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The Secret Service has had a bad couple of years, with prostitution scandals and security gaps that have embarrassed the agency — and in one instance, had an intruder running through the White House. As part of the effort to bolster security around the President, the agency has gone on a hiring spree, bringing in fresh talent to address some of the recent failures. The Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig, who has reported more than a few of those failures, now reports that the rush to man the posts has resulted in agents working in sensitive areas without the proper...

Saying she still has no idea who sent her a box of dead fish, former top homeland security bioweapons official Maureen McCarthy says she has resigned from the department and begun legal action to clear her name. Occasionally breaking into tears during a 45-minute telephone interview, McCarthy called her resignation "involuntary" and said she had suffered severe financial distress since being suspended without pay in February over the incident. "I resigned against my will," she said. "I had no income, and I couldn't use my accrued annual leave" for cash. "By resigning I got that back," she said, and could...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton entrusted her email server to an IT firm that was not cleared to handle classified materials, according to the chief spokesman for the Defense Security Service. The DSS is an arm of the Defense Department and is the only federal agency authorized to approve private sector company access to sensitive or confidential material. The agency reviews and approves private contractors to assure they have secure facilities and approves security clearances for employees to clear them for access to sensitive or classified materials. Since 2013, Clinton used Platte River Networks, a small Denver-based company, to...

Security experts say that if Hillary Rodham Clinton retained her government security clearance when she left the State Department, as is normal practice, it should be suspended now that it is known her unprotected private email server contained top secret material. “Standard procedure is that when there is evidence of a security breach, the clearance of the individual is suspended in many, but not all, cases,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who was deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the George W. Bush administration. “This rises to the level of requiring a suspension.” A State Department official...

FBI investigation into Democratic presidential front-runner expands its reach Tasked with digging into the security of Hillary’s home brewed email server, the FBI investigation into presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is expanding it’s reach. A local CBS News affiliate reports the Denver based Platte River Networks received a visit from the FBI last week regarding former Secretary Clinton’s email. Platte River Networks handled the Clinton’s email accounts though there’s been no public explanation as to what that entailed. It’s been confirmed by both the intelligence community and the office of the Inspector General that classified information was transmitted through...

The prolonged hacking into the White House Office of Personnel Management, which put the personal information of at least some 21.5 million past and current federal employees in jeopardy, is only the beginning of the security threat to the Obama Administration and its successors, a number of top-level experts in cybersecurity have told Fox News. The attack has been frequently sourced as coming from China. The experts warned that the entire U.S. national security clearance system could be compromised, that future senior government leaders and advisors could be targeted even before taking office, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of government officials...

Those of us who have had security clearances in the past endured plenty of lectures on the need to secure sensitive material. The Office of Personnel Management in the Obama administration apparently needed to listen a little more carefully. A hack by China’s intelligence service not only exposed four million current federal employees, but also thirty years of data from security clearances, with the most personally sensitive information possible now exposed to foreign spies:(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Data stolen from U.S. government computers by suspected Chinese hackers included security clearance information and background checks dating back three decades, U.S. officials said on Friday,...

by John Urban | TopRight News A potentially disastrous security breach by the Pentagon was discovered by sheriff's deputies during a routine traffic stop in Southern Arizona. Pinal County deputies stopped a 2006 Ford Expedition for a traffic violation. The Mexican national initially presented an Arizona Identification Card, in the name of Armando Villalobos of Phoenix. A records check revealed that not only did the illegal alien have no driver's license, but there were outstanding felony warrants for his arrest in Texas.The suspect eventually told the deputy that his real name was in fact Mario Bustamante, 37, and that he was in...

A veteran State Department diplomat and longtime Pakistan expert is under federal investigation as part of a counterintelligence probe and has had her security clearances withdrawn, according to U.S. officials. The FBI searched the Northwest Washington home of Robin L. Raphel last month, and her State Department office was also examined and sealed, officials said. Raphel, a fixture in Washington’s diplomatic and think-tank circles, was placed on administrative leave last month, and her contract with the State Department was allowed to expire this week. Two U.S. officials described the investigation as a counterintelligence matter, which typically involves allegations of spying...

WASHINGTON – The federal Office of Personnel Management plans to terminate its massive contracts with USIS, the major security clearance contractor that was targeted last month by a cyberattack, agency, congressional and company officials said Tuesday. The computer network intrusion compromised the personal files of as many as 25,000 government workers. The early August cyberattack against USIS' computer network compromised the files of 25,000 Homeland Security Department workers and is under investigation by the FBI. The OPM official spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter remains a criminal investigation. USIS has said it was targeted by what it described...

The Army private who was tried and convicted as Bradley Edward Manning for leaking U.S. secrets to WikiLeaks is petitioning a Kansas court for a name change, to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.

So if you think that Malik Obama, president Obama’s brother dons a Hamas scarf for sentimental reasons only, think again. The evidence he materially supports Hamas financially is another reason to begin to consider this man’s terror links. As Executive Secretary of the Islamic Da’wa Organization, Malik helps to lead an organization that collects funds and sends them directly to Hamas; this can be found on several Islamic websites...

This week in Washington, Senator Marco Rubio accused a fellow American of treason. Edward Snowden drew the Republican's ire by informing hundreds of millions of innocent people that the NSA is spying on them... Anyone familiar with the Snowden story will understand why Rubio's comments are misleading. Americans are concerned about their civil liberties because of the accurate information the former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor leaked. He isn't responsible for any conspiracy theories, except in the sense that a conspiracy is "an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act," and he exposed NSA and GCHQ cooperation on...

The federal agency charged with screening employees for security clearance offered hints about how to cut corners,..could have led to the clearance the Navy Yard shooter needed to access the base, the House’s top investigator said. Rep. Darrell E. Issa, California Republican and chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said his staffers have come across verbal and written policies from the Office of Personnel Management that indicate the security clearance process was short-circuited in the case of Aaron Alexis, the Navy Yard shooter. But Mr. Issa says OPM is refusing to turn over those documents and allowing them...

The same company that scrutinized former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden for a U.S. government security clearance said on Thursday it also checked the background of the Navy Yard shooter, allowing him to obtain a "secret" clearance. USIS, working as a contractor for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), conducted a background review of Aaron Alexis, identified by law enforcement authorities as the shooter who killed 12 people at the Navy Yard before he was shot dead. "Today we were informed that in 2007, USIS conducted a background check of Aaron Alexis for OPM," USIS spokesman Ray Howell said in...

Updated at 3:40 p.m. EDT: Officials stated that the Washington Navy Yard shooter who died after Monday's rampage has been identified as Aaron Alexis, 34, from Texas.

Bradley Manning is going to Leavenworth. He deserves it. But he doesn’t deserve to go alone. The largest American intelligence breach since Benedict Arnold is being placed on the back of a private first class. That proves that crap rolls downhill, and that the brass knows how to cover its ass. You know the story. A she-male recruit ends up with a top-secret clearance and downloads every secret we’ve got onto a thumb drive which he gives to the piece of crap who heads that America-hating group Wikileaks. Wham, bam, we’re screwed. People died because of it, terrorists were empowered...

"The State Department says, “Eligibility for access to classified information, commonly known as a security clearance, is granted only to those for whom an appropriate personnel security background investigation has been completed."

When I heard Clinton was picked by the Obama administration to serve as the Secretary of State, I was curious if anyone in the Senate confirmation hearings would bring up her political ties with Ram Ranjan.And since her confirmation, Clinton has now put blame on Sri Lanka for the death of civilians. For those who don't know who Ram Ranjan is, he was involved with a political fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. Ram Ranjan is a supporter of the Tamil Tigers. The Tamil Tigers are considered a terrorist group. In the above hyper link you will find the following: Update II:...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday called Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an "American patriot" after a group of Republican lawmakers accused her of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political organization. "She has been nothing less than extraordinary in representing our country and the democratic values that we hold dear," Obama said at a White House Iftar dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. "The American people owe her a debt of gratitude because Huma is an American patriot and an example of what we need in this country...