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Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper revised rules in 2013 in a way that made it easier to "unmask" the names of lawmakers or congressional staffers who are incidentally caught in foreign surveillance. The new procedures implemented by Clapper uprooted the previous set of rules that had been in use for just over two decades, according to a report from The Hill. The report relied in part on a newly released memo by the ODNI created in 2013 that said the lawmakers or staffers' names could be unmasked if an intelligence agency under the executive branch thought that "the...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Cinton's emails are under investigation again. Hillary Clinton and her staffers still have access to sensitive government information, but that could change. The State Department has opened a formal investigation into whether the former Democratic Presidential nominee mishandled classified information when she was Secretary of State. Depending on the outcome of the probe, Clinton and her aides could lose their security clearances. The State Department has not said when its probe began.

A nearly Earth-size storm system was spotted near Neptune's equator, surprising scientists because no bright clouds have ever been seen in that location. The storm is about 6,000 miles (9,000 kilometers) in length — about three-quarters Earth's diameter — and is even huge compared to the size of Neptune: it spans nearly 30 degrees in both longitude and latitude. When astronomers studied the storm between June 26 and July 2, it appeared to get brighter. "Seeing a storm this bright at such a low latitude is extremely surprising," Ned Molter, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, said...

The firm behind the salacious and unsubstantiated Trump dossier is refusing to to cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee's request to provide documentation or respond to questions sent from the committee in March about the clients who paid for the dossier that launched the investigation into the administration and its alleged Russian connections. The Republican Chairman of the committee, Senator Charles Grassley, warned Fusion GPS, the firm that compiled the dossier, in March about its obligation "to provide details on the history of the dossier" including the clients who paid for it. The committee also wanted information on Christopher Steele,...

The GOP operative who admitted reaching out to Russian hackers for Hillary Clinton’s emails killed himself days after opening up to a reporter. Peter Smith told the Wall Street Journal in May that he reached out to people he believed were affiliated with the Kremlin to find messages from the Democrat’s private server. The Journal report from late last month, which showed that he had claimed to be working with future National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, said Smith died about 10 days after the conversation.

The company, which wasn't named, quietly pushed back in the government's secret court against the National Security Agency's surveillance program, but ultimately failed. {snip}....All of the documents relate to the government's use of the so-called Section 702 statute, named after its place in the law books, a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The statute authorizes the collection of data on foreign persons overseas who use US tech and telecoms services. The law is widely known in national security circles as forming the legal basis authorizing the so-called PRISM surveillance program, which reportedly taps data from nine tech titans...

Congress shouldn’t reauthorize the government’s most potent snooping powers until it imposes stronger safeguards for Americans, a key conservative lawmaker said in response to a judge’s ruling that U.S. intelligence agencies tried to hide potential breaches of privacy rights. Rep. Raul R. Labrador, Idaho Republican, said Judge Rosemary M. Collyer’s April ruling is the latest in a string of warning signs that federal agencies need more oversight before Congress renews their broad powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In particular, Mr. Labrador and several colleagues want to know how often Americans’ information is scooped up and...

US Ambassador Nikki Haley has called for international action to address the crisis in Venezuela, after a US-backed proposal for regional mediation failed to win support at the Organization of American States. (The US-backed proposal failed to overcome opposition from the 14 similar national jurisdictions that benefit from turmoil and discounted Venezuelan oil.) "The tragic situation in Venezuela calls out for action. The Venezuelan people are starving while their government tramples their democracy". //Snipp// The Judiciary has sold out and military command is wavering as the country, pummeled by the plunge in oil prices and the Hugo Chávez, legacy of...

We were trying to count the people standing in a breadline when William Contreras arrived. The line was forming outside of a bakery in the Caracas run-down neighborhood of Catia, about 20 people long with a half dozen more sprinting past me and our photographer, Cristian Hernández. It was a perfect illustration of the desperate situation of a country that was, a few years ago, boasting of its oil-funded socialist prosperity. Contreras was our government minder, a bulky 50-year-old alderman with salt-and-pepper hair. When he pulled up to us, he seemed oblivious to the snaking line.

A helicopter has apparently tried to bomb Venezuela's Supreme Court in what President Nicolas Maduro called a "terrorist attack". The government says a police office flew the helicopter over the capital, Caracas, and dropped grenades. Footage on social media shows a helicopter circling over the city before a loud bang is heard. The officer believed to have seized the aircraft has issued a video statement condemning the government...... President Maduro said grenades had been dropped in the attack and he promised that security forces would capture those behind it. "I have activated the entire armed forces to defend the peace,"...

CNN is reportedly implementing strict new rules for the network's stories regarding Russia. CNNMoney executive editor Rich Barbieri sent out an email Saturday regarding the network's new rules after the network a day earlier issued a retraction on one of its stories. "No one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and Jason [Farkas]," said the email, obtained by BuzzFeed News. "This applies to social, video, editorial, and MoneyStream. No exceptions," the email added. "I will lay out a workflow Monday." The new restrictions come after CNN on Friday retracted a story that connected Anthony Scaramucci, a prominent...

Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Wednesday the Democratic National Committee decided it didn't need the department's help when it was hacked by the Russians and instead opted to rely on a private cybersecurity firm. "This was a question I asked repeatedly when I learned of [the hacking]—what are we doing? Are we in there? Are we helping them discover the vulnerabilities, because this was fresh off the OPM experience and there was a point at which DHS cybersecurity experts did get in to OPM and help them discover the bad actors and patch some of the...

The House Oversight Committee released a scathing report Wednesday that accuses former Attorney General Eric Holder and his Department of Justice of covering up Operation Fast and Furious and misleading Congress’ investigation into the botched gun-running operation. The nearly 300-page report states that the Justice Department under Holder actively tried to hide the facts from the loved ones of slain Border Patrol Brian Terry – seeing his family as more of a “nuisance” than one deserving straight answers — and at times being openly hostile to them. {..snip..}

<p>Joseph Lynn Pickett of Edwardsville was charged June 15 with threatening the president of the United States, the Belleville News-Democrat ( http://bit.ly/2ssw5WM ) reported.</p> <p>U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Vincent Pescitelli said in a criminal complaint that Pickett "did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, to kidnap, and to inflict bodily harm" against Trump on Facebook.</p>

MILWAUKEE - Charges have been filed against a man accused of making threats at the U.S. Courthouse near Jefferson and Wisconsin on Thursday, June 15th. The accused is 32-year-old Mohamad Hamdan of Milwaukee. He faces one felony count of “terrorist threats” and two misdemeanor counts of bail jumping. According to a criminal complaint, on June 15th, officials were dispatched to the U.S. Courthouse after a report of “a subject fighting a U.S. Marshal.” A security officer at the courthouse told investigators shortly before 11:00 a.m., a suspect, later identified as Hamdan, parked his vehicle in front of the courthouse and...

Steve Scalise suffered a physical assault on June 14 as a result of being shot by a liberal Bernie Sanders supporter. However, few know that three years ago Scalise politely endured a verbal assault by enraged Hollywood liberals in the entertainment business. It was an example of the increasing rejection of civil discourse by the left leading ultimately to the recent baseball field violence we saw a few days ago. A June 16 Hollywood Reporter article by Paul Bond reveals the incident at the Los Angeles home of pollster Frank Luntz who held a soiree in the hopes of bringing together...

World News | Thu Jun 15, 2017 | 11:48am EDT Putin quips he's ready to grant asylum to ex-FBI chief Comey By Dmitry Solovyov and Vladimir Soldatkin | MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin joked on Thursday that if former FBI director James Comey suffers persecution because of his falling-out with U.S. President Donald Trump, Russia is ready to grant him asylum. The offer, made with Putin's trademark sardonic humor, came as the Russian president poured scorn on Comey for his role in a row in Washington over alleged Russian meddling in last year's U.S. presidential election. At a congressional hearing...

Three men carrying false identification were denied access to the federal courthouse in downtown Miami Thursday. They attempted to enter at multiple vehicle check-points until security guards recognized one of the men and immediately contacted deputies from the U.S. Marshals Service. The men used badges that resembled those from three different federal agencies, including a U.S. Marshal badge, but within seconds of examining the badges, security guards knew they were fraudulent. Once the men were detained, officers searched their vehicle and discovered other fraudulent law enforcement clothing. One man was arrested and could face charges by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told lawmakers Tuesday that accusations he knew about or participated in possible collusion with the Russia government during the 2016 election constitute an "appalling and detestable lie." Appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sessions addressed a range of issues, including accusations that he had knowledge of or was directly involved in Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election to boost President Donald Trump's campaign. "I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign," Sessions said. He added that to suggest otherwise was to impugn his record of service. "I...

-The Senate Intelligence Committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, appeared on State of the Union with Jake Tapper -Warner commented on claims Hillary Clinton made this week, in which she said Americans guided the Russians disinformation campaign -The Virginia Democrat said there's no 'smoking gun,' that points to collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, but 'there's a lot of smoke'