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Wonkbook’s Number of the Day: 438,421. That's the number of deportations that the Obama administration carried out in 2013, a new record.

Wonkbook’s Chart of the Day: The great disconnect: A big chunk of the world's offline population actually lives in the U.S.

Wonkbook's Top 4 Stories: (1) Secret Service director's downfall; (2) curbing Ebola in U.S. all about executing the plan; (3) the growing trickle of U.S. oil exports; and (4) privacy and law enforcement in a digital era.

1. Top story: What led to the downfall of the Secret Service director

Julia Pierson resigns as Secret Service director. "Julia Pierson resigned...after just a year and a half on the job, following a series of major security lapses that eroded President Obama’s confidence in her ability to run the agency tasked with protecting him. Pierson’s abrupt departure — one day after Obama expressed full confidence in her — came as lawmakers from both parties were calling for her ouster....A decisive factor in the president’s change of heart, aides said, was that he learned only from news accounts Tuesday that a private security guard with a gun and a criminal history had not been screened before being allowed to board an elevator with him last month in Atlanta." Carol D. Leonnig and David Nakamura in The Washington Post.

Meet Joseph Clancy, the new acting chief. "The Secret Service’s new acting interim director, Joseph Clancy, served as head of the agency’s presidential protection division until 2011, when he retired and became director of corporate security for Comcast. He was named to the Secret Service post Wednesday after the resignation of Julia Pierson. At Comcast, Clancy was responsible for protecting employees and assets, corporate investigations and assisting with policy development, according to his biography from the company. In his previous run with the Secret Service, Clancy served as director of National Special Security Events and led a team of agents that conducted major investigations at the agency’s New York field office." Josh Hicks in The Washington Post.

Why Pierson was shown the door. "The only question Earnest didn’t hedge on was that the White House remained confident in Pierson....Then the Washington Examiner reported that a man with a gun had been allowed to ride in an elevator with the president....The Washington Post added that the man was a convicted felon. Calls for Pierson’s resignation began to pile up from both sides of the aisle....The lawmakers were able to point to a laundry list of Secret Service misdeeds and security lapses: wannabe reality TV stars crashing a White House state dinner; a prostitution scandal in Colombia; excessive drinking by agents in the Netherlands; cluelessness about a man who shot at the White House in 2011; and finally this week’s revelations." Tim Mak in The Daily Beast.

Lapses test bond between POTUS and his protectors. "In part, Obama’s reluctance to publicly criticize Pierson and her predecessor, Mark Sullivan, who left in early 2013, for so long could be attributed to a general reticence by any president to fire Cabinet officials and other top aides, lest the firing be interpreted as an admission of failure for having appointed them in the first place. But former presidential advisers said something else might have helped explain Obama’s stance in this instance: the deep personal bond and trust that is required between a president and the Secret Service detail charged with protecting him and his family." David Nakamura in The Washington Post.

Explainer: Who will the next Secret Service director have to win over? "Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the Secret Service’s recent foul-ups is that they diminish the aura of invincibility that is a significant part of keeping Obama, his family and presidential candidates safe. Anyone who has covered the White House or campaigns knows that despite the high-tech surveillance gear, the counter-assault teams and counter-sniper teams and the tanklike presidential limousines, there are gaps in security — some of them probably inevitable. But the image of the world’s best bodyguard service has long been critical to dissuading most potential troublemakers from even attempting some kind of attack. Now, that force-field, created in large part by popular culture, seems to be fading." Josh Gerstein in Politico.

This isn't just about the president. It's about us. "Official Washington is dealing with this trio of are-you-kidding-me reports the way official Washington always deals with controversy: Hearings are being held, firings are being demanded. But whether or not Julia Pierson, the head of the Secret Service, ultimately resigns or is fired, won't solve — or even really address — the creeping question in most Americans' minds that is raised by all of this: If people with, at best, uncertain intentions can get that close to the president of the United States, what does that mean for my safety and the safety of my family? It's a conversation — or at least a strain of thinking — that has been active in the American consciousness since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." Chris Cillizza in The Washington Post.

The White House could be made a fortress. But should it? "It is surely possible for the Secret Service to shoot anyone who jumps or squeezes through that fence, but in recent months that would have included at least one errant toddler....It is also surely possible to electrify the fence or its immediate vicinity, but that would very likely lead to incidents of an unpleasant nature — and all the predictable reaction in the media and beyond. In either event, the Secret Service would be pilloried as either inept or trigger-happy. The president would be portrayed as besieged, unfeeling, remote. Even the signs on the fence warning of lethal consequences would be a ghastly image." Ron Elving in NPR.

Blame sequestration? "Del. Eleanor Norton (D-D.C.) suggested at a hearing on Tuesday that budget cuts may have contributed to the Secret Service’s security troubles....Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) also challenged Norton’s theory, saying the Obama administration last year proposed a budget for the Secret Service that would have reduced the agency’s workforce by 376 employees. Norton and the Republicans both make reasonable points....But despite the belt tightening, Congress last year gave the Secret Service more money than it asked for, due to concerns that the amount of funding that the administration originally requested wouldn’t be enough for the agency to do its job effectively." Josh Hicks in The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, speculation narrows on Eric Holder's replacement. "Ruemmler is seen by officials as one who’d lead administration efforts to complete what President Barack Obama and Holder have long identified as top items of unfinished business, from sentencing reform to closing Guantánamo Bay. She’s already had a hand in these matters for years from her White House perch....Choosing Perez would be a message the president is putting even more emphasis on the civil rights enforcement that both Obama and Holder have prioritized....Verrilli would deliver instant gravitas and steady leadership, offering a solid, if somewhat unexciting, hand at the helm at DOJ for Obama’s final two years in office." Edward Isaac-Dovere and Josh Gerstein in Politico.

Other legal reads:

How Republicans stopped being "tough on crime." Emma Roller in National Journal.

Long read: Undue force. Mark Puente and Algerina Perna in the Baltimore Sun.

Top opinion

HOLTZ-EAKIN: Common Core — sound policy, unpopular name. "The policy of the Common Core is sound. To achieve the required level of quality educational attainment needed for our students to meet the demands of a modern workforce, state policymakers need to focus on elevating educational standards. With the passage of No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, Congress insisted that all children could achieve; now nearly 13 years later the time has come to insist that all children can achieve at a higher level. The image of the Common Core State Standards initiative is less sound. Image-conscious states unfortunately are likely to lose the benefits to their economies that are reaped by those that address academic standards." Douglas Holtz-Eakin in The Huffington Post.

PORTER: Multinational tax strategies put public coffers at risk. "Corporate tax strategies intended to minimize global taxes, by hook or by crook, are by now standard practice. Google and Facebook move money through Ireland to lower their taxes. Starbucks uses the Netherlands, a practice that is under review by Europe as well....The question is whether this sort of strategy — as common to multinational companies as filing a tax return every year — can truly be stopped. What hangs in the balance is whether governments can continue to tax corporations beyond the barest minimum. Or whether globalization will make such taxation all but impossible." Eduardo Porter in The New York Times.

BERNSTEIN: Why the Fed needs to keep fighting to lift the job market. "Here’s a riddle for you: How many economists does it take to figure out the extent of slack in the economy?...The answer to my riddle may not be funny, but it’s important and clear: There’s more slack in the American job market than you’d glean from the unemployment rate alone. Moreover, some of those who’ve left the labor market would come back if the jobs were there. Congress won’t help, so it will be up to the Fed to keep pushing until the recovery absorbs a lot more of that slack." Jared Bernstein in The New York Times.

BEST AND BEST: Student-loan debt — a toxic federal asset. "Washington recently acknowledged that there are a lot of Alices; in mid-September, the GAO issued a report documenting the rapid increase in the student debt among those over 65. But many of the proposed reforms, on tinkering with interest rates and the like, would increase—not reduce—total student-loan debt. A larger issue, so far ignored, is that unless college costs are brought under control, things will only get worse, and the federal government will continue to accumulate Alice-like 'assets' in the federal direct-loan portfolio." Joel Best and Eric Best in The Wall Street Journal.

WILL: A new case for congressional term limits. "Congress increasingly attracts people uninterested in reversing its institutional anemia. They are undeterred by — perhaps are attracted by — the fact that they will not be responsible for important decisions such as taking the nation into war. As Congress becomes more trivial, its membership becomes less serious. It has an ever-higher portion of people who are eager to make increasingly strenuous exertions to hold offices that are decreasingly consequential. To solve the braided problems of 'a proconsular presidency or a quietistic Congress,' Weiner advocates congressional term limits." George Will in The Washington Post.

McARDLE: Congress gets its hands on insurer incentives. "If Republicans take control of the Senate, it theoretically means that they could effectively choke off the risk-corridor payments to insurers simply by refusing to appropriate money for them. And what does that mean? Well, it depends on how much insurers are relying on the risk-mitigation mechanisms in setting their pricing. If that’s a small overall factor, and most of them are making money on the policies they sell, then it won’t make much difference. However, if the risk mitigation is enabling them to sell policies below their expected cost...then this could be disastrous for the exchanges. However, before we worry about that, we need to know whether this is even likely to happen." Megan McArdle in Bloomberg View.

Computer-generated face interlude: It looks pretty realistic.

2. Tackling Ebola in the US is all about executing the plan

Ebola patient was allowed to leave Dallas hospital last week. "An ill man who later tested positive for Ebola was not admitted to a Dallas hospital despite saying that he had traveled to Texas from Liberia, allowing him to continue interacting with people before he returned days later and was placed in isolation. Dallas County health officials say they are continuing to monitor the patient’s family members and are checking for symptoms twice each day. The state health department said they have no other suspected cases­ at this point....Public health officials continue to stress that they can contain the virus and prevent a rampant spread." Mark Berman and Amy Ellis Nutt in The Washington Post.

Timeline: Ebola in the U.S. USA Today.

The Ebola plan was in place. But miscommunication caused a lapse. "This wasn't supposed to happen, and it didn't have to. In preparation for a possible case in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been educating the health community for months on the virus and offering guidelines to hospitals for detecting and treating potential Ebola patients. CDC called for medical facilities to...inquire about possible exposure, through contact with a suspected victim or travel to the West African countries suffering from the Ebola epidemic. And if they found a patient who had a fever within 21 days of high-risk exposure, they were supposed to test the individual for the virus. But CDC's plans are only as effective as the individual hospitals and doctors tasked with carrying them out." Sophie Novack in National Journal.

Additional isolated cases of Ebola likely in US. "A day after a man in a Dallas hospital was diagnosed with Ebola, public health officials said it's likely that more people will come to the United States carrying the deadly virus. 'I would expect that so long as there is such a widespread epidemic in Africa, that even with good screening at the airports, etc., it's possible there will be additional cases,' said Jesse L. Goodman, a professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University Medical Center. 'This is a global public health emergency, and I think this indicates that.'" Karen Weintraub in USA Today.

But an outbreak in the US can still be prevented. It's all in the execution. "Because there is no vaccine for Ebola, and no cure, stopping the disease is a matter of getting the right people to do the right things, at the right time. In the United States, we have everything we need to make that system work: the health-care workers, the facilities and equipment, the disease surveillance mechanisms, the public sanitation, the education and communications infrastructure — and the public trust that lets all of those individual components work together, as a whole system that is more powerful than the sum of its parts. By contrast, the worst-affected countries in this outbreak...all lack those resources. Their systems don't work." Amanda Taub in Vox.

Explainer: Five things you need to know now. Jessica Durando in USA Today.

What a quarantine looks like in the US. "Isolation rooms generally look like regular hospital rooms, complete with beds and television. Depending on the diagnosis, however, there are a few differences. Patients with an airborne disease are placed in rooms with a ventilation system that keeps the air from migrating to the rest of the hospital. Rooms may also come equipped with an antechamber, where staff can suit up before entering. Typically, patients are asked to wear masks as well. Patients infected with a disease spread through bodily fluids, such as Ebola, are put in a different kind of quarantine, where the main precaution doctors take is to ensure they don't come into direct contact with the sick person. In practice, this means that hospitals don't need high-tech equipment to handle an Ebola outbreak — just plenty of protective gear." Clare Foran in National Journal.

Communication is key component of CDC response to potential disease outbreaks. "Acknowledging that Ebola 'can be scary,' CDC Director Tom Frieden described the actions officials have already taken to ensure no one else is infected—such as quarantining the patient in a Dallas, Texas, hospital and seeking out anyone who might have been in direct contact. 'I have no doubt that we will control or contain this case of Ebola so it does not spread throughout the country,' Frieden said. It was a textbook response to public health news that has the potential to incite mass panic. In fact, the CDC was following its own textbook." Rebecca Leber in The New Republic.

How do you balance the need to fight Ebola with liberty? "Such concerns over 'liberty rights'...do not arise so much over isolating patients who know they are sick. But officials risk potential backlash, or panic, with the quarantine of healthy people, including those who do not yet show symptoms that they are sick. Even if medically effective, efforts to enforce involuntary quarantines through police or military powers need to be inoculated from perceptions that certain people or groups are being unfairly singled out, or that the process created unneeded hardships." Billy House in National Journal.

ICYMI: Five ethical points from bioethicist Arthur Caplan about tackling Ebola in the U.S. Ariana Eunjung Cha in The Washington Post.

Killer diseases in pop culture have created a sense of fear. "Movie, television and reading fare for generations has included a killer disease...that spreads seemingly without end until heroic doctors fight a difficult battle that is narrowly won at the end, saving humanity. The reality of the current outbreak is far more prosaic. In a world of countries bound tightly by travel and other ties, the fear of contagion has been an ever-present concern and as a result, public health officials routinely train for how to handle such emergencies. In the last decade alone, the United States had five imported cases of viral hemorrhagic fever diseases similar to Ebola and none resulted in mass outbreaks, according to the CDC." Michael Muskal in the Los Angeles Times.

Putting the risks in perspective. "The diagnosis of the first Ebola patient on U.S. soil this week may have put people in a panic, fearing the exotic virus more than mundane germs — such as influenza — that pose a far greater threat to the average American.....Still, because Ebola is rare and relatively difficult to transmit, it kills far fewer people than diseases of which Americans are no longer afraid, such as measles and influenza, says Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston....She compared Americans' fear of Ebola to the fear of flying. Though many people are afraid to fly, Maragakis points out that far more people are killed in cars." Liz Szabo in USA Today.

Explainer: 6 myths about Ebola, debunked. Susannah Locke in Vox.

Risk to travelers very low, Feds say, but airlines taking precautions. "Federal health authorities have said the patient’s trek originated in Liberia...but posed no danger to fellow passengers because he had yet to become contagious. Customs and Border Protection officers are watching for signs of the disease in U.S.-bound travelers, with help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, airline crews are getting reminders about standard procedures for dealing with infected passengers....This kind of response has worked before....And unlike SARS, an airborne disease, Ebola can be transmitted only through direct contact with bodily fluids. The U.S. also has relatively few direct flights to and from Africa." Kathryn Wolfe in Politico.

Why travel restrictions aren't being imposed by the US. "Several African nations have restricted or banned air travel from Ebola-stricken countries, and airlines including Kenya Airways, British Airways, Air Cote D’Ivoire and Nigeria's Arik Air have suspended flights....Others airlines have greatly reduced air travel in the region....But other suspensions reflect a widespread fear that a person sick with Ebola could get on a plane and potentially infect other passengers and airline crew members....More travel restrictions, though, aren't going to make the world safer when it comes to Ebola, according to several global public health organizations. In fact, they might make the situation worse." Abby Phillip in The Washington Post.

Man had been OK'd to fly. But system in general is spotty. "As he was preparing to leave Liberia for Dallas two weeks ago, Thomas E. Duncan...was checked at the airport for signs of the disease. He was determined to have no fever and allowed to board his flight, American officials say....The system has its limits, relying on the traveler to reveal whether he or she has been exposed. And it leaves it to local officials to conduct the screening as they see fit, Dr. Cohen said. It is unclear how consistently or effectively those screenings are conducted across West Africa, and Dr. Cohen said she did not know how many potential travelers had been caught by screeners — if any." Matthew L. Wald and Jad Mouawad in The New York Times.

Background reading: There's really no good way to screen for Ebola at an airport. Patrick Tucker in Defense One.

Ebola outbreak highlights global inequality. "When the first case of the Ebola virus entered the United States...the medical team that treated the infected patient was quarantined and even the ambulance in which he was transported was decontaminated. When the virus entered Sierra Leone, an entire hospital was forced to shut down. That is just one sign of the glaring disparity in the responses to the Ebola virus — a gap that not only separates a public health epidemic and a contained crisis, but also provides a stark reminder of the consequences of global inequality. 'Thousands of people in these countries are dying because, in the lottery of birth, they were born in the wrong place,' World Bank President Jim Kim said." Ylan Q. Mui in The Washington Post.

Officials probe link between enterovirus and deaths of 4, but causal link unclear. "At least four people have died after contracting a severe respiratory illness that has spread to more than 40 states, public health officials announced on Wednesday. The deaths were the first to be linked to the nationwide outbreak of enterovirus 68, which has caused an influx of sick children — some of them critically ill — at hospitals around the country....Tests showed that four patients who died had been carrying the virus, but it was unclear to what extent the virus contributed to their deaths, the C.D.C. said." Anahad O'Connor in The New York Times.

Feds work to boost experimental-drug production, but it may take a while. "The Department of Health and Human Services is in advanced discussions to enlist Caliber Biotherapeutics, a Texas company that can produce the drug in millions of tobacco plants, according to federal officials and pharmaceutical industry executives. Federal officials, along with two of the world’s biggest charities...are also looking at arranging for production of ZMapp in animal cells, the more conventional method used by the biotechnology industry. Although that would take longer, it would allow for greater output by tapping into the biotechnology industry’s huge production capacity." Andrew Pollack in The New York Times.

Charts: When Ebola comes to U.S., who stands to profit? Drugmakers, natural remedy marketers and hedge funds. Abby Ohlheiser in The Washington Post.

CDC budget has taken a hit recently. "The CDC has actually recovered nicely from the sequestration cuts that went into effect a year ago. The agency has been allocated $5.882 billion in fiscal year 2014, compared to the $5.432 billion it received after the cuts took place. But if you move back the timeline a bit, you see that investment in the CDC has still fallen dramatically....Biomedical research advocates are hoping that news of a patient in Dallas being diagnosed with the Ebola virus will draw more attention to that budget shortfall. Within hours of the CDC making the announcement on Tuesday, lawmakers were issuing clarion call warnings." Sam Stein in The Huffington Post.

Other health care reads:

U.S. troops head to Africa for Ebola mission. Andrew Tilghman, Patricia Kime and Michelle Tan in Military Times.

An unhappy anniversary to the government shutdown and HealthCare.gov. Russell Berman in The Atlantic.

Analysis New drug company-doctor payments website worthy of a recall. Charles Ornstein in ProPublica.

Infant mortality: Why babies in America die more often than those elsewhere. John Tozzi in Bloomberg Businessweek.

VINIK: A reminder of our slow response. "Even though Ebola is not currently a threat to Americans, this incident is a much-needed reminder that our response to the outbreak in West Africa has been too small and slow....Even without that drug, the U.S. should have done much more to help West Africa. For far too long, we gave very little in direct aid to help those countries. Only two weeks ago did the U.S. announce that it would send 3,000 military personnel to support Liberia. They will build 17 hospitals with 100 beds each and deliver much-need medical equipment to doctors. It’s an unprecedented response, but it still won’t be enough." Danny Vinik in The New Republic.

Shorter 'Star Wars' interlude: An attempt to sum up the "Star Wars Trilogy" in just three minutes.

3. The steady rise in the trickle of oil going abroad

Aided by shale boom and export exemptions, US crude going abroad nears old record. "The U.S. sent 401,000 barrels a day abroad in July, 54,000 shy of the record set in March 1957, according to...the Energy Information Administration....Coupled with Alaskan supplies bound for Asia, total U.S. exports will reach 1 million barrels a day by the middle of 2015, according to Citigroup Inc. (C) Shipments abroad have quadrupled from a year ago....Exemptions to a federal ban on crude exports allow for deliveries to Canada and permits some shipments from Alaska and California. The Commerce Department also issued rulings this year allowing processed condensate, an ultra-light crude, to be sent overseas." Lynn Doan and Dan Murtaugh in Bloomberg.

Conoco ships crude from Alaska to Korea. "ConocoPhillips has started exporting oil from Alaska, the first such shipment in a decade, as sales of U.S. crude to foreign buyers continue to mount. Rising exports—despite legal constraints that date to the 1970s — reflect the soaring amount of petroleum being pumped from U.S. shale formations through hydraulic fracturing. The fracking boom is overwhelming pipelines and refineries and causing the price of U.S. oil to weaken, from Texas to North Dakota to Alaska. The price drop is particularly troublesome for Alaska, which generates much of its revenue from oil taxes. The Alaskan oil is destined for a refinery in South Korea." Christian Berthelsen and Nicole Friedman in The Wall Street Journal.

GOP leaders still divided on export ban. "Top Republicans in Congress have little reason for urgency to take a stand: Oil companies won’t really ramp up their lobbying on the issue until after the elections, and the GOP rank and file is still not united on whether exporting crude could bring a politically damaging rise in gasoline prices. Yet the battle lines are already forming for 2015. Advocates of lifting the ban deride it as a relic of the oil-shock ’70s, one that’s increasingly untenable when states like North Dakota and Texas are gushing record amounts of crude. But some Republicans urge their party to tread carefully, warning they could take the blame if gasoline prices spike....Exports also stir opposition from some oil refiners." Elana Schor in Politico.

Long read: What happened to 'peak oil'? "For decades, it has been a doomsday scenario....The world's oil production tops out and then starts an inexorable decline — sending costs soaring and forcing nations to lay down strict rationing programs and battle for shrinking reserves. U.S. oil production did peak in the 1970s and sank for decades after, exactly as the theory predicted. But then it did something the theory didn't predict: It started rising again in 2009, and hasn't stopped, thanks to a leap forward in oil-field technology. To the peak-oil adherents, this is just a respite, and decline is inevitable. But a growing tide of oil-industry experts argue that peak oil looks at the situation in the wrong way." Russell Gold in The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. may push for international Arctic drilling standards. "The United States may use its role heading the Arctic Council to push for standards governing oil drilling and development throughout the region, the Obama administration’s top Arctic envoy said Tuesday. Retired Adm. Robert Papp Jr., who became the first U.S. special representative for the Arctic in July, said forthcoming Interior Department regulations governing Arctic drilling could be a model for other nations seeking to tap the region’s potential oil and gas riches....He said, regulators at the Interior Department have developed 'a sound proposal' to govern Arctic oil exploration." Jennifer A. Dlouhy in the Houston Chronicle.

Other environmental/energy reads:

GOP crafts 2015 plan to force Obama's hand on Keystone XL pipeline. Amanda Becker and Timothy Gardner in Reuters.

Life's ponderables interlude: Where does the $ sign come from, anyway?

4. Privacy's growing role in a digital age of law enforcement

Police are distributing software that makes it easier to hack your computer. "ComputerCOP's makers have long promised their program will protect children from online predators, and that promise has been enough to persuade local police forces nationwide to hand it out free to concerned parents. But according to a new report from an Internet freedom group, the police have been had — and the parents using the program are actually putting their families' privacy at risk. The report...found no evidence that the program is keeping kids safe. Instead, the report says, it serves as de facto spyware that takes private computer data and puts it online with woefully inadequate protections." Dustin Volz in National Journal.

Holder becomes latest official to criticize smartphone encryption. "In his comments, Holder became the highest government official to publicly chastise technology companies for developing systems that make it difficult for law enforcement officials to collect potential evidence, even when they have search warrants. Though he didn’t mention Apple and Google by name, his remarks followed their announcements this month of new smartphone encryption policies that have sparked a sharp government response, including from FBI Director James B. Comey last week. Federal, state and local law enforcement officials have complained loudly that the companies are undermining efforts to fight crime, including terrorism." Craig Timberg in The Washington Post.

US appeals court OKs evidence from no-warrant GPS. "A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday ruled that prosecutors can use evidence gathered after a GPS device was put on a suspect's van without a warrant. The decision is a blow to three Philadelphia brothers charged in a series of pharmacy robberies, and for civil rights lawyers concerned about the reach of police power in the technological age. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 said that GPS tracking amounts to a police search but left unresolved the question of whether warrants are always needed." Maryclaire Dale Associated Press.

Long-term secrecy surrounds electronic monitoring. "A federal judge's recent unsealing of a secret government request for electronic monitoring shines a light on how such applications are kept hidden from the public long after criminal cases that result from them are closed....As more people use cellphones and email, prosecutors increasingly are using tools for monitoring those communications in criminal investigations. Federal courts allowed a pen register 18,760 times in 2012, more than triple that in 2003, Justice Department data show. The government also routinely asks that the applications for such matters be sealed, a move that ends up keeping documents permanently secret in courts across America." Michael Siconolfi in The Wall Street Journal.

Other tech reads:

How much is a TV station worth to the FCC? Brian Fung in The Washington Post.

Pedestrian safety interlude: A dancing traffic light.

Wonkblog roundup

The middle class is poorer today than it was in 1989. Matt O'Brien.

Is it really possible for someone to drink 10 drinks per day? Christopher Ingraham.

A battle’s brewing within the GOP over whether to pursue tax reform. Lori Montgomery.

Voters don’t really care about climate change. So why do Democrats keep talking about it? Christopher Ingraham.

Which car to drive if you want to get the most tickets. Roberto A. Ferdman.

What the Ebola outbreak tells us about global inequality. Ylan Q. Mui.

HHS is hiding health insurance rate hikes, former official charges. Jason Millman.

Why Wall Street is betting on Republicans to take the Senate. Danielle Douglas-Gabriel.

Baseball teams aren’t scoring runs, and it isn’t just about steroids. Roberto A. Ferdman.

92% of patients say medical marijuana works. Christopher Ingraham.

When transit agencies run short on cash, should they sell alcohol ads to get it? Emily Badger.

Even grads with the most-profitable majors couldn’t hide from the Great Recession. Chico Harlan.

Et Cetera

Military hospitals are ordered to improve care, access and safety. Sharon LaFraniere and Andrew W. Lehren in The New York Times.

Fed scrutiny of leveraged loans grows, along with bubble concerns. Craig Torres, Kristen Haunss and Christine Idzelis in Bloomberg.

U.S. factories lose steam but private sector steps up hiring. Jason Lange in Reuters.

AIG's 14 percent bailout interest rate debated at bailout trial. Andrew Zajac in Bloomberg.

Government will help migrant children with legal bills. Daniel Gonzalez in The Arizona Republic.

New U.S. history curriculum sparks education battle of 2014. Jenny Deam in the Los Angeles Times.

Education Department issues guidance on racial disparity in nation's schools. Lyndsey Layton in The Washington Post.

Got tips, additions, or comments? E-mail us.

Wonkbook is produced with help from Michelle Williams and Ryan McCarthy.

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