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Peter Scheer

NSA may have adhered to legal rules, but legal rules can’t keep up with changes in surveillance technology

Peter Scheer November 24, 2013

A year or two from now, when investigators have taken stock of all the revelations in the NSA records released by Edward Snowden, the verdict is likely to be that the exposed NSA surveillance activities were NOT unlawful. That isn’t to say the NSA’s scarfing up of email and phone call metadata filling acres of computer servers in Utah wasn’t excessive, intrusive and objectionable. It was (and, to the extent ongoing, still is). But we

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The public does not get to see what’s in the new BART contract until it’s a done deal. Why is that?

Peter Scheer October 29, 2013

In a few days the members of unions representing BART workers will complete their vote to approve a new contract—a collective bargaining agreement. The vote will finalize the agreement, making it legally binding on both the unions and on BART. And only then, when the ink has dried and the agreement is a fait accompli, will the public, including BART riders and Bay Area taxpayers, get a look  at the terms, conditions and obligations to

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The First Amendment protects journalists using Snowden’s documents. But what about Snowden?

Peter Scheer October 21, 2013

I am often asked whether Edward Snowden’s leaking of classified documents about NSA surveillance programs is protected by the first amendment. My answer is no, his handing over of classified information to reporters at The Guardian, the Washington Post and the New York Times enjoys no constitutional protection or privilege. Snowden is a source who leaks information, not a journalist who receives leaks. The difference is crucial: in the transaction between source and journalist, constitutional

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Did members of Congress make securities trades to profit from breach of debt limit?

Peter Scheer October 16, 2013

If you’re trying to understand the intentions of public officials, the most revealing information often is not what they tell their colleagues or the press, but what they tell their brokers. So it is with members of Congress during the recent political and financial impasse. Here’s a story idea for Washington journalists: Take a look at the securities investments made by key members of Congress in the run-up to the deadline for raising the government’s

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NYT still has the power to alter the facts of the very story on which it is reporting.

Peter Scheer October 7, 2013

Long gone are the days when major newspapers and network news operations had the power, through their selection of stories, to set the political agenda. That’s a change for the better, to be sure. But the best of the ancien media regime are still peerless in their ability to compel change in the actions of the people and institutions they report on. Take for example an article in the business section of Sunday’s New York

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