CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “That’s caudillo talk. That’s banana republic stuff. In this country, the president is required to win the consent of Congress first. At stake is not some constitutional curlicue. At stake is whether the laws are the law. And whether presidents get to write their own.”

CHANGE: Gen-X Dream Girl Phoebe Cates Turns 50.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: So, the NSA Broke the Law.

SOMEHOW I HAD MISSED THIS: CDC Study Ordered by Obama Contradicts White House Anti-gun Narrative More here.

Here’s the full study. The science is settled. You don’t want to be anti-science, do you?

I CAN ONLY THINK OF ONE PERSON WHO’D BE INTERESTED IN READING THAT ARTICLE: The Hollywood Reporter’s Curious Beatification Of Keith Olbermann.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Feds Threaten To Arrest Lavabit Founder For Shutting Down His Service. “It sounds like the feds were asking for a full on backdoor on the system, not unlike some previous reports of ISPs who have received surprise visits from the NSA.” And apparently you have a duty to stay in business to help them spy or something. Weak threat, but I’m not terribly surprised.

Somewhat related: Seeing threats, feds target instructors of polygraph-beating methods.

Federal agents have launched a criminal investigation of instructors who claim they can teach job applicants how to pass lie detector tests as part of the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on security violators and leakers.

The criminal inquiry, which hasn’t been acknowledged publicly, is aimed at discouraging criminals and spies from infiltrating the U.S. government by using the polygraph-beating techniques, which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle tensing, tongue biting and mental arithmetic.

So far, authorities have targeted at least two instructors, one of whom has pleaded guilty to federal charges, several people familiar with the investigation told McClatchy. Investigators confiscated business records from the two men, which included the names of as many as 5,000 people who’d sought polygraph-beating advice. U.S. agencies have determined that at least 20 of them applied for government and federal contracting jobs, and at least half of that group was hired, including by the National Security Agency.

By attempting to prosecute the instructors, federal officials are adopting a controversial legal stance that sharing such information should be treated as a crime and isn’t protected under the First Amendment in some circumstances.

This is a disgrace. First, it’s a clear First Amendment violation. Second “lie detectors” are bits of lame pseudoscience that don’t work anyway. The feds’ heavy reliance on them in security cases is just further evidence of their incompetence and unseriousness here. Also, if you read the creative charges the feds are using here, it’s just more evidence that we need to rein in prosecutorial discretion.

And boy, doesn’t this Administration act like it’s got a lot to hide?

Related: NSA Whistleblower Reveals How To Beat A Polygraph Test.

The federal government currently administers polygraphs to government employees in a number of agencies, including the NSA and CIA. The polygraphs work by measuring and recording a person’s physiological responses—changes in a person’s pulse, breathing and blood pressure—to lying versus telling the truth.

Tice, who is now working on a Ph.D. in global security studies, says the NSA “routinely uses polygraphs to terrorize the rank and file of NSA employees” and to “gather very personal information on them that they can use to blackmail them into participating in illegal and unethical conduct.”

Not very impressive.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” In The Absence Of American Response, The Egyptian Government May Be Turning To Russia For Help.

IMPORTANT ADVICE FROM HOLLY BECK: Video: Surf Completely – How to Turn (Use Your Boobs).

FASTER, PLEASE: Nanoparticles reprogram immune cells to fight cancer.

NOW THAT THEY’VE ADMITTED AREA 51 EXISTS: The Soviet Superplane Program That Rattled Area 51. “The Lun ekranoplan weighs 380 tons, has a 148-foot wingspan and can launch six anti-ship missiles from flight. Or rather, it could, before it was retired to a forlorn pier in southern Russia. The dilapidated plane is the offspring of an even larger prototype ship that so spooked the CIA in the 1960s that they developed an unmanned drone to spy on it. . . . In the mid-1960s, when CIA analysts first saw satellite images of the KM, they knew only that something very large and very fast had appeared on the Caspian Sea. The bewildered analysts dubbed it the ‘Caspian Sea Monster.’ . . . When it first skimmed the waters of the Caspian in 1966, the KM was the largest aircraft on earth. At 295 feet long, capable of flying with a total weight of 600 tons and operating at a cruising speed of 310 miles per hour, it was hardly a mock-up. At a glance the KM looks like it was made to fight Godzilla.”

AT AMAZON, 40% to 75% off on Men’s Clothing.

Also, food dehydrators.

A MILESTONE: TaxProf Roundup: The IRS Scandals, Day 100.

I GUESS IT’S NOT A MYTH: Apparently, BMW owners really do think they own the road.

FORBES: The Most Beautiful Cars Of The Year.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why You Should Opt-In To Having Kids.

FASTER, PLEASE: Girl who never ages could hold key to ‘biological immortality,’ researcher says. With my luck, I’ll be part of the last generation to die.

GALLERY: The 1980 Mazda RX-7. I used to have an ’81. I’ve still got the RX-8, which turned 10 while I was at the beach, or I’d have staged a re-enactment of this iconic photo.

I’m actually toying with selling the Mazda, as I just don’t drive it enough any more, and with 4 cars cluttering up the premises, I wonder if I should let it go.

Any suggestions?

MARK TAPSCOTT: 15 Big News Stories You Missed.

IT CERTAINLY ISN’T VERY GOOD AT SAVING FOR ITSELF, WHAT WITH ALL THE DEFICITS AND EVERYTHING: Megan McArdle: Don’t Count On Government To Do Your Saving For You.

California is considering implementing a version of the Ghilarducci Plan, in which automatic payroll deductions are used to create a defined-benefit fund run by the government, guaranteeing a modest minimum return, which is then rolled into an annuity at the age of 65. The Guardian’s Helaine Olen likes the idea, which has been put forward by Kevin de Leon, a California state legislator. . . .

Of course, even $210 or $375 is better than nothing! But, also of course, that money is not free. To pay for it, they need to give up 3 percent of their salary right now, every year until they retire. While Olen likes the guarantee, my take is that the guarantee is not doing most of the work here; almost all of the benefit comes simply from the quasi-mandatory saving. In fact, the majority of people would be better off if you took that 3 percent and stuck it in an S&P 500 index fund. Your real return, after taxes and fees and inflation, from 1982 to 2012 would have been about 5.8 percent.

Which demonstrates two things. The first is that for all the nostalgia about defined-benefit pensions, guaranteeing a benefit is really, really expensive. There’s a reason that DB pensions were really popular up until 1974, when congress passed ERISA, the law that forces companies to fully fund these commitments in advance. Starting in the 1980s, the popularity of these plans began rapidly declining, precisely because they were extremely expensive, and worse, tended to demand top-up contributions during recessions, right when you were least able to make them.

And the second point is that you need to save a whole lot of money for retirement if you want to have a decent shot at living comfortably in your golden years. Three percent isn’t going to cut it. And my calculations used 3 percent every year for 40 years, which is not what the majority of people do. The majority of people have employment gaps, lean times when they slow or stop their contributions and so forth. If you want to make sure you have enough income in retirement, a government guarantee will in no way make up for those vicissitudes. What you need is to put away lots and lots of cash.

At this point, I think of myself as saving for retirement, rather than investing for it. With likely rates of return over the next couple of decades, that only seems prudent. I’d be happy to be wrong, of course.

WELL, BOOKSCAN UNDERCOUNTS SOMEWHAT. HE MAY HAVE SOLD A HUNDRED! Eliot Spitzer’s New Book Sells 70 Copies. “This seems to be a bad summer for books by New York politicians, with Christine Quinn’s memoir posting low numbers back in June. The irony is that Spitzer’s book is actually probably worth reading . . . Maybe he should have written instead about the prostitution scandal that had him leave the governorship. People would surely read that.”

AT AMAZON, end-of-season markdowns in Grills & Outdoor Cooking.

Also, today’s the last day for the special deal on the Disney Infinity Starter Pack.

And, today only: 40% or More Off Select Strategy Board Games.

PEGGY NOONAN: What We Lose If We Give Up Privacy.

TRANSPARENCY: White House Tried To Interfere With Washington Post’s Report, And To Change Quotes From NSA.

JULIAN SANCHEZ: The Scariest Thing About The NSA Scandals Is What They Say About The Overseers. “Both Obama and members of the intelligence committees appear to have decided it’s more important to reassure us than inform us, lest public qualms disrupt necessary surveillance programs. Yet the intelligence community also has a long track record of claiming programs are necessary that are later shown to have little value.”