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Whenever discussion starts about how to hide from the tracking code that follows users around the Web to serve them targeted ads, recommendations soon pile up for a browser add-on called Ghostery.

It blocks tracking code, noticeably speeds up how quickly pages load as a result, and has roughly 19 million users. Yet few of those who advocate Ghostery as a way to escape the clutches of the online ad industry realize that the company behind it, Evidon, is in fact part of that selfsame industry. Evidon helps companies that want to improve their use of tracking code by selling them data collected from the eight million Ghostery users that have enabled a data-sharing feature in the tool. That makes Evidon, which bought Ghostery in 2010, something of an anomaly in the complex world of online advertising. Whether in Congress or at the Web standards body W3C, debates over online privacy typically end up with the ad industry and privacy advocates facing off along clearly demarcated lines. Evidon straddles both sides of that debate.

[Commentary] Revelations of the National Security Agency’s sweeping collection of data on Americans require that Congress launch a grand inquest into the post-9/11 national security state.

Special committees in both the House and the Senate, armed with subpoena power, should investigate the scope of activities, the legal basis claimed, the operational structure, and the abuses and excesses, with a public weighing of costs and benefits. The “war on terrorism” has gone on for 12 years, and while President Obama says it must end sometime, there is no end in sight. Secret bureaucracies armed with secret powers and emboldened by the claim of defending the nation have proliferated and expanded. The surprise of legislators at the scope of NSA surveillance shows that checks and balances have broken down. The attempts to reform the national security state in the mid-’70s offer cautions for today’s debate. Too many of the reforms served to legitimate activities rather than eliminate them. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court), for example, has provided less a curb than a blank check for intelligence agency surveillance. If the agencies are to be called to account, Congress must look to draw sharp limits.

[Commentary] President Obama's Executive Order on cybersecurity, released in February, prods the executive arm of the federal government to use its existing powers to establish a cybersecurity baseline. The fastest way to do that, under existing law, is to place cybersecurity requirements on organizations that are deemed part of the nation's "critical infrastructure." The current definition of critical infrastructure encompasses power plants, chemical facilities, communications networks, bridges, highways, stadiums, and governmental buildings. Because this definition focuses on physical security, a special working group was formed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to better define what constitutes critical infrastructure in cybersecurity. But, to be effective, the definition must expand to reflect a world in which network connectivity increases every day. Put simply, we are not protected when the organizations currently identified as part of the critical infrastructure are given a cybersecurity baseline. Those organizations, through their networks, are connected to the rest of the American economy. And most of those companies don't meet the definition.

President Obama's task in Europe this week -- already daunting as the death toll in Syria mounts and the pressure for a more assertive U.S. policy there grows -- has been made even more challenging by the recent disclosures of American surveillance in allied countries.

The President arrives in Northern Ireland to begin an intense three days of behind-the-scenes diplomacy and very-public speechmaking to culminate in what the White House hopes is a spectacular address at the eastern side of the historic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The crowd for that could top 200,000. But more important for President Obama may be the smaller one-on-one sessions when he is expected to face tough questions about the surveillance disclosures and the evolving U.S. policy on Syria. President Obama is almost certain to hear complaints from several of the allied leaders upset at public disclosure that the FBI and National Security Agency collected data on private calls made by citizens, including those using major internet servers in Europe. Since the disclosure, the complaints have been loudest in Germany, France and Italy. But a nerve was struck across the continent, with Europe long more concerned about privacy than the United States and long annoyed that Europeans had to rely on Internet servers maintained by U.S. companies such as Google and Facebook.