presidential run.