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December 2013

MICHAEL MUKASEY: THE AIR OF UNREALITY IN NSA REFORM

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304367204579270431939767244?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop The president’s panel found no official malfeasance but recommends overhauling surveillance programs anyway. Grope through the Styrofoam pellets of rhetoric that surround the 46 recommendations in the report issued last week by the president’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, and you will discover that the authors “have not uncovered any official efforts […]

STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE PRESIDENT OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY MICHAEL McROBBIE

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie has issued the following statement on the proposed boycott of Israeli institutions of higher education:

“Indiana University joins other leading research universities in condemning in the strongest possible terms the boycott of institutions of higher education in Israel as proposed by the American Studies Association and other organizations. Boycotts such as these have a profound chilling effect on academic freedom, and universities must be clear and unequivocal in rejecting them. Indiana University strongly endorses the recent statement on this matter by the Association of American Universities

http://IndianaUniversity.pr-optout.com/Tracking.aspx?Data=HHL%3d8032%3b7-%3eLCE17-9%2f%3c8-GLCE17.6&RE=IN&RI=746473&Preview=False&DistributionActionID=23528&Action=Follow+Link and the long-standing position in this area of the American Association of University Professors.

“Indiana University values its academic relationships with colleagues and institutions around the world, including many important ones with institutions in Israel, and will not allow political considerations such as those behind this ill-conceived boycott to weaken those relationships or undermine the principle of academic freedom in this way. IU stands firmly against proposals that would attempt to limit or restrict those important institutional relationships or this fundamental principle.

“Indiana University will contact the ASA immediately to withdraw as an institutional member. We urge the leadership of the ASA and other associations supporting the boycott to rescind this dangerous and ill-conceived action as a matter of urgency.”

JED BABBIN: THE NSA’S BAD WEEK

http://spectator.org/print/57242 History admonishes us that the law has to be maintained like a carefully tended garden. Even when a law has undergone a thorough modernization less than ten years ago, when it deals with critical national security issues directly affected by technology — as does the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in regard to terrorism — […]

Kerry’s Oh-So-’90s Security Nonsense: Caroline Glick

Kerry’s oh-so-’90s security nonsense Like his supporters, US Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently been asleep for the past 20 years. Kerry has proffered us security arrangements, which he claims will protect Israel from aggression for the long haul. They will do this, he argues, despite the fact that his plan denies the Jewish […]