This is The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie. Thanks for listening. If you have a moment,

please go to Apple or Google or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review it or

leave a comment. Leave a comment at reason.com. I want to know how I'm doing. I want your feedback.

So please let me have it. Thank you. My guest today is Eli

Lake, who's a repeat guest on this podcast and who for almost 30 years has been one of the very

best national security journalists working in America. He has worked as a columnist four and a

contributor to places such as Bloomberg View,

the Daily Beast, the New Republic, the New York Sun, the Washington Times, and commentary,

where he's currently a columnist.

His 2010 article for reason, which I recommend highly, there's a link in the show notes,

it's called the 914 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, as whatever we were doing used to be called. It's a must read.

In recent episodes of Eli's podcast,

the re-education, which is phenomenal and a must listen, look for it everywhere. There's a link

in the show notes as well. Eli has conducted increasingly deep dives into the dark histories

of the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI, and how these

places routinely disregard constitutional limits on their activities. They really don't care

about any limits on their power. At a recent event in New York City, I talked with Eli about the

fundamental tension between America playing an outsized role in world affairs and then having secretive agencies that often keep Congress, sometimes presidents, and definitely voters in the dark about their operations.

Can you be an open and democratic society while having all of these kinds of organizations

that you must have if you're going to be the hegemon?

...