Skip to content

Adam in the News

May 05, 2015

Debate is renewed on control of lethal drones operations

The revelation last month that a CIA drone strike in Pakistan had killed an American hostage has reawakened a long-running debate on whether the intelligence agency should be in the drone business at all, or if such lethal strikes are best left to the military. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee, said last week that he would use this year's defense authorization bill to promote such a shift. The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee … Continue Reading


May 05, 2015

Debate is renewed on control of lethal drones operations

The revelation last month that a CIA drone strike in Pakistan had killed an American hostage has reawakened a long-running debate on whether the intelligence agency should be in the drone business at all, or if such lethal strikes are best left to the military. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee, said last week that he would use this year's defense authorization bill to promote such a shift. The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee … Continue Reading


May 04, 2015

New project to expand the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

LA gets a bad rap for not having enough parks and open space. But a campaign is underway to protect more of the open space we do have. The National Park Service is considering expanding the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area to include land in what's called the Rim of the Valley Corridor-stretching from the Conejo and Simi Valleys to the La Crescenta Valley. The first in a series of public meetings hosted by the National Park Service about the proposal is being held in La … Continue Reading


April 30, 2015

Patriot Act Faces Revisions Backed by Both Parties

WASHINGTON - After more than a decade of wrenching national debate over the intrusiveness of government intelligence agencies, a bipartisan wave of support has gathered to sharply limit the federal government's sweeps of phone and Internet records. On Thursday, a bill that would overhaul the Patriot Act and curtail the so-called metadata surveillance exposed by Edward J. Snowden was overwhelmingly passed by the House Judiciary Committee and was heading to almost certain passage in that … Continue Reading


April 30, 2015

Residents weigh in on Rim of the Valley expansion options at town hall

A town hall forum in La Cañada Monday asked residents to weigh in on a recent National Park Service report that calls for potentially expanding the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area to include the Rim of the Valley corridor of regional mountains. The NPS environmental assessment for the project explains how the 1,000-square-mile study area - which includes portions of the San Gabriel and Verdugo mountains, San Rafael Hills and the Arroyo Seco corridors - might be better … Continue Reading


April 30, 2015

A New Tool to Help Provide Helicopter Noise Relief for Angelenos

Helicopters have long plagued Los Angeles County homeowners and businesses with disruptive and excessive noise. While the presence of helicopters in our large metropolis is a necessary part of law enforcement, firefighting, healthcare emergencies and news and traffic reporting, there are ways in which we can reduce the unwanted and unnecessary interference with our quality of life that often comes with low-flying or hovering craft. Last year, I worked with Senators Feinstein and Boxer and … Continue Reading


April 30, 2015

A Skeptic's Guide to the Iran Deal

As the great (and not-so-great) powers approach a June 30 deadline-putatively the mother of all deadlines-in the march toward a final nuclear agreement with Iran, I find myself relying on the analysis of a handful of experts to help me understand the intricacies of the technical and political aspects of the so-called framework agreement-"so-called" because the framework agreement has appeared, so far at least, to be more framework than actual agreement. These experts include Gary Samore, … Continue Reading


April 29, 2015

Rim of Valley recreation area would protect 173,000 acres, stretch from San Fernando Valley to Pasadena

An area of the Santa Monica Mountains that sleek mountain lions, fierce bobcats and soaring raptors call home might soon double, thanks to a congressional proposal under consideration by the U.S. National Park Service. A portion of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area known as the Rim of the Valley, mainly a collection of parkland, open space and trails, is a key component of the proposal addressed in a study of the corridor. The study, released last week, prefers … Continue Reading


April 27, 2015

House passes info sharing bill, ball in Senate court

The House passed cybersecurity legislation Thursday - for the second Congress in a row sending the Senate a clear message: Your move. The difference? House GOP leadership can't blame Democrats if the bill stalls again. Instead, this go around will be the first attempt in three Congresses to pass major cybersecurity legislation with Republican leadership in the Senate as well as the House. House Republican leaders have been taking a victory lap on the bills all week, even before their … Continue Reading


April 27, 2015

Local officials criticize Obama, Turkish government at Armenian Genocide commemoration event

In the weeks leading up to April 24 -- the date widely accepted as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day -- Armenians around the world took part in events like a six-mile march to the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles and candlelight vigils to pay tribute to the 1.5 million Armenians who were killed at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915, as well as to add further pressure on the Turkish government to officially recognize the massacres as a genocide. On Sunday, the Armenian Genocide Centennial … Continue Reading


April 27, 2015

The Evolution Of Secret Strikes: Exploring The Unknowns About Drones

American drone policy and consequences. We'll look at secret strikes and the evolution of drone war. The drones are always out there, and we know it. Their strikes are usually invisible to most Americans. They make headlines in the US when something goes wrong. Last week, the President told the world that an American and an Italian aid worker - captives of al Qaeda - were killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in January. And for a moment, the curtain was pulled back again on lethal US … Continue Reading


April 24, 2015

News-Press Cartoon: Pope Francis acknowledges the Armenian Genocide

Bert Ring gives us his take on Pope Francis' acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide and President Obama's decision not to use the word … Continue Reading


April 24, 2015

Amid Errors, Obama Publicly Wrestles With Drones’ Limits

WASHINGTON - He looked down at his text, but seemed to drift away from it. He had planned to say something about the drone strike that killed two hostages by mistake, about how the tragedy would be reviewed. Then President Obama paused and recalled that someone had just asked him how he absorbed such awful news. "We all bleed when we lose an American life," he said. "We all grieve when any innocent life is taken. We don't take this work lightly." A day after announcing the deaths of the … Continue Reading


April 24, 2015

Deaths of 2 Western hostages won't end U.S. drone

A fiery barrage of missiles from CIA drones inadvertently killed two Western hostages, including an American, during an attack on a suspected Al Qaeda hide-out in northwestern Pakistan, but U.S. officials said Thursday that they won't stop using drones to target and kill terrorists. The deaths in January of Warren Weinstein, a rural development expert from suburban Maryland, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian aid worker, mark the first known case where a U.S. drone has killed foreign … Continue Reading


April 23, 2015

CIA’s role in drone strikes encourages secrecy, lawmakers say

Nearly two years ago, President Barack Obama called for moving the drone war from the CIA to the Defense Department to give the controversial counterterrorism program greater oversight. But resistance by key members of Congress and a desire to retain an added level of secrecy and measure of deniability has kept implementation in limbo. While the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command does have purview over some of the drone operations aimed at killing terrorists, the CIA still … Continue Reading


April 23, 2015

100 years and 1.5 million lives later

Thousands will gather on the streets of Los Angeles on Friday to march in honor of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, and to pressure the Turkish and United States governments into officially recognizing the genocide. On April 21, the White House confirmed that President Obama will not use the word genocide in his annual Armenian massacre statement to be released on April 24. Although the U.S. does not officially recognize the Armenian genocide, 43 U.S. … Continue Reading


April 23, 2015

Obama’s Drone-Strike Rules to Be Reviewed

President Barack Obama's embrace of drones as a core component of his counterterrorism strategy has long put him at odds with his Democratic supporters. Now new concerns have been raised in the wake of revelations that restrictions he imposed two years ago on the program failed to prevent the deaths of American development expert Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto, killed by a drone strike in January. The president's challenge lies in his statement Thursday, when … Continue Reading


April 23, 2015

House set to produce first major cyber legislation in years

The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would grant legal immunity to companies that share cyberthreat data with the federal government, a vote that could pave the way to Congress's adopting the first major piece of cybersecurity legislation in years. A similar bill is expected to pass the chamber Thursday. Both measures will then be fashioned into a package to be sent to the Senate. Lawmakers have struggled for the past five years to pass legislation that would improve … Continue Reading


April 23, 2015

Recognizing the Armenian Genocide One Hundred Years Later

One hundred years ago this week, the Ottoman Empire in its dying throes undertook a systematic effort to exterminate the Armenian and Assyrian people. They did so through a campaign of mass killing and displacement which saw 1.5 million Armenians killed and millions more forced to flee from their ancestral homes. At the time, there was no word to describe an effort to eliminate an entire people, though American officials in the region had no difficulty describing the horrors they witnessed. … Continue Reading


April 23, 2015

National Public Radio - U.S. Cable

Story here: http://www.npr.org/2015/04/23/401655839/congressional-battle-brews-over-bill-to-extend-nsa-data-collection NPR 4/23/2015 8:48:51 AM: ...husband to ignore there could be even more resistance to what McConnell's proposing in the House there is a fake very sizeable wipers majority that supports the end to balk call action that California's Adam Schiff ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence committee he says members of both parties in the House are working on legislation that Ms … Continue Reading

Showing page   of 25