Today’s Headlines and Commentary

The House narrowly voted down the Amash-Conyers amendment to curb NSA phone surveillance to specific targets of law enforcement investigations. The measure, which was defeated 217 to 205, also “required that secret opinions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court be made available to lawmakers and that the court publish summaries of each opinion for public review,” reports Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times also has the story. Jerry Markon of the Post tells us that one Anna Smith, a mom from rural Idaho, is suing the President in federal court in Idaho over the NSA’s surveillance programs. Her attorney is her husband, Peter, who “has never handled a constitutional or national security case.” As for Ms. Smith, she says “I think it’s awesome that I have the right to sue the president. I’m just a small-town girl.” Good luck to you! Raffaela saw this ad in the Pentagon metro station from the Oath Keepers, a group of civil liberties advocates, encouraging people to “expose unconstitutional actions” like Edward Snowden did. Mike Riggs of Reason.com has more on the group and its goals. Charlie Savage of the Times reports that closing arguments are due today in Pfc. Bradley Manning’s trial. If Anthony Weiner can do it, so can Julian Assange: The founder of WikiLeaks is running for a seat in the Australian Senate, says Matt Siegel of the Times. He heads the WikiLeaks party, whose platform is “transparency, justice and accountability,” and will run his campaign from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Here's wondering if the internal communications of the Wikileaks party will be made public. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon distinguished between the NSA’s collection of phone metadata (Section 215) and the NSA’s collection of foreign telecommunications and internet data (Section 702), arguing that the latter program is valuable to national security, while the former is not. Josh Gerstein of Politico discusses the senator’s comments. CNN's Jamie Crawford reports that John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, found “serious deficiencies” with how the State Department awarded a contract for the training of Afghan justice workers. The Senate Armed Services committee will vote on the confirmation of Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey next week. Sen. John McCain says he will not hold up the vote, despite his dissatisfaction with Gen. Dempsey’s assessment of Syria. Jeremy Herb of The Hill has the story. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on closing Guantanamo Bay yesterday. He was---no surprise here---met with resistance from Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and other Republicans, says Richard Lardner of the Associated Press. Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, is displeased at the European Union’s decision to blacklist his organization’s military wing, according to Anne Barnard of the Times. Reminds me of this classic Onion story. And, meet Pakistan’s newest cartoon superhero, Burka Avenger---“a mild-mannered teacher with secret martial arts skills who uses a flowing black burka to hide her identity as she fights local thugs seeking to shut down the girls' school where she works.” It’s Today’s Moment of Zen. For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter, visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief, Syracuse’s Institute for National Security & Counterterrorism’s newsroll and blog, and Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief and Cyber Brief. Email Raffaela Wakeman and Ritika Singh noteworthy articles to include, visit the Lawfare Events Calendar for upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings at the Lawfare Job Board.