ABOUT:
Defense policy analysis, commentary and discussion.Tim Starks covers intelligence for CQ Roll Call. Before that, he served as homeland security and veterans affairs reporter, and had a stint as a reporter at CQ Homeland Security. In 2009, he won the National Press Club's Sandy Hume Award for Excellence in Political Journalism. Before coming to CQ, Mr. Starks opened the Washington bureau of the New York Sun and served as a correspondent. He had previous been statehouse bureau chief for his hometown Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press, where he was the co-winner of the 2001 Associated Press Managing Editors' 1st place award for non-deadline news reporting. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a bachelor's degree in print journalism, and minored in English literature.
Edward Snowden, the man who publicly exposed several controversial National Security Agency programs, said Monday that he was inspired to leak the secrets because of spy agency leaders’ “lies” to Congress, and because congressional leaders did nothing about it.
Lawmakers’ wildly conflicting accounts of how much they knew about newly leaked surveillance programs has cast a new glare on the difficulties of congressional oversight of intelligence and the stratified rules about which members and staffers can be briefed on what.
Backers of a controversial cyber-threat information-sharing bill overcame a White House veto threat and vocal criticism from privacy and civil liberties groups to push it through the House last month by a resounding margin.
President Barack Obama tried to use a wide-ranging speech Thursday to reset the narrative on a counterterrorism record that has been a political thorn in the White House’s side in recent months. But the immediate reaction from adversaries in Congress about new policies relating to the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison and drone strikes suggested he had changed few minds.
The budget crunch, Obama administration officials contend, is already threatening the federal government’s ability to recruit the people it needs to respond to cyberattacks. But it might end up being even harder on the next generation of would-be cyber-warriors.
The Department of Defense’s Cyber Command reportedly wants to quintuple its workforce, but its leader, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, told a House Armed Services subcommittee last week that the threat of furloughs is going to hamstring his ability to recruit people to defend U.S. computer networks.
Sen. Rand Paul waged an old-fashioned filibuster of CIA director nominee John O. Brennan Wednesday, taking to the floor for more than 12 hours to protest the Obama administration’s stance over whether the U.S. government can conduct targeted killings of suspected terrorists on U.S. soil.
The confirmation prospects for John O. Brennan to become CIA director got a boost Tuesday with Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein announcing that the administration would supply her panel with additional legal opinions on the targeted killing of U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism overseas. The committee then approved his nomination Tuesday afternoon in a closed 12-3 vote.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday on CIA director nominee John O. Brennan — and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants a full Senate vote this week — but Republicans still want more answers on last year’s terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
House Judiciary Committee members differ over whether an after-the-fact review of drone strikes targeting U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism overseas was preferable to a court review beforehand.
Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee saw some of the documents they wanted Tuesday about last year’s attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, but they were not sufficient to clear a path for President Barack Obama’s CIA director nominee.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is all but certain to vote Feb. 28 on the nomination of John O. Brennan to lead the CIA, and the panel’s chairwoman predicted the committee would vote to support him.
In written answers to Senate Intelligence Committee questions released Friday, CIA director nominee John Brennan would not say whether the U.S. could conduct drone strikes inside the United States — only that it did not intend to do so.
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul announced Wednesday that he plans to place a hold on the nomination of John O. Brennan to run the CIA until he receives information related to the administration’s use of armed drones.
Senators don’t just want Justice Department legal opinions on drone strikes or documents about last year’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, as they consider whether to confirm John O. Brennan as CIA director.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, offered new details Sunday about his ideas for creating a special court to oversee drone strikes against U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism, which has gained momentum as senators consider John O. Brennan’s nomination to run the CIA.
With 19 days to go, the sequester standoff hardened Sunday. Congressional leaders from both parties said the deep automatic spending cuts must be prevented from taking effect, but Republicans drew a line in the sand against making tax increases part of any stopgap alternative, and Democrats did the same in vowing to protect entitlements and social programs.
John O. Brennan’s nomination for CIA director has fueled a surge in congressional exploration of legislation to rein in the use of drones, both abroad and domestically.
Senate Intelligence Committee member Angus King on Friday asked the leaders of the panel to incorporate language into the fiscal 2014 intelligence authorization bill setting up a court to review targeted killings of U.S. citizens in foreign countries.
At a spirited confirmation hearing Thursday, CIA director nominee John O. Brennan staunchly defended the Obama administration’s drone strike policy, as well as his own record on the subjects of harsh interrogation methods and leaks.
In a reversal on the eve of John O. Brennan’s confirmation hearing to lead the CIA, and with pressure mounting from Congress, the White House said Wednesday that the administration will provide classified Office of Legal Counsel legal documents about targeted killings of U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism to the House and Senate Intelligence committees.
Senate Intelligence Committee members are closely guarding how they might vote on the nomination of John O. Brennan to lead the CIA, but one thing is for sure: He will catch heat from Democrats and Republicans alike at his confirmation hearing Thursday.
Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday that a Justice Department legal memo on using drone strikes against U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism has allowed her panel to conduct oversight of the controversial practice.
As the Senate Appropriations Committee prepares to appoint its subcommittee chairmen, one thing is already clear: Barbara A. Mikulski’s takeover of the full panel should be a boon to the National Security Agency, the largest of the U.S. intelligence agencies and one of the largest employers in her state of Maryland.
Sen. Ron Wyden insists he doesn’t have a grudge against fellow Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California. What he does have, though, is a hold on her two legislative priorities of the lame-duck session — and he has, in fact, placed a hold on every major bill coming out of her Intelligence Committee in the past two years.
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