In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous? ow.ly/lKS13

— Al Gore (@algore) June 6, 2013

The National Security Agency “appears to be collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of American customers of Verizon, one of the nation’s largest phone companies, under a top-secret court order issued in April,” the Washington Post reports.

“The order, which was signed by a judge from the secret court that oversees domestic surveillance, was first reported on the Web site of the Guardian newspaper… If the document is genuine, it could represent the broadest surveillance order known to have been issued. It also would confirm long-standing suspicions of civil liberties advocates about the sweeping nature of U.S. surveillance through commercial carriers under laws passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

New York Times: “The disclosure late Wednesday seemed likely to inspire further controversy over the scope of government surveillance.”

Mitt Romney told CNN that he was disappointed with President Obama’s pick of UN Ambassador Susan Rice to be his next national security adviser.

Said Romney: “I find that a disappointing appointment on the part of the president. I think what she did was to very seriously mislead the American people about what happened in Benghazi. My greatest concern about the Benghazi events was the fact there was not a rescue effort attempted and that is very troubling to me.”

President Obama’s “major shuffle of his national security team” ushers out a cautious Washington insider and elevates “two long-time proponents of a larger American role in preventing humanitarian crises and protecting human rights,” the Washington Post reports.

“The ideological shift signaled by the choices highlights a central dilemma for Obama as he seeks to make a mark on the world at a time of austerity — and war weariness — at home. How ambitious Obama intends to be abroad at a time of stiff challenges on the domestic front has remained an open question well into his second term.”

“The CIA did not always know who it was targeting and killing in drone strikes in Pakistan over a 14-month period,” an NBC News review of classified intelligence reports shows.

“About one of every four of those killed by drones in Pakistan between Sept. 3, 2010, and Oct. 30, 2011, were classified as ‘other militants,’ the documents detail. The ‘other militants’ label was used when the CIA could not determine the affiliation of those killed, prompting questions about how the agency could conclude they were a threat to U.S. national security.”

“The uncertainty appears to arise from the use of so-called ‘signature’
strikes to eliminate suspected terrorists — picking targets based in
part on their behavior and associates. A former White House official
said the U.S. sometimes executes people based on ‘circumstantial
evidence.'”

“In a major shakeup of President Obama’s foreign-policy inner circle, Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, is resigning and will be replaced by Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations,” the New York Times reports.

The appointment puts Rice, “an outspoken diplomat and a close political ally, at the heart of the administration’s foreign-policy apparatus. It is also a defiant gesture to Republicans who harshly criticized Ms. Rice for presenting an erroneous account of the deadly attacks on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya. The post of national security adviser, while powerful, does not require Senate confirmation.”

Samantha Power will be appointed to replace Rice as U.N. Ambassador.