The Intercept
My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror
I was sitting in the nearly empty restaurant of the Westin Hotel in Alexandria (VA) getting ready for a showdown with the federal government that I had been trying to avoid for more than seven years. The Obama administration was demanding that I reveal the confidential sources I had relied on for a chapter about a botched CIA operation in my 2006 book, “State of War.” I had also written about the CIA operation for the New York Times, but the paper’s editors had suppressed the story at the government’s request. It wasn’t the only time they had done so.
Killing Net Neutrality Has Brought On a New Call for Public Broadband
The Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality move gives fresh air to the arguments from municipal broadband proponents that city-run systems are the best way to ensure an affordable and free internet. Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, has studied the systems that have popped up all over the country. He said that these systems have far greater incentive to maintain net neutrality and that local control has some benefits people may not immediately consider.
That Net Neutrality Op-Ed in the WSJ was Written By A Comcast Attorney
A Democrat, Barack Obama’s former Federal Trade Commission chief Jon Leibowitz, dismissed network neutrality repeal as no big deal in the pages of the Wall Street Journal on Dec 13. He celebrated that the FTC would get restored authority to aggressively police the internet for anti-competitive or unfair conduct.The op-ed contained an unusual disclaimer:" Leibowitz was a Democratic commissioner at the FTC from 2004-13 and chairman beginning in 2009.
Trump White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter "Deep State" Enemies
Apparently, the Trump Administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies. The plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.