Patrick Eddington

On November 1, 2018 then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the launch of the “China Initiative” – a whole-of-government effort ostensibly designed to thwart espionage and technology theft by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Chinese American groups and activists immediately denounced the program as racially biased and its investigations improperly predicated, and in 2021 two … Continue reading “PRC Espionage: Are Chinese Americans Their Top Recruitment Targets?”

For decades, presidents and their appointees have misused the classification system to conceal waste, fraud, abuse, and even criminal conduct, failing to properly manage classified federal records generally. That is why a new bipartisan effort to deal with this major executive branch misuse of power is both remarkable and welcome. The solution offered by Senate … Continue reading “Does the Government Classification System Need Reform?”

Before leaving town for the 2023 end-of-year holidays, Congress managed to avoid a 12:01am January 1, 2024 expiration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). It began life in a totally unregulated form as a component of President George W. Bush’s unconstitutional STELLAR WIND electronic mass surveillance program. After the New York … Continue reading “The Quaint FISA Surveillance Debate”

The multi-year battle by local Atlanta and national activists to stop construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center – labeled “Cop City” by opponents – has entered a new phase. On August 14, ABC News reported that “#StopCopCity protesters had collected more than enough signatures to move its referendum campaign forward in an effort to get … Continue reading “When Speech Is ‘Terrorism’: The Legal and Political Assault on Stop Cop City”

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first story featuring National Security Agency (NSA) contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden’s initial revelation: the role of Verizon in aiding NSA’s telephone metadata mass surveillance program. As the Guardian noted at the time, “The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron … Continue reading “It Was All in Vain: Edward Snowden’s Sacrifice 10 Years On”

This is reprinted from the Orange County Register with permission. Late last Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a heavily redacted April 2022 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinion and order dealing with the highly controversial FISA Section 702 intelligence collection program, which is set to expire on New Year’s … Continue reading “Time To End the FBI’s FISA Follies”

It’s been over five years since the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) “Black Identity Extremist” (BIE) report was leaked to Foreign Policy magazine in early October 2017. The August 3, 2017, report – which alleged that “perceptions of police brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement” – … Continue reading “Is the FBI’s ‘Black Identity Extremist’ Label Still in Use?”

According to a recent document obtained by the Cato Institute, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation suggests that the State Department, and possibly the FBI, maintain an interest in the United Kingdom-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. As part of a multi-year freedom of information campaign designed to uncover potentially questionable – or even unlawful – … Continue reading “Is the UK’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament a US Government Surveillance Target?”

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the nationwide protests it sparked over two years ago, among the other alarming developments that eventually came to light was the level of government surveillance of Americans protesting Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. Not only was the surveillance carried out by federal, … Continue reading “Domestic Political Surveillance: How Deep Is DoD Involvement?”

February 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of then-President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the initial step on the path to the normalization of relations between the two countries after decades of animosity, and even military conflict during the Korean War. In the decades that followed, the amount of trade … Continue reading “Is DoJ’s ‘China Initiative’ Going Away? Don’t Bet on It”