A.M. Links: Obama Talks ‘Bone-Headed’ Federal Workers, SWAT Teams Want Immunity, Germany Drops Verizon Over NSA Spying

• Speaking at a town hall meeting in Minneapolis,
  President Barack Obama acknowledged that
  “some federal workers…do bone-headed things.” As an example
  of that bone-headed behavior, he cited the unfolding Veterans
  Affairs scandal.

• “It didn’t seem like they really wanted to recover the data.”
  The IRS missing emails scandal
  continues to grow.

• SWAT teams in Massachusetts claim they are private corporations
  and therefore are
  entitled to immunity from the state’s open records laws.

• Germany has declined to renew a lucrative contract with Verizon
  over concerns that the company is turning over sensitive
  information
  to the NSA.

• The Obama administration seeks to provide
  $500 million in aid to the Syrian opposition.

• “Over the past two weeks, the specter that has haunted Iraq
  since its founding 93 years ago appears to have become a reality:
  
  the de facto partition of the country into Sunni, Shiite and
  Kurdish cantons.”

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