QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I think it’s a breakthrough, and I’m optimistic it can help us get a large number of votes on both sides of the aisle.”
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on a strengthened border-security plan in the Senate’s immigration-overhaul bill Article, this page
Leak: Spies can keep some U.S. content
WASHINGTON - The National Security Agency can keep copies of intercepted communications from or about U.S. citizens if the material contains significant intelligence or evidence of crimes, according to exemptions in the agency’s top-secret rules published Thursday in the latest leak of classified U.S. materials.
Documents published by The Guardian describe how the agency must first build a case to target a foreigner for phone or Internet surveillance. The documents also describe how the agency is to make sure the person is outside the U.S. and not an American.
But if the target is communicating with an American, the record of contact can be kept indefinitely. Administration officials have said material the agency inadvertently gathers on Americans is destroyed.
The agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, said at a congressional hearing Thursday that the federal contractor that conducted a background check on Edward Snowden, the former national-security worker who leaked the secret documents on U.S. surveillance programs, is under criminal investigation.
USIS, a unit of Falls Church, Va.-based Altegrity Inc., performed the check in 2011 and conducts about 45 percent of the background checks contracted out by the National Security Agency’s personnel office, she said.
FDA lifts morning-after-pill age limit
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved unrestricted sales of Plan B One-Step, lifting all age limits on the emergency contraceptive.
The move came a week after President Barack Obama’s administration promised a federal judge it would take that step - ending a decade-plus struggle by women’s health advocates for nonprescription access to the morning-after pill.
The administration had fought lifting age restrictions but gave in after several losses in court. Thursday’s move applies only to one brand.
Obama to name Bush-era official for FBI
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama today plans to nominate President George W. Bush’s former No. 2 at the Justice Department, James Comey, to lead the FBI.
Comey is perhaps best known for a 2004 standoff over a no-warrant wiretapping program at the hospital bed of Attorney General John Ashcroft. Comey rushed to the side of his bedridden boss to stop White House officials in their attempt to get an ailing Ashcroft to reauthorize the program.
If confirmed by the Senate, Comey would serve a 10-year tenure and replace Robert Mueller, who has held the job since the week before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Mueller is set to resign Sept. 4.
The White House said in a statement that Obama would announce his choice of Comey this afternoon.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Comey’s experience on national security would benefit the FBI.
Comey was a federal prosecutor who served for several years as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before coming to Washington as deputy attorney general. In recent years, he’s been an executive at defense company Lockheed Martin, general counsel to a hedge fund and lecturer on national security law at Columbia Law School.
U.S. officials: Sanctions swung Iran race
WASHINGTON - American officials are hailing the election of an Iranian president who vows to seek relief from international sanctions as the first tangible evidence that the U.S. strategy is influencing Tehran’s nuclear policy.
The sanctions have wreaked havoc on the Iranian economy, and they weighed heavily in the June 14 vote for Hasan Rowhani, a candidate who openly criticized how his country’s leadership has handled its nuclear program.
His election has opened a debate in the U.S. on whether it’s time to ease sanctions and see whether Tehran shifts away from what the U.S. believes is the pursuit of a nuclear weapon. It also has set off intense discussions among government agencies on how to proceed with Iran, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
But Rowhani’s election will have no bearing on the next round of U.S. sanctions taking effect July 1.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 06/21/2013