FINANCIAL TIMES: Barack Obama has ordered that as “much information as possible” about US anti-terror intelligence programmes be declassified as the White House strives to fend off criticism that it is overseeing an overbearing surveillance state.
The US president’s order to release additional information about the operations of the secret court system that must approve surveillance warrants coincided with the nomination of a George W Bush-era official to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Jim Comey, a former prosecutor, is best known for his showdown with the Bush administration over his refusal in 2004 to reauthorise a domestic spying programme which he and other justice department lawyers had determined was illegal… (more)
