ONE OF INSTAPUNDIT’S MANY READERS FROM THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY WRITES:

I don’t have a whole lot of institutional love for CIA, but I do feel the need to defend their honor on at least some point of what being misreported….

The first media reports and screaming headlines made it seem like CIA had sent wet-work teams to break into DiFi’s office to bug her computer, ala Watergate. Slowly the hysteria has been walked back, but some still persists. The Arstechnica headline for instance: “How CIA snooped on Senate Intel Committee’s files: It’s easy to search someone’s network when you hired the IT department.”

First, they weren’t SSCI’s files, they were CIA files in a CIA database that SSCI staffers were allowed access to. Additionally, it wasn’t “someone’s network” (i.e. SSCI’s), it was a CIA network that contained said database and files. So of course they hired the IT department. But if you read most of the press, you would think CIA was hacking Capitol Hill…

I highly recommend Eli Lake’s article from last Friday, for a balanced piece of reporting.

Now whether or not the monitoring/auditing done was normal innocuous IT activity, or the crime that DiFi seems to think it is, I have no idea. But I do know that most reporting has been based on speculation, misinterpretation, and projection, not actual facts. Like the ones Eli Lake was able to report.

On one last note, I am not sure how DiFi can claim that this is some grand 4th Amendment violation, given that the staffers are USG employees, doing USG work, on USG systems. Even if the activity was illegal, it in no way violated their personal expectations of privacy. Every USG computer system (and phone) is required to have disclaimers stating that their use implies a “Consent to be monitored”.

And given that post-Snowden NSA was roasted for not monitoring what files their own people could access, shouldn’t we applaud CIA to for perhaps tracking which files non-agency employees accessed?

Everything should generate an audit trail. It’s not clear that’s what happened here, though to be fair, it’s not clear it isn’t, though I believe DiFi and her staffers were promised that no one would track what they looked at, and that promise was broken. But — and this is my key point — while spying on foreigners is fine, trust in the intelligence community has taken a hit in no small part because so many other parts of the bureaucracy that are supposed to be apolitical have been politicized and weaponized by the Obama Administration. That kind of damage takes a generation to undo.

DESPERATION: Europe says US-made cheeses can’t use Old World names.

Errico Auricchio produced cheese with his family in Italy until he brought his trade to the United States more than 30 years ago. Now, the European Union is saying his cheese isn’t authentic enough to carry a European name.

As part of trade talks, the EU wants to ban the use of names like Parmesan, feta and Gorgonzola on cheese made in the United States. The argument is that the American-made cheeses are shadows of the original European varieties and cut into sales and identity of the European cheeses.

Meh. The real problem is the opposite: Like American beer-making, American cheesemaking has advanced to the point where it’s often superior to the European product. Blessed be the cheesemakers!

WELL, THAT’S A BUMMER: Survey Of Business Tax Executives: Zero Percent Expect Tax Reform In 2014. Well, maybe we’ll do better after the midterms.

WOMEN ARE SUCH FRAGILE CREATURES, APPARENTLY, THAT THEY PROBABLY SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED IN COLLEGE, OR OUT IN PUBLIC WITHOUT A MALE PROTECTOR: The Idiocy of “Trigger Warnings.”

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Also, Great Deals in TV & Video.

PARASITE DEVOURS HOST: In San Jose, generous pensions for city workers come at expense of nearly all else.

Here in the wealthy heart of Silicon Valley, the roads are pocked with potholes, the libraries are closed three days a week and a slew of city recreation centers have been handed over to nonprofit groups. Taxes have gone up even as city services are in decline, and Mayor Chuck Reed is worried.

The source of Reed’s troubles: gold-plated pensions that guarantee retired city workers as much as 90 percent of their former salaries. Retirement costs are eating up nearly a quarter of the city’s budget, forcing Reed (D) to skimp on everything else.

“This is one of the dichotomies of California: I am cutting services to my low- and moderate-income people . . . to pay really generous benefits for public employees who make a good living and have an even better retirement,” he said in an interview in his office overlooking downtown.

In San Jose and across the nation, state and local officials are increasingly confronting a vision of startling injustice: Poor and middle-class taxpayers — who often have no retirement savings — are paying higher taxes so public employees can retire in relative comfort.

What, you thought public employee unionism was supposed to help the less fortunate?

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Pregnant mom who doesn’t want dad in the delivery room makes the rules, judge says. It’s not so much that I think this is unreasonable, as that I think if roles were reversed the judge would find some excuse to rule the other way, because it’s in the best interest of the child to have both parents present or something. Because men don’t have parental rights, just responsibilities.

I SHOULD MAKE A “CALL SPIRITS FROM THE VASTY DEEP” JOKE HERE: Could Captain America Jump Without a Parachute?

FINDING THE RIGHT PACE on a Treadmill Desk.

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Also, deals in Sporting Goods & Fitness. Spring is coming.

SO KNOXVILLE’S DEMOCRATIC MAYOR MADELEINE ROGERO is asking area clergy to talk up ObamaCare to their flocks. I assume that means that the Dems are pushing this with Democratic mayors in general. But is it good spiritual leadership to encourage people to sign up for an overpriced, underperforming product that even the Obama Administration has retreated from?

YEAH, AND THAT KILLING LOOKED PRETTY FISHY AT THE TIME: How The FBI Has Been Working Hard To Deport Friends Of Guy They Killed During Interview About Boston Bombing. And deporting people who might know something about it kind of looks like a coverup.

SPYING: How CIA snooped on Senate Intel Committee’s files: It’s easy to search someone’s network when you hired the IT department.

READER BOOK PLUG: From R.B. Kannon, Pyre.

FASTER, PLEASE: Fracking Boom Threatens To End Moscow’s Gas Power.

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE to 3D Printing.

TO BE FAIR, NOT ALL OF THEM ARE FELONS, AS FAR AS WE KNOW: Dubious Mayors Against Legal Guns: The not so pretty story behind Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Feminist Studies Professor Accused of Assaulting Teenage Prolife Demonstrator. “Much of the scuffle was recorded on a smartphone by the 16-year-old, Thrin Short. The yet-to-be-released video is now in the custody of Santa Barbara law enforcement officials, who are investigating the March 4 incident.” Well, stay tuned.

ANOTHER REASON WHY HARRY REID IS TALKING ABOUT THE KOCHS? Obama Refuses to Deport Fugitive Brothers Who Funneled $90,000 to His Campaign.

RICHARD EPSTEIN: Our Property Principle: Progressives and conservatives often forget what lies at the heart of America’s Constitution. It’s not so much that they forget, as that they ignore what’s inconvenient to their aspirations.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 307.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Top Democrat money man pleads guilty to campaign finance violations.

ARE ROBOTS ABOUT TO TAKE OUR JOBS? Economists are warning about the coming robot job-apocalypse. But where’s the data? It’s well established that for a trend story you don’t need data, just three anecdotes.

SHAKING UP THE CLASSROOM with competency-based learning.

U.S. K-12 education has been undergoing a revolution as states try new ways to boost graduation rates and better prepare students for college or work. Louisiana gives credit for classes offered by local businesses. Rhode Island allows students to earn “digital badges” outside the classroom for creating business plans. Students in Florida and Oregon take massively open online courses, or MOOCs, for high-school credit.

Competency-based learning goes further, jettisoning the century-old idea that students move ahead based on age and classroom time. In the past few years, Iowa, Connecticut, Maine and Utah changed laws to let districts define what a credit means, bringing the number to 29 states. . . .

But competency-based systems have critics. Ann Marie Banfield of the conservative group Cornerstone Action said she has taken calls from New Hampshire parents and teachers who complain the system, which the state mandated in 2005, is too focused on work skills, such as collaboration, and not enough on academic excellence. Others worry the setup focuses too heavily on testing and could allow some students who need prodding to move too sluggishly.

“There is appeal to moving students through the curriculum as they are ready,” said Daria Hall, director of K-12 policy at Education Trust, an advocacy group that focuses on closing the achievement gap. “But the risky downside is that it could translate into lower expectations in terms of how fast low-income and minority students are expected to progress.”

The question is whether the competency tests really test competency, or are just a different way to move kids along. The best solution is to let the tests come from outside.