Walter Pincus’s report in the Washington Post and Mark Mazzetti’s in the New York Times on the testimony of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence provide an interesting snapshot of the issues facing the nation’s intelligence coordination center.  The testimony, added to by CIA chief Gen. Michael Hayden, covered everything from the Iranian nuclear threat to Pakistan’s instability to the threat of terrorism (cyberterrorism as well as the better-known kind) in the U.S. (more…)

In 2007, President Bush signed a law requiring federal agencies to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests within 20 days or refer disputed requests to an ombudsman.  The measure was an apparent breath of fresh air for journalists and public interest organizations eager to investigate government performance.  Now the Bush administration wants to shift the ombudsman from the National Archives and Records Administration (where the 2007 legislation placed this expert) to the Department of Justice.  Open government organizations are asking whether a Justice Department official can be objective as ombudsman since, as Elizabeth Williamson reports in the Washington Post, the Justice Department is also responsible for representing executive agencies when they are sued for withholding information.  Read Williamson here.