Free Republic

(Reuters) - The controversy over Russia's law banning the promotion of homosexuality is an "invented problem" focused on by Western media, Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said on Sunday. The law, which parliament passed in June, bans "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" and imposes fines on those holding gay pride rallies. It has attracted international condemnation and cast a shadow over the athletics world championships in Moscow, with questions raised over whether it will apply to athletes and spectators at next year's Winter Olympics in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. The International Olympic Committee is seeking clarification from Russia...

The Washington Post´s article detailing the fourth amendment abuses by the NSA got some push back from the administration who attempted to "edit" the article before publication. The internal audit referenced in the article was obtained by the WaPo from Edward Snowden. The details of the audit indicated repeated and growing privacy violations by the NSA, violations which included obtaining thousands of American citizen´s communications records and using methods of information collection that were later deemed unconstitutional by a court. The Post was able to interview John Delong, NSA director of compliance for the article and they were initially

MOSCOW — Russia's foreign minister has rejected U.S. demands to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, who has apparently stopped in Moscow while trying to evade U.S. justice. Sergey Lavrov said that Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border and insisted that Russia has nothing to do with him, his relations with U.S. justice or his travel plans. Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, he angrily lashed out at the U.S. demands for the extradition and warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply. Lavrov said that accusing Russia of "violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of...