♦ Newsweek's Julian Sanchez argues that the Washington Post's "Top Secret America" investigative series shows that the U.S. intelligence community needs Government Accountability Office (GAO) oversight [1]. Despite the need for a tenacious watchdog, it won't happen, he reports. "Yet even as the first installment in the Post series was rolling off the presses, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence announced that it had rejected an almost embarrassingly modest reform aimed at improving intel oversight," Sanchez writes. "Under the threat of a veto by President Obama, the committee stripped from its version of the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act a provision that would have clarified the authority of the [GAO] to review U.S. intelligence agencies. If Congress and the Obama administration cannot manage even this small step—which should be a no-brainer, given GAO’s proven record of both expertise and discretion—there is little hope of fixing the portrait of dysfunction painted by the Post."

♦ A new National Research Council (NRC) report worries the United States' skill at detecting nuclear weapons is withering [2]. "Nuclear forensics, the ability to detect, defuse and attribute the origin of nuclear weapons materials, remains a well-practiced discipline at Energy Department labs, says the Nuclear Forensics: A Capability at Risk report," according to USA Today's Dan Vergano. "However the NRC panel headed by Albert Carnesale of UCLA, details 'concerns about the program and finds that without strong leadership, careful planning, and additional funds, these capabilities will decline.'"

♦ Michigan wants the federal government's word that it will pay the security costs of trying the Underwear Bomber [3]. "Michigan's two U.S. senators and its 15 U.S. House members wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday, seeking assurances the federal government will pay for security at the trial of a man accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner," reports the Chicago Tribune. "The letter from the 17 lawmakers told Napolitano her earlier responses were 'insufficient.'" A DHS spokeswoman said the department will respond to the lawmakers individually rather than communicating their response via the media.

♦ In an interview with National Public Radio, Jameel Jaffer, the director of the ACLU's National Security Project, says there's a continuity between the counterterrorism policies of President Obama and President Bush [4], regardless of Obama's beliefs about executive power. "I don't think that the Obama administration has the same ideological commitment to a global war on terror, or an ideological commitment to an expansion of executive power," Jaffer told NPR's Ari Shapiro. "But if you look at what's actually happening to the law as a result of the Obama administration's arguments, what you see is a continuation of a pattern that started in the last administration."

♦ Protecting the weekend wedding of former first daughter Chelsea Clinton [5] will be a massive security operation, reports New York's Daily News. "State police confirmed yesterday they will patrol the Hudson to ensure the newlyweds have privacy from water-borne paparazzi," according to the tabloid. "The Secret Service was also making the rounds of town as the big day approached, and local cops were more visible.The Federal Aviation Administration has declared local airspace off limits for 12 hours starting at 3 p.m. tomorrow. One main local road will close from 4 p.m. tomorrow until early Sunday."