Ellen Nakashima of WaPo reports today:

The National Security Agency has pushed repeatedly over the past year to expand its role in protecting private-sector computer networks from cyberattacks but has been rebuffed by the White House, largely because of privacy concerns. . .

The NSA-fueled hysteria about cyber-threats has yielded several privacy-threatening legislative proposals, some which would legalize massive real-time domestic surveillance by NSA. The White House deserves credit for its rejection of this latest attempt to legalize NSA domestic surveillance, and for not buying into NSA's fear-mongering.

. . . the White House and Justice Department argued that the proposal would permit unprecedented government monitoring of routine civilian Internet activity . . . White House officials cautioned the NSA that President Obama has opposed cybersecurity measures that weaken personal privacy protections.

The Obama administration certainly chose a significant issue on which to take a desperately needed stand against the powerful intelligence agency. Giving NSA additional power to conduct domestic surveillance would further erode the already disappearing privacy rights of American citizens.

Author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and whistleblower Peter Van Buren discussed the State Department's retaliatory actions on NPR Sunday. From the NPR story:

The halls of the State Department are haunted, not by actual ghosts, but by people who might as well be ghosts. They're called hallwalkers, people who blew the whistle, people who angered someone powerful, people who for one reason or another can't be fired.

But they can be stripped of their security clearances, their desks and their duties and left to walk aimlessly up and down the halls of that massive building. Sometimes they're required to show up at the building to get paid. Sometimes they're allowed to telecommute from home.

The State Department's anti-free speech retaliation included stripping Van Buren of his security clearance, a forced transfer to a telework position after weeks of paid administrative leave, and banning him from entering State Department facilities. Van Buren explained:

There are procedures in the State Department to fire someone or to discipline someone. There are rules that the State Department claims are broken. But rather than pursue those avenues, which would have allowed me to defend myself, the State Department instead followed a different path where they used bureaucratic tools, unofficial ways of doing business that pushed me out of the village, sent me into the wilderness.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer writes in Huffington Post about the upcoming deadline in the lawsuit challenging the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which legalized unprecedented levels of government surveillance on Americans.

. . . the administration must decide by Tuesday whether to ask the Supreme Court to intervene in the ACLU's constitutional challenge to the FISA Amendments Act . . . For a full decade, the executive branch -- first the Bush administration and now the Obama administration -- has used the standing and "state secrets" doctrines to insulate its most intrusive surveillance activities from public oversight and judicial review. But . . . [t]he courts have a role to play in ensuring that government surveillance complies with the Constitution. We'll find out on Tuesday whether the Obama administration is finally willing to let the courts play that role.

[The FISA Amendments Act] . . .  is scheduled to sunset in December, which means that the litigation will unfold against the background of a congressional reauthorization debate.

The congressional and legal battles on warrantless surveillance also come with a more informed public, thanks in part to Jane Mayer's extensive New Yorker story on National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Thomas Drake. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) also warned that the public would be stunned and angry when we found out about the Justice Department's secret interpretation of another spy provision (PATRIOT Act Section 215) radically expanded in the aftermath of 9/11.

The media is feeling the chilling effect from the Obama administration's record-breaking number of Espionage Act prosecutions against so-called "leakers," who are usually whistleblowers. The New York Times reported this weekend on what I've chronicled since the first of six indictments – that of National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Thomas Drake: 

It used to be that journalists had a sporting chance of protecting their sources. The best and sometimes only way to identify a leaker was to pressure the reporter or news organization that received the leak, but even subpoenas tended to be resisted. Today, advances in surveillance technology allow the government to keep a perpetual eye on those with security clearances, and give prosecutors the ability to punish officials for disclosing secrets without provoking a clash with the press.

I'm all too familiar with this fact having represented clients who - knowing what the NSA is capable of - insisted on meeting in-person at places like the Olive Garden. Pay in cash. No phone calls. No texts. Definitely no e-mails.

The Obama administration's Espionage Act prosecutions result in a massive chilling effect on whistleblowers and potential whistleblowers working in the ever-expanding national security establishment - an effect that seems precisely the purpose of the prosecutions (the prosecutor argued that Drake needed to be punished to "send a message"). The Times recognized this weekend that the attack on sources has already turned into an attack on the media in the Espionage Act case against former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee Jeffrey Sterling, where the Justice Department attempted to subpoena Times reporter Jim Risen three times. Risen commendably fought the subpoena and offered a glimpse into just how closely Big Brother is watching journalists:

I have learned from an individual who testified before a grand jury . . . that was examining my reporting about the domestic wiretapping program that the Government had shown this individual copies of telephone records relating to calls made to and from me . . .