Today's Headlines and Commentary

Despite talks in the White House, in Congress and abroad about reining in the NSA data collection program, the Times reports that the Obama administration, for now, has “concluded that there is no workable alternative to the bulk collection of huge quantities of ‘metadata,’ including records of all telephone calls made inside the United States.” David Francis of The Fiscal Times questions whether Europe actually will punish the United States over the ever-growing NSA scandal. Francis predicts that other than expressing public outrage, American allies will do very little proactive work to curb the data collection. Meanwhile, Charles Lane of the Washington Post considers a wider history of surveillance in Germany. This isn’t the first time Germany has been confronted with a spying scandal. In what will surely be the first of many tech companies doing so, Apple published a report on Tuesday concerning data requests from the federal government. The most important message that Apple tries to get across:

Our business does not depend on collecting personal data. […] We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers. We protect personal conversations by providing end-to-end encryption over iMessage and FaceTime. We do not store location data, Maps searches, or Siri requests in any identifiable form.

We all know about the dreadful state of pollution in China. The Atlantic looks at the (sorta) silver lining of the grey smog: apparently, “pollution makes it really hard to spy on people.” According to Al Jazeera, a U.N.-Arab League envoy has said Syrian peace talks will be delayed. The Syrian government and rebel group leaders were poised to take part in talks this month. The AP also reports. The Vatican embassy in Syria was hit by mortar shell yesterday. The roof of the embassy was damaged, but there were no casualties. It remains unclear if the embassy was specifically targeted. From the Wall Street Journal: the Foreign Minister of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif, says that a nuclear deal might be reached by the end of the week. An accord would end a long standoff between his country and the wider international community. Talks are taking place in Geneva. The Diplomat warns that the United States stands before a crucial crossroads with Iran.  According to the newspaper, how President Obama and his administration deals with the Iran in the coming weeks and months will determine America’s “standing as a great power.” Secretary of State John Kerry has been busy this week trying to mend relations between Israel and Palestine. The SecState met separately with President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu and seemed relatively upbeat and optimistic after his meetings. Kerry has also pledged $75 million in additional aid to Palestine for infrastructure. To others, constructive peace talks between Israel and Palestine are becoming more and more improbable. Yesterday, Israeli negotiators proposed that the current---and controversial---barrier through the West Bank should serve as the formal border with a future Palestinian state.  Man Palestinians would have their would-be state's boundaries encompass more territory of the West Bank, as well as East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Apropos of Israel, its former foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was acquitted yesterday of fraud and breach of trust.  The New York Times reports. Jeffery Bachman of The Guardian takes a closer look at U.N. reports on American drone strikes in Pakistan and asks: “Is President Obama a suspected war criminal?” Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban member who orchestrated the brutal shooting of school-girl Malala Yousafazi in Pakistan, is a likely contender to replace the slain leader of the Pakistani Taliban.  The latter was killed by an American drone last Friday. An appeal by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, to reverse a ban on the Islamist movement’s activities there, has been dismissed. The BBC has the story. Egypt’s ousted President, Mohammed Morsi, has been transferred to a prison hospital. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is worried about personnel costs over at the Pentagon. The bill for things like healthcare, he says, is big enough to strain spending in other areas vital to America’s national security. He’s thus urging President Obama and Congress to make budget improvements sooner rather than later. Russian officials did not appear before the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (whose jurisdiction Russia previously rejected) yesterday. The international court is hearing a bid by the Netherlands to force the release of the Greenpeace protest ship Arctic Sunrise and the activists who traveled aboard it. 28 Greenpeace activists have been held in Russia since September 18. Rebels in Congo surrendered on Tuesday after a 20-month conflict in the country. The rebel group M23 finally surrendered to the Congolese army, which had been backed by 3,000 United Nations troops. The U.N. previously had accused Paul Kagame, Rwanda's President, of financially and militarily supporting M23. Email the Roundup Team noteworthy law and security-related articles to include, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for additional commentary on these issues. Visit our Events Calendar to learn about upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings on our Job Board.