Larry Abramson
Larry Abramson is NPR's National Security Correspondent. He covers the Pentagon, as well as issues relating to the thousands of vets returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prior to his current role, Abramson was NPR's Education Correspondent covering a wide variety of issues related to education, from federal policy to testing to instructional techniques in the classroom. His reporting focused on the impact of for-profit colleges and universities, and on the role of technology in the classroom. He made a number of trips to New Orleans to chart the progress of school reform there since Hurricane Katrina. Abramson also covers a variety of news stories beyond the education beat.
In 2006, Abramson returned to the education beat after spending nine years covering national security and technology issues for NPR. Since 9/11, Abramson has covered telecommunications regulation, computer privacy, legal issues in cyberspace, and legal issues related to the war on terrorism.
During the late 1990s, Abramson was involved in several special projects related to education. He followed the efforts of a school in Fairfax County, Virginia, to include severely disabled students in regular classroom settings. He joined the National Desk reporting staff in 1997.
For seven years prior to his position as a reporter on the National Desk, Abramson was senior editor for NPR's National Desk. His department was responsible for approximately 25 staff reporters across the United States, five editors in Washington, and news bureaus in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The National Desk also coordinated domestic news coverage with news departments at many of NPR's member stations. The desk doubled in size during Abramson's tenure. He oversaw the development of specialized beats in general business, high-technology, workplace issues, small business, education, and criminal justice.
Abramson joined NPR in 1985 as a production assistant with Morning Edition. He moved to the National Desk, where he served for two years as Western editor. From there, he became the deputy science editor with NPR's Science Unit, where he helped win a duPont-Columbia Award as editor of a special series on Black Americans and AIDS.
Prior to his work at NPR, Abramson was a freelance reporter in San Francisco and worked with Voice of America in California and in Washington, D.C.
He has a master's degree in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley. Abramson also studied overseas at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and at the Free University in Berlin, Germany.
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Lawmakers questioned Marine Commandant James Amos about how much money the military really needs. One day they say any cut endangers national security. Another day, they say they are ready for any attack on Syria.
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The National Security Agency violated special court restrictions on the use of a database of telephone calls, but the NSA says it fixed those problems. That's the bottom line from more documents declassified by the director of National Intelligence. The document dump is part of an effort to share more details about NSA surveillance activities that were uncovered by former government contractor Edward Snowden.
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The Pentagon has been focusing on the Syrian military's command-and-control sites, which remain the most likely focus of any U.S. strike. But military planners have begun to add new targets, such as mobile missile launchers, that could require more than cruise missiles — and make the mission more complicated.
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Congress is trying to fashion language that would restrict U.S. involvement in Syria from escalating. But lawmakers often find it uncomfortable to rein in the commander in chief once U.S. forces have been committed.
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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will help direct an attack on Syria, if and when it happens. But for now he's in Brunei for the ASEAN Plus meeting, far from the drums of war. It's an opportunity to build military-to-military ties — and sell weapons. But the prospect of action in Syria is never far away. -
The NSA says it's only examining traffic information, not the content of Americans' phone calls. How much can that information tell you? Quite a lot, and in some ways it's more useful than actual content. NPR's Larry Abramson learns what analysts can discover about his life and contacts just by looking at his Gmail account. -
The X-47B is an experimental flying wing with a UFO-like profile. Now it's also the first unmanned aerial vehicle to land on an aircraft carrier.
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The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board holds its first public workshop on the implications of two NSA programs uncovered by the media. The board is getting into action just as the Obama administration faces its biggest privacy challenge.
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Sequestration has yet to cause the huge job losses in the defense industry that many had predicted. Many defense firms have been turning to other growth areas — particularly, developing countries, which are growing their defense budgets while the West is cutting back. -
Gay spouses of service members have long been denied the substantial benefits available to heterosexual couples. Now, Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act means gay married couples can look forward to more equal treatment from the Pentagon.
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On Tuesday, the Pentagon released plans for opening most military jobs to women. The armed services have until 2016 to open the positions, which have been closed to women for decades. The military services can keep some specialties closed to women, but must give a good reason for such exceptions.
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When surveillance laws were revised in 2012, Congress expressed great concerns that without proper oversight intelligence agencies would engage in the sort of monitoring that has been uncovered in recent days. Congress put a number of safeguards in place, but rejected others that would have guarantee more public discussion about what the NSA does.
