Free Republic

The FBI has seized nine White House computer servers as part of its probe into how classified information was compromised on State Department email system, according to people familiar with the investigation. Additionally six servers, which were located at the NSA Fort Mead headquarters building, were seized. They are being checked by technical analysts charged with determining how all communications to and from the state department were being routed via homeline parallel Soviet, and Clinton Foundation pathways as standard procedure, even prior to 2009 to 2013, said two people familiar with the probe. The people spoke on condition of anonymity....

Last night, radio talk show host and former US Justice Department official Mark Levin shocked many listeners when he reported that President Bill Clinton gave nuclear technology to the Iranians in a harebrained scheme. He said that the transfer of classified data to Iran was personally approved by then-President Clinton and that the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program. The CIA, using a double-agent Russian scientist, handed a blueprint for a nuclear bomb to Iran, according to a new book "State of War" by...

In a victory for tech firms, the Obama administration will not force firms to breach the security of their products in order to provide information to law enforcement.The decision comes after a year after encryption introduced on iPhones and some Android phones sparked a debate between law enforcement and tech companies over access to phone data. With iOS 8, most data stored on the phone and communications over services like iMessage were encrypted in a way that only users could access it — not even Apple could.FBI director James Comey then sounded the alarm that phone encryption would prevent law enforcement...

A federal magistrate in Brooklyn is temporarily refusing to order Apple to disable security on a device seized by the government, citing Congress' failure to act on the hot-button issue of encryption despite urging from law enforcement officials. "Congress has done nothing that would remotely suggest an intent to force Apple, in the circumstances of this case, to provide the assistance the government now requests," U.S. Magistrate James Orenstein said in his ruling, posted on the court's website Thursday afternoon. "Several of its members have introduced legislation to prohibit exactly what the government now asks the court to compel." ....

Police activity on the Fort George G. Meade campus has forced those living on the installation to remain in their homes. Fort officials posted a message on Facebook asking residents to report suspicious activity. (See below) Sources say 10 police cars and a helicopter are patrolling the base after someone crashed a car into a gate leading into the base. The suspect then bailed from the car.

One of Monica Lewinsky's former lawyers will be the first outside advisor to America's secret court that oversees NSA spying. Preston Burton was chosen as the first of five advocates who will provide expert advice to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) when discussing whether to approve spying programs. His first job will be to advise the FISC on whether the US government should be allowed to retain data past November 28, when the telephone storage program run by the NSA under Section 215 of the Patriot Act is officially shut down. Burton has a lively roster of ex-clients, ranging...

Today Admiral Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, testified before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee on cybersecurity. Senator Tom Cotton asked him two questions, the second of which was brilliant: 1) Are the communications of the president’s most senior advisors, including those that may be unclassified, a “top priority for foreign intelligence services?” and 2) What would he think if he learned that Russia’s Foreign Minister, or Iran’s, was conducting official business on a homebrew server? Here it is:

The National Security Agency lost its authority to collect the phone records of millions of Americans, thanks to a new reform measure Congress passed on Tuesday. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on Tuesday evening. It is the first piece of legislation to reform post 9/11 surveillance measures. "It's historical," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, one of the leading architects of the reform efforts. "It's the first major overhaul of government surveillance in decades." The weeks-long buildup to the final vote was full of drama. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul assailed the NSA in a 10-hour speech that roused...

One week after 9/11, Michael Hayden, the director of the National Security Agency, the electronic surveillance arm of the U.S. government, had a long list of problems. High on the list was the fact that the NSA needed a ton of new high-tech equipment, particularly servers, right away, to handle a vastly expanded, critically important workload. Hayden called up the CEO of Hewlett Packard, Carly Fiorina. “HP made precisely the equipment we needed, and we needed in bulk,” says Robert Deitz, who was general counsel at the NSA from 1998 to 2006. Deitz recalls that a tractor-trailer full of HP...

We recently mused, half seriously, whether the entire point of the Windows 10 upgrade was to harvest your personal information. With Microsoft suffering from a serious case of Google envy, perhaps it felt it had some catching up to do. Now Microsoft is revamping the user-tracking tools in Windows 7 and 8 to harvest more data, via some new patches. All the updates can be removed post-installation – but all ensure the OS reports data to Microsoft even when asked not to, bypassing the hosts file and (hence) third-party privacy tools. This data can include how long you use apps,...

Orem • Rand Paul brought his message of limited government and strict observance of the U.S. Constitution to Utah Saturday. A crowd of several hundred applauded his call to stand up for all 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights — not just the one protecting gun rights. "You can't support the Second Amendment unless you protect the Fourth," the GOP presidential candidate said, referring to the constitutional prohibition against unlawful search and seizure. That applause line was the Kentucky senator's segue into his intense opposition to blanket data-gathering on U.S. citizens — a key pillar of his long-shot campaign....

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warned Norway that he faced a possible death sentence if returned to the United States in the extradition request he made in 2012. Snowden may get freedom prize at border (28 Aug 15) US asked Norway to arrest Edward Snowden (27 Aug 15) “I believe that…it is unlikely that I would receive a fair trial or proper treatment prior to the trial, and face the possibility of life imprisonment, and even death,” he wrote in the extradition letter, a copy of which has been obtained by Norway's NRK channel. The letter was sent by fax to...

Agencies say info in Clinton emails was classified when sent One of the emails contained classified intelligence from three different agencies, which could mean the State Department violated a President Obama-signed executive order by authorizing its release. That 2009 order, EO 13526, lays out the rules for "classifying, safeguarding and declassifying national security information." It states that the authority to declassify rests with the intelligence agency that originated the information. One of the two emails that sparked the FBI probe was an April 2011 email from Clinton confidant Huma Abedin that contained intelligence from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the...

Fox News chief intel correspondent Catherine Herridge revealed that “email from aide Huma Abedin to Mrs. Clinton that kickstarted the FBI probe contained classified information from three intelligence agencies: the DIA, the NSA and the NGA.” (snip) Herridge, reporting on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” Tuesday stated, “All three agencies have confirmed the intelligence was classified when it was sent three years ago and remains classified to this day.”

“If I’m president, Putin says ‘hey, boom — you’re gone’ — I guarantee you that,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with CNN. Mr. Trump called Mr. Snowden...a “total traitor” and said he “would deal with him harshly.” “And if I were president, Putin would give him over. I would get along with Putin. I’ve dealt with Russia,” Mr. Trump said. “He would never keep somebody like Snowden in Russia — he hates [President] Obama; he doesn’t respect Obama. Obama doesn’t like him either. But he has no respect for Obama, has a hatred for Obama, and Snowden is living...

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat "evildoers." [...] "There's a place to find common ground between personal civil liberties and NSA doing its job," Bush said. "I think the balance has actually gone the wrong way."

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat "evildoers." At a national security forum in the early voting state of South Carolina, Bush put himself at odds with Republican congressional leaders who earlier this year voted to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records. The former Florida governor said Congress should revisit its changes to the Patriot Act, and he dismissed concerns from civil libertarians who say the program violated citizens' constitutionally protected privacy rights....

<p>Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat "evildoers."</p> <p>At a national security forum in the early voting state of South Carolina, Bush put himself at odds with Republican congressional leaders who earlier this year voted to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records.</p>

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat "evildoers." [Snip] Bush also opposed Trump's idea of a fence or wall along the border. "It's not realistic to create a fence in places where fences can't be built. You'd have people, American citizens, on the south side of the fence in some places. Or they're on the wrong side of the fence," Bush said.

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the government should have broad surveillance powers of Americans and private technology firms should cooperate better with intelligence agencies to help combat "evildoers." At a national security forum in the early voting state of South Carolina, Bush put himself at odds with Republican congressional leaders who earlier this year voted to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records. The former Florida governor said Congress should revisit its changes to the Patriot Act, and he dismissed concerns from civil libertarians who say the program violated citizens' constitutionally protected privacy rights....