No sooner had FBI Director James Comey delivered comments that revealed a deeper and more vital regard for what he called “the responsible exercise of power,” than critics from Poland demanded an apology for a reference he made in a speech about the Holocaust. As reported in The New York Times (Apr. 20), “Polish political leaders have been taking turns...

Speaking at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual National Tribute Dinner held each year on April 15th, FBI Director James Comey took time to make clear why he requires agents to visit the Holocaust Museum. Director Comey is a special breed of law enforcement official who not only sees and understands the big picture, but encourages his agents to...

Since a bystander’s video uncovered the brutal shooting of a fifty-year-old black man by a North Charleston, South Carolina police officer, the graphic video has been played and replayed by broadcast media too many times to count. Every time an expert, analyst, relative or the witness/videographer himself, have been interviewed, we see the same horrific images with sound repeated. When...

Where do you go when the court of last resort turns you down? For the past several years I’ve been researching a couple of aspects of the Office of Independent Counsel headed by Kenneth Starr and succeeded by Robert Ray. I interviewed Jo Ann Harris, the former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division under then-Attorney General...

What will make a difference in the years ahead? How can we overcome extremism, complacency, prejudice, arrogance, ignorance, doubt, fear and hate? How can we learn to be better citizens, not just of our own country but of the world? How can we get to a place where helping each other is more important than winning at any cost; where...

Cyber attacks are no longer a matter of “if.” They’re here, they’re growing more frequent, and we need to be prepared. However, in journalist Shane Harris’ enlightening, call to action book, @ War – The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex (2014), questions continue to arise, not only about the legality, but the ethics of such far-reaching programs utilized by the...

Last month, Citizenfour was awarded an Oscar for best documentary in 2014. The film concerns intelligence thief Edward Snowden, and the massive amount of documents he leaked to the media regarding a variety of NSA programs. The title comes from the pseudonym adopted by Snowden in an encrypted e-mail sent to director Laura Poitras in which he offered her inside...

Around Oscar time, it has become routine for critics to partner with historians and scrutinize historically-based movies for their accuracy or inaccuracy regarding the facts. A documentary documents a non-fiction event(s) or person(s) usually mixing interviews, archive film, possibly recreations of an event or events, usually with a narrator who details what happened. A fact-based movie is a dramatization of...

James Comey tackled a tough topic last week. Speaking to students at Washington’s Georgetown University (Feb. 12), this is the first time I can remember the top law enforcement official at the FBI stepping forward to talk about an issue that’s long been simmering: police and race relations. “At many points in American history,” Comey points out, “law enforcement enforced...

What do we not know about Lincoln that historians and authors think we should know about the much favored 16th president? Last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review offered reviews of three new books. How many books, would you imagine, have been written about Lincoln? According to the website, The Inquisitr (yes, that’s the way they spell it), “the people...