“National security” on The Daily Caller

The potential for $1 trillion in cuts to the defense budget is thrusting the issue of national security back into the spotlight of the 2012 presidential race. (more)

On the day of the CNN/Western Republican Leadership Conference debate in Las Vegas, the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and CNN jointly announced Tuesday that they will host a Republican presidential debate focused on foreign policy and national security. (more)

In the weeks since President Obama went before the White House press corps to announce his plan for troop reductions in Afghanistan, criticism and support for his approach have fallen along political lines. This is not surprising in a town where decisions are often made for political expediency rather than as a result of careful strategic planning. (more)

Conservatives had a number of goals in pursing a debt deal: protect our defenses; decrease spending (including entitlement spending); keep taxes down; and protect the country’s creditworthiness. To date, none of those objectives has been met. (more)

Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon — perhaps while you are reading this — Andrew Marshall is working. (more)

Centrist and right-of-center national security experts reacted with contempt to Attorney General Eric Holder’s claim at a legal convention that the courts are the nation’s “most effective terror-fighting weapon.” (more)

It’s going to be a long, hot summer as Congress and the Obama administration debate how best to bring down America’s $14 trillion debt. Our crushing debt is as much a national security threat as it is an economic disaster. Many nations own our enormous amounts of debt, and some of these entities are nefarious in nature — like China, Russia, and OPEC. If these nations sell off our debt, they can wield great power over America. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Terror alerts from the U.S. government will soon have just two levels of warnings — elevated and imminent — and those will be relayed to the public only under certain circumstances. Color codes are out; Facebook and Twitter will sometimes be in, according to a Homeland Security draft obtained by The Associated Press. (more)

“Who’s Bogdan Dzakovic?” you may ask. “And why should I care whether he flies?” (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A leading House Republican warned the Obama administration on Thursday about demoting a federal worker who complained to her agency’s internal watchdog that political appointees were interfering with records requests by journalists and others. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army private suspected of giving classified U.S. documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks was stripped of all clothing for two nights to keep him from hurting himself in his military jail cell, a Marine Corps spokesman said Friday. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Army private suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive and classified documents to the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group was charged with aiding the enemy, a crime that can bring the death penalty or life in prison. (more)

A college dropout and Muslim convert who threatened the creators of the “South Park” cartoon series and then tried to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. (more)

WASHINGTON — (more)

LONDON — A British court on Thursday ordered Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, to be extradited to Sweden to face accusations of sexual abuse. His lawyers have seven days to appeal the ruling and immediately indicated that they would so. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress on Thursday gave itself three more months to consider changing provisions of anti-terrorism law that have been valuable in tracking security threats but have drawn fire from defenders of privacy rights. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A voluntary program to run all criminal suspects’ fingerprints through an immigration database was only voluntary until cities refused to participate, recently released documents show. The Obama administration then tightened the rules so that cities had no choice but to have the fingerprints checked. (more)

The threat of terrorism is at “its most heightened state” since the 9/11 attacks nearly a decade ago, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — After nearly a decade of wrangling, the Transportation Security Administration on Friday gave more than 40,000 airport screeners the right to vote on limited collective bargaining rights, strengthening their voice in work conditions but barring them from striking or negotiating over pay or security procedures. (more)

The two nuclear superpowers both shot down their own satellites using sophisticated missiles in separate show of strength, the files suggest. (more)