<![CDATA[Eric Lichtblau - Articles - RealClearPolitics]]>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/rss/archive/19636.xmlAuthor <![CDATA[In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens NSA Power]]> Sun, 07 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0500 In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say.

The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the court’s classified decisions.

]]> <![CDATA[The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking]]> Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0600 THIRTEEN years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.

What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.

]]> <![CDATA[Economic Slide Took a Detour at Capitol Hill]]> Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600 WASHINGTON — When Representative Ed Pastor was first elected to Congress two decades ago, he was comfortably ensconced in the middle class. Mr. Pastor, a Democrat from Arizona, held $100,000 or so in savings accounts in the mid-1990s and had a retirement pension, but like many Americans, he also owed the banks nearly as much in loans.

Today, Mr. Pastor, a miner’s son and a former high school teacher, is a member of a not-so-exclusive club: Capitol Hill millionaires. That group has grown in recent years to include nearly half of all members of Congress — 250 in all — and the wealth gap between lawmakers and their constituents appears to be growing quickly,...]]> <![CDATA[Topic of Foreign Money in U.S. Races Hits Hustings]]> Sat, 09 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON — Ever since he raised the issue in his State of the Union speech nearly nine months ago — prompting head-shaking by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. of the Supreme Court — President Obama has been warning about the danger of foreign money creeping into elections as a result of the court’s landmark campaign finance ruling.

]]> <![CDATA[Despite Vow to End Corruption, Ethics Probes Drag On]]> Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 WASHINGTON — With high-profile investigations under way against Democrats and Republicans, Congress is facing a series of difficult tests of the toughened ethics system that it put in place to weed out corruption and malfeasance among its members.

Senator John Ensign is among those under investigation in Congress.

The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.

Allegations surrounding Representative Charles B. Rangel, at a hearing on Thursday, are under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

Two years ago, after a scandal that...]]>