A.M. Links: White House-Appointed NSA Task Force Makes Recommendations, Senate Passes Budget Deal, Edward Snowden Isn’t Taking Orders from Putin… Says Putin

• The White House-appointed NSA task force has offered President
  Obama 46 recommendations for bolstering accountability of the
  intelligence community, including
  not keeping a massive database of Americans’ phone records. The
  president and Congress have said they will consider the
  recommendations …
  next year.
• The Senate passed a two-year
  budget deal by a vote of 64-36, undoing
  the minor cuts enacted by the sequester.
• Edward Snowden’s
  latest revelations must have been planned before he landed in
  Russia, says President Vladimir Putin, who assures that a condition
  of Snowden’s asylum was halting any anti-American activity.
• President Obama will nominate Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.),
  chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to serve as the next
  U.S.
  ambassador to China.
• Former NBA star Dennis Rodman
  returned to North Korea today in order to help train the
  national basketball team. And you thought he hit the peak of
  weirdness when he started wearing a wedding dress back in
  ’90s.
• The Secret Service is investigating a credit and debit card
  data breach that could
  compromise up to 40 million cards used at Target stores since
  Thanksgiving. Maybe that Black Friday shopping spree wasn’t such a
  good idea.

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