Combating the scourge of terrorism

The twin terror attacks last week on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher kosher grocery store in Paris are, once again, leading to questions about the efficacy of intelligence operations against terrorist groups. This is not just a French problem; it affects the governments of all civilized nations.

In the U.S., I hope our leaders in Congress and in the White House understand this. As Congress considers possible reforms to the National Security Agency and both it and the White House lurch closer to more comprehensive cybersecurity legislation, it becomes more critically important than ever that we understand what happened in France and what the implications for the U.S. are. The fact that the president did not see fit to attend Sunday's million-person march in Paris with other world leaders was a lost opportunity that does not augur well for any efforts to enhance and modernize intelligence cooperation efforts with our oldest ally in a data-driven world.

After Charlie, security and intelligence reform in a world of big data