Larry Abramson
Larry Abramson is NPR's National Security Correspondent. He covers the Pentagon, as well as issues relating to the thousands of vets returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prior to his current role, Abramson was NPR's Education Correspondent covering a wide variety of issues related to education, from federal policy to testing to instructional techniques in the classroom. His reporting focused on the impact of for-profit colleges and universities, and on the role of technology in the classroom. He made a number of trips to New Orleans to chart the progress of school reform there since Hurricane Katrina. Abramson also covers a variety of news stories beyond the education beat.
In 2006, Abramson returned to the education beat after spending nine years covering national security and technology issues for NPR. Since 9/11, Abramson has covered telecommunications regulation, computer privacy, legal issues in cyberspace, and legal issues related to the war on terrorism.
During the late 1990s, Abramson was involved in several special projects related to education. He followed the efforts of a school in Fairfax County, Virginia, to include severely disabled students in regular classroom settings. He joined the National Desk reporting staff in 1997.
For seven years prior to his position as a reporter on the National Desk, Abramson was senior editor for NPR's National Desk. His department was responsible for approximately 25 staff reporters across the United States, five editors in Washington, and news bureaus in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The National Desk also coordinated domestic news coverage with news departments at many of NPR's member stations. The desk doubled in size during Abramson's tenure. He oversaw the development of specialized beats in general business, high-technology, workplace issues, small business, education, and criminal justice.
Abramson joined NPR in 1985 as a production assistant with Morning Edition. He moved to the National Desk, where he served for two years as Western editor. From there, he became the deputy science editor with NPR's Science Unit, where he helped win a duPont-Columbia Award as editor of a special series on Black Americans and AIDS.
Prior to his work at NPR, Abramson was a freelance reporter in San Francisco and worked with Voice of America in California and in Washington, D.C.
He has a master's degree in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Abramson also studied overseas at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and at the Free University in Berlin, Germany.
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A Justice Department statement says recent National Security Agency activities -- such as tapping domestic calls without a warrant -- are vital to the defense of the nation.
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Two civil liberties groups file lawsuits against the Bush administration, charging the government's domestic eavesdropping program is illegal and unconstitutional. The suits say the program has had a chilling effect on free speech, and the groups are seeking a court injunction to shut down the effort.
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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 created a legal process for authorizing wiretaps. But the intelligence community has resisted legal restrictions, especially related to the war on terrorism.
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A report in The New York Times Friday says in 2002, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of hundreds of people inside the United States. The surveillance went on for years and was conducted without court approval in order to search for evidence of terrorist activity.
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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court oversees surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists. Its power has grown since the passage of the Patriot Act. Critics worry about the secrecy that surrounds the proceedings, but FBI agents say undue concern about civil liberties hinders surveillance.
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The White House is bracing for possible indictments in the CIA leak investigation, which would come from the grand jury that has been hearing testimony since the investigation began. Most grand juries operate in secret; Larry Abramson has details on what makes them different.
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The FBI has made a number of errors during surveillance operations intended to catch terrorists and spies. Newly released documents show FBI agents regularly continued wiretapping and physical searches long after legal authorization had expired.
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Internet auction provider eBay agrees to buy Skype. eBay will pay $2.6 billion in cash and stock for the Internet calling service, in hopes that it will boost communication between buyers and sellers.
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L. Patrick Gray, who was the acting director of the FBI during the Watergate scandal, has died at 88. Gray had been back in the news recently, expressing shock that his former deputy, Mark Felt, had been "Deep Throat," the Washington Post's secret source for Watergate details. -
Gun control advocates say that legislation before Congress could make it difficult to shut down gun dealers who violate federal gun laws. Gun owners and gun makers say the issue is a red herring, raised by those who want to use a wave of lawsuits to bankrupt the gun industry.
