Free Republic

State-sponsored hackers penetrate the systems of other nations. It happens regularly. The United States does it. China does it. Russia does it. Iran does it. Sometimes, hacking reveals that someone in the hacking nation is working with the enemy. When that happens, someone dies. Sometimes, a secretary of state receives e-mails — on her unsecured, private e-mail server — about an Iranian scientist who is providing information to the United States and then that scientist is later executed for espionage.Throughout the scandal surrounding her use of an unsecured, private e-mail server, Hillary Clinton claimed that she “never sent or received...

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton turned away a high-ranking Chinese defector who sought political asylum after the communist police chief sought refuge in a U.S. consulate in southwestern China four years ago. Critics say Clinton’s handling of the defection of Wang Lijun, a close aide to a regional Communist Party leader, was a blunder and lost opportunity for U.S. intelligence to gain secrets about the leaders of America’s emerging Asian adversary. Instead of sheltering Wang and granting him political asylum, Clinton agreed to turn him over to Chinese authorities in Beijing, and claimed he was not qualified for American...

It only took two sentences for Edward Snowden to eviscerate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server Wednesday morning. The former National Intelligence Agency contractor could face decades in prison for breaking laws governing the handling of classified government information, and he expressed confusion on why Hillary Clinton doesn’t share his fate.

Their names are Ted and James, and they look like the kinds of men you might bump into on the streets of Richmond, Va., where their father was born. But they’re speaking perfect North Korean and wearing badges of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the first two leaders of North Korea, over their hearts. Oh, and the younger one, James, is a captain in the North Korean army. They’re the Pyongyang-born sons of James Joseph Dresnok, the former American GI who defected to North Korea in 1962 when he was stationed in South Korea after the war. And...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Friday sought to unseal the to-date secret criminal case of an Islamic State defector after NBC News broadcast an interview with the New York man in which he spoke out against the militant Islamist group. Unsealing the case could allow the U.S. Justice Department to make public details of why the man turned against Islamic State at a time when the government is trying to combat the group's online propaganda. The 27-year-old man had been cooperating in investigations and had explored speaking publicly against the militant group "for some time" before agreeing to...

Consider this a low-tech hack, and Abu Hamed the ISIS analog of Chelsea Manning. Hamed, a jihadist disillusioned by what he asserts was a Ba’athist takeover of al-Qaeda in Iraq, left the group while taking a souvenir along the way — a memory stick that could undermine the entire ISIS network. Hamed provided documentation that identifies over 22,000 fighters in ISIS to Sky News, information that Western governments will find very useful indeed, if authentic:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Disillusioned with the Islamic State leadership, he says it has now been taken over by former soldiers from the...

BAGHDAD: Top Iraqi officials attended a funeral Wednesday for politician Ahmed Chalabi, a controversial champion of the U.S.-led invasion of his country. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, President Fuad Masum, parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi and other officials were among the large crowd of mourners at the ceremony held in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone, where the government is headquartered. Chalabi, the head of parliament's finance committee, died of a heart attack aged 71 the day before. Living in exile as head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), which opposed Saddam Hussein, Chalabi became a White House favorite for information he provided which...

Chinese spies in U.S. hunting for man who could be the 'most significant defector in decades' are warned off by White House US warned Beijing about covert Chinese agents operating in America to pressure fugitives such as defector Ling Wancheng to return to China Operation Fox Hunt part of large effort by Beijing to repatriate fugitives China’s former president, Hu Jintao, employed Ling’s brother as an aide Brother in July accused of bribe-taking and illegally obtaining state secrets Ling may have got sensitive information about Chinese leaders from him Chinese President Xi Jinping will make his first state visit to...

A high-ranking communist official who defected to the United States in the 1970s now says the Soviet KGB was behind the tidal wave of “liberation theology” that swept through Catholic countries in Latin America before the opposition of Pope John Paul II effectively ended the movement. Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former three-star general in Romania's Securitate, or secret police, said he first learned of liberation theology during meetings with Nikita Khrushchev and General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, then chief director of the KGB, when Sakharovsky accompanied the Soviet premier on a six-day visit to Romania in October of 1959. “Khrushchev wanted to...

An Iranian journalist writing about the nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran has defected. In an interview Amir Hossein Motaghi, has some harsh words for his native Iran. He also has a damning indictment of America's role in the nuclear negotiations. “The U.S. negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal," Motaghi told a TV station after just defecting from the Iranian delegation while abroad for the nuclear talks. The P 5 + 1 is made up of United States, United Kingdom, Russia,...

The Pentagon is under fire for making a ransom payment to an Afghan earlier this year as part of a failed bid to win the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, according to U.S. officials. Sgt. Bergdahl was released in May after nearly five years in captivity as part of a controversial exchange for five terrorists held at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The ransom payment was first disclosed by Rep. Duncan Hunter in a Nov. 5 letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Mr. Hunter stated in the letter that Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) made...

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has finally broken his silence, using his first statement since being released from the Taliban to thank President Barack Obama for his support. "Sergeant Bergdahl is deeply grateful to President Obama for saving his life," said Bergdahl's new attorney Eugene Fidell. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Fidell said the former prisoner of war had authorized him to make that statement on his behalf. The exchange of Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners in U.S. custody has been controversial in part because several members of the Bergdahl's former unit have called him a deserter. They say he...

On Megyn Kelly's show (Fox News Channel), she will be showing a panel of 6 of Bergdahl's platoon members shortly. No link/live show

James Rosen via FOX News - U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl at one point during his captivity converted to Islam, fraternized openly with his captors and declared himself a “mujahid,” or warrior for Islam, according to secret documents prepared on the basis of a purported eyewitness account and obtained by Fox News. The reports indicate that Bergdahl’s relations with his Haqqani captors morphed over time, from periods of hostility, where he was treated very much like a hostage, to periods where, as one source told Fox News, “he became much more of an accepted fellow” than is popularly understood. He...

An Obama administration official has floated the idea that Bowe Bergdahl was justified in deserting his platoon in Afghanistan and joining the Taliban over disagreements with the platoon's leadership. Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted a series of tweets Wednesday evening in which he speculated that Bergdahl deserted over bad leadership of his platoon and that is why his fellow soldiers were smearing him."Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the Jump-to-Conclusions mats: What if his platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership? (1/5)"" What if he grew...

As one of the characters in “Anchorman” observed of its bloody brawl between news teams: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast. Two days after President Obama broke the law to arrange an insanely reckless swap of five incredibly dangerous Taliban terrorists for captive American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, virtually every aspect of the deal has blown up in Obama’s face, and the whole thing has soured into another five-star scandal for an Administration riddled with them. Maybe it’s the accumulated weight of Obama fatigue, or the sheer stupidity and arrogance the President displayed in...

Yesterday “TheBlaze” published an interview with Romanian Lt. Gen Ion Pacepa, a discussion which arose around the publishing of his work, “Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism.” Pacepa is a defector to the United States, but not just any run-of-the-mill defector. He is the highest-ranking Soviet intelligence officer to ever defect. He crossed over back in 1978 and was given political asylum by then President Jimmy Carter. He has made a practice since that time to write in defense of freedom while living his life under threat of assassination, hiding out...

Libya's General National Congress (GNC) elected Ali Zeidan, a long-time opponent of deposed dictator Moamer Kadhafi, as prime minister on Sunday, the assembly's chief said. "Ali Zeidan is elected prime minister and is asked to propose a cabinet within two weeks," Mohammed Megaryef, president of the national assembly, said in remarks broadcast on television. Benefitting from the backing of the liberal coalition in the 200-seat assembly, Zeidan won 93 of the votes cast, trumping the 85 garnered by the only other candidate, local government minister Mohammed al-Hrari. The GNC must approve the government team proposed by Zeidan in order for...

Hezbollah’s CFO defected to Israel today with millions in stolen money from Iran. The 29 year-old Hussein Fahs also took with him classified documents and maps. Al-Arabiya reported: Hezbollah’s CFO has fled to Israel taking with him large sum of stolen money, classified documents and maps, local news media reported on Friday. The news website, Now Lebanon, cited Hezbollah officials saying that the 29-year old telecommunication engineer, Hussein Fahs, has crossed to Israel carrying with him $5 million in embezzled money from the group. Fahs is also head of Hezbollah’s operational communications network. In September, Fahs, who is native of...

Yes, we won the Cold War, but unlike other wars the Cold War did not end with an act of surrender and with the defeated enemy throwing down his weapons. But no, we are not fighting Marxism in our country, because the American people have not yet been warned that their country is being contaminated by Marxism. ...