My guest today is Eli Lake, a repeat guest who for almost 30 years has been one of the country's leading national security journalists, working as a columnist for and contributor to publications such as Bloomberg Opinion, The Daily Beast, The New Republic, The New York Sun, and Commentary. His 2010 article for Reason, "The 9/14 Presidency," strongly argued for time-limiting all authorizations of the use of military force, especially those involving amorphous struggles such as the global war on terror.
In recent episodes of his podcast, The Re-Education, Lake has conducted deep dives into the dark histories of the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the FBI and how they routinely disregard constitutional limits on their activities. At a recent event in New York City, I talked with him about the fundamental tension between America playing an outsized role in world affairs and having secretive agencies that often keep Congress and voters in the dark about their operations. Can democracy and self-governance survive in such an environment?
