Free Republic

Julian Assange on terror attacks: intelligence agencies left to "run amok" in Syria, Iraq & Libya--producing ISIShttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfSRQ5RU9Gg

Three of the nation’s intelligence agencies received subpoenas Wednesday afternoon issued by the House Intelligence Committee, Fox News has confirmed, with each of the three demands for documents explicitly naming three top officials of the Obama administration: Susan Rice, who served as President Obama’s White House national security adviser; former CIA Director John Brennan; and former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power. The three subpoenas, among a total of seven signed by panel chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), were served on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, and all three explicitly referenced “unmasking” –...

Former FBI Director James Comey acted on key information created by Russian intelligence in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails that he knew to be fake, CNN reported Friday. Unidentified officials told CNN that Comey feared that if the information became public it would undermine the investigation as well as the Justice Department itself. The false information reportedly spurred the then-FBI chief to publicly declare last summer that the investigation into Clinton’s emails was over. Meanwhile, Comey also said that Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information.

In the midst of the 2016 presidential primary season, the FBI received a purported Russian intelligence document describing a tacit understanding between the campaign of Hillary Clinton and the Justice Department over the inquiry into whether she intentionally revealed classified information through her use of a private email server. The Russian document mentioned a supposed email describing how then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch had privately assured someone in the Clinton campaign that the email investigation would not push too deeply into the matter

In a significant advance in the study of mental ability, a team of European and American scientists announced on Monday that they had identified 52 genes linked to intelligence in nearly 80,000 people. These genes do not determine intelligence, however. Their combined influence is minuscule, the researchers said, suggesting that thousands more are likely to be involved and still await discovery. Just as important, intelligence is profoundly shaped by the environment. Still, the findings could make it possible to begin new experiments into the biological basis of reasoning and problem-solving, experts said. They could even help researchers determine which interventions...

An unnamed “senior aide” to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left classified information unsecured and unattended in a hotel room during a 2010 trip to China, one of several overseas lapses by Clinton’s inner circle, Fox News has learned. Confirmation of the alarming violation comes as Clinton herself is under a renewed FBI probe for mishandling sensitive information on a private server and her longtime senior aide, Huma Abedin, also faces scrutiny as part of the investigation. It was not known which of Clinton’s aides left the information exposed.

The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward. Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used...

Sen. Rand Paul, the former Republican presidential candidate and vocal champion of civil liberties, has received allegations that the Obama administration sought intercepted intelligence from the National Security Agency on him and other members of Congress and has asked President Donald Trump to conduct a formal investigation, Circa has learned. Paul quietly asked for the probe nearly a month ago in a letter to Trump that was obtained by Circa. "An anonymous source recently alleged to me that my name, as well as the names of other Members of Congress, were unmasked, queried or both, in intelligence reports of intercepts...

During his final year in office, President Barack Obama's team significantly expanded efforts to search National Security Agency intercepts for information about Americans, distributing thousands of intelligence reports across government with the unredacted names of U.S. residents during the midst of a divisive 2016 presidential election. In all, government officials conducted 30,355 searches in 2016 seeking information about Americans in NSA intercept metadata, which include telephone numbers and email addresses. The government in 2016 also scoured the actual contents of NSA intercepted calls and emails for 5,288 Americans, an increase of 13 percent over the prior year and a massive...

“See you in the Supreme Court!” President Donald Trump tweeted last week, responding to lower court holds on his national security policies. But is taking cases all the way to the highest court in the land a good idea? Artificial intelligence may soon have the answer. A new study shows that computers can do a better job than legal scholars at predicting Supreme Court decisions, even with less information. Several other studies have guessed at justices’ behavior with algorithms. A 2011 project, for example, used the votes of any eight justices from 1953 to 2004 to predict the vote of...

After leaving the presidency, Barack Obama has been spotted using his favorite iPad to take photos of his wife while on a David Geffen-owned megayacht in Tahiti. But this may be no ordinary iPad. A government watchdog speculates that he may have taken the Top Secret version out of the Oval Office, a big no-no.

Last month, Fox News regular Judge Andrew Napolitano claimed that President Obama and his cronies used British intelligence to spy on then candidate Donald Trump. That certainly caused a stir among the higher-ups at Fox News. A week later the outspoken judge was suspended from Fox. More specifically, Judge Napolitano accused the Obama administration of doing an end run around the U.S. intelligence community, using GCHQ, the British spy agency, to do its dirty work. GCHQ has unfettered access to the NSA database. Meaning that the Brits could request transcripts of conversations between the Trump campaign and any foreign players, then...

Two men have been arrested in Marseille, southern France, on suspicion off planning an "imminent" terror attack just five days before presidential elections. The two suspects, aged 23 and 29, were arrested on Tuesday morning by intelligence agents and elite anti-terror police in Marseille's 3rd arrondissement. --SNIP-- The police source said the two men appeared to have turned to radical Islam during a term in prison. A search of a rented apartment was underway.

Microsoft tries to thread the needle of transparency by telling its consuming audience as much about governmental collection of data as possible. Toward that end Microsoft releases a biannual transparency report. Within the latest transparency release Microsoft reports in the first half of 2016 they received a massive increase in FISA orders; primarily from U.S. governmental agencies. • “For the latest Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data reported, Microsoft received 1,000-1,499 FISA orders seeking content disclosures affecting 12,000-12,499 accounts, compared to the 0-499 FISA orders seeking disclosure of content impacting 17,500-17,999 accounts reported for the previous period. We received 0-499...

Russiagate’s latest celebrity is a former Donald Trump associate named Carter Page. Page, who worked for Merrill Lynch in Moscow and speaks Russian, is a banker and investor who early in 2016 was a part of the amorphous group that was advising Trump on foreign policy. There is no evidence to suggest that he was ever an insider with the Trump campaign—quite the contrary. The Washington Post reports that he made several efforts to meet directly with Donald Trump but that his entreaties were rejected. So why the fuss? Page appears to have been a target of Russian intelligence for...

Donald Trump set the media into a frenzy on March 4 when he Tweeted in the morning that Obama had "wiretapped him."  The Tweets read as follows: Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW! How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! This...

I’ve spoken to a small group of reliable, formerly high-placed intelligence officials who have dropped a few interesting tidbits on me of late. Here’s my understanding, based on the discussions: It’s not true that wiretaps and/or electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens can “only” be done with a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court order. Besides the FISA court, “wiretapping” or electronic surveillance can also be done under Title III authority. The government used this authority, for example, in the Justice Department’s secret Fast and Furious “gunwalking” case. Additionally, U.S. Presidents have the power to issue secret presidential directives that can...

President Donald Trump dismissed Susan Rice’s assertion that she did not unmask General Michael Flynn for political reasons. “Does anybody really believe that?” he asked during an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “Nobody believes that, even the people that try to protect her in the news media.” Trump reasserted his claim, adding that he and “so many other people” were the victims of surveillance and boasted that he was correct when he accused the Obama administration of wiretapping his team at Trump Tower.

The US military and intelligence community has intercepted communications featuring Syrian military and chemical experts talking about preparations for the sarin attack in Idlib last week, a senior US official tells CNN.

When President Trump made the decision to retaliate against Bashar Assad’s chemical attack on the people of Syria, he was already shaken by photos Intelligence Advisors had shown him of children dying. The intelligence President Trump was given was far more graphic than those the public had seen, so the president did not need a lot of convincing. “What happened in Syria is truly one of the egregious crimes, and it shouldn’t have happened,” he told reporters when he poked his head into the press cabin. “And it shouldn’t be allowed to happen.” Two hours later at his Mar-a-Lago resort...