Free Republic

Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung claimed Sunday that local democracy protests raging for over a month are, “not entirely a domestic movement, as external forces are involved.” American businessman Mark Simon has been thrown into the eye of this storm as one of the alleged external forces. “Former American Military Intelligence Officer Turned Next Media Executive,” charged a typical headline about him in the pro-Beijing press. Next Media is a leading pro-democracy publishing company in Asia. Raised in Falls Church, Va., Mr. Simon played football at East Carolina University and attended Georgetown University before a 25-year career in the...

Before he was alleged to have become a spy for Saddam Hussein's regime, Muthanna Al-Hanooti's charity work and political activism provided him with access to the highest echelons of government. Newsletters collected by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, some published now for the first time, show Al-Hanooti photographed with dignitaries ranging from First Lady Hillary Clinton in 1996 and Vice President Al Gore along with significant members of Congress. That may explain why Iraqi intelligence agents had confidence that Al-Hanooti would be able to persuade Congress to lift economic sanctions against Iraq. A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses him of...

It was the most notorious spy case of the Cold War — the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union — and it rested largely on the testimony of Ms. Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, an Army sergeant who had stolen nuclear intelligence from Los Alamos, N.M. For his role in the conspiracy, Mr. Greenglass went to prison for almost a decade, then changed his name and lived quietly until a journalist tracked him down. He admitted then, nearly a half-century later, that he had lied on the witness stand to save...

Once again I salute Edward Snowden as an all-American hero. On second thought, make that an all-world hero. A movie on how and why Snowden revealed NSA wiretaps is about to be released. Showbiz reports Edward Snowden Doc Premieres: Shocking Inside Look at How He Did It. Citizen Four is the shocking doc about Edward Snowden made by Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Just screened tonight was the two hour film which will be released by the Weinstein Company this month. It doesn’t paint the Obama administration in a very good light as Snowden explains how the government has violated...

Choral music not heard since the time of Henry VIII has been brought to life for the first time in 500 years, as an academic unearths an untouched manuscript and shows it to a modern choir. The manuscript, a book of 34 religious songs, was given to Henry VIII as a lavish gift from a French diplomat in his early reign. Containing songs referencing Henry and his then-bride Catherine of Aragon, it is considered the most "luxurious" surviving diplomatic gift of its kind. It remained in the Royal Collection after the king's death, and was later given to the nation...

It was a late March day when notice arrived that Fifi’s services would be required. She would have two days to prepare — two days to travel from her London apartment to Liverpool, two days to memorize the physical details of her “prey.” His name was Quinaux. He was 28. Black hair. Brown eyes. Dimpled chin. He would be waiting at the State Cafe. And she was to charm every secret she could out of him. Of course, Quinaux didn’t know this. He was training to be a British spy and, according to a letters dated March 22, 1943, he...

The man responsible for what the military called the Navy’s biggest betrayal is dead. John Anthony Walker, the former Senior Warrant Officer from Norfolk who supplied the Soviets with damaging tactical and military data, died in federal prison on Thursday in Butner, North Carolina. 29 years ago, Walker’s career as a spy came to an end in Norfolk Federal Court.

This week's offering is a gripping combination of war film and spy thriller based on a real life Allied program to recruit German POW's to spy for them behind German lines. Richard Basehart, Gary Merill, and Oskar Werner star. In English with Spanish subtitles.

A fresh set of documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the UK intelligence agency can manipulate online polls and debates, spread messages, snoop on YouTube and track Facebook users.

They’re private eyes in the skies. Investigators are taking drones to new heights — using the remote-controlled aircraft to catch New Yorkers cheating on spouses, lying about disabilities and endangering their kids. “People want you to believe there’s all this negativity associated with drones . . . but they could be a very helpful tool,” said Olwyn Triggs, a gumshoe for 23 years and president of Professional Investigators Network Inc. in Glen Cove, LI. Triggs recently used a drone to find an upstate man suspected of insurance fraud. Signs on his rural property warned that trespassers would be shot, so she sent...

Arthur Walker, one of four men convicted of selling secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has died in federal prison. He was 79. The Federal Bureau of Prisons website confirmed that he died this month. A spokesman said he died over the holiday weekend, and Walker's family told Pete Earley, who wrote "Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring," that he died Friday of acute kidney failure. Walker was serving three life sentences plus 40 years for copying and conspiring to deliver secrets to the Soviet Union. He was sentenced in 1985.

Newser) – You might think that giving a green light to Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis and allegedly fraudulently submitting 660,000 other background checks without actually completing them would prevent you from getting future government contracts. But you'd be wrong, because the Department of Homeland Security has awarded a $190 million contract to US Investigations Services, the Wall Street Journal reports. Why? Because USIS hasn't actually been suspended, and, as one immigration official explained, unless there is such a suspension in place, "by law and policy, we have to go with the lowest bidder." USIS isn't barred, the Office of...

Light bulbs can now send and receive data thanks to a California company that has added sensors into each power hub. Although these smart lights can monitor pollution or spot an unattended bag at an airport, their ability to track our every move raises privacy concerns. Bill Whitaker reports.

Microsoft's top lawyer says the fallout of the NSA spying scandal is "getting worse," and carries grim implications for US tech companies. In a speech at the GigaOm Structure conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith warned attendees that unless the US political establishment figures out how to rein in its spy agencies, there could be heavy repercussions for tech companies "What we've seen since last June is a double-digit decline in people's trust in American tech companies in key places like Brussels and Berlin and Brasilia. This has put trust at risk," Smith said. "The...

On 6 June 1944, President Franklin D Roosevelt solemnly declared, “You don’t just walk to Berlin”. He was speaking at a White House press conference, where he had just announced that Allied troops had landed in northern France. The gathering was a homely affair, with none of the bombast associated with similar events today. In fact, it was an occasion of masterly understatement. What he could have said was that the largest naval invasion in the history of the world was finally under way. ~snip~ The long-awaited amphibious invasion of France was not a secret, and it came as no...

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has found the court of public opinion to be far more receptive than a court of law. He conducts the occasional interview with seemingly sympathetic journalists. NBC News aired one such interview with anchorman Brian Williams on Wednesday night. "Do you see yourself as a patriot?" Williams asked. "I do," answered Snowden, now 30. He was just trying to protect the country and the Constitution "from the encroachment of adversaries -- and those adversaries don't have to be foreign countries." Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, was having none of it. "In...

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has been sued by an advocacy group seeking the release of internal documents of a top intelligence adviser who was also working with a controversial Chinese technology company that has been identified as a potential espionage threat. The advocacy group Judicial Watch announced on Thursday that it had filed a lawsuit seeking the release of records pertaining to senior DNI adviser Theodore Moran, who was serving as an intelligence adviser while also working as a paid consultant to China’s Huawei Technologies, which has been identified by the House Intelligence Committee “as...

House lawmakers are seeking to stop Russian spy planes from partaking in exercises that may enable them to collect sensitive “intelligence that poses an unacceptable risk” to U.S. national security, according to a proposal in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Lawmakers have proposed to fully freeze funds that currently allow the United States to sign off on these Russian flights under the Open Skies Treaty, an agreement that permits aerial surveillance flights over 34 countries. The House proposal would also reduce funding and limit the amount of information the United States provides to Russia about American missile defense...

Russian surveillance planes already fly over America, thanks to a long-standing treaty. But a new, ultra-sophisticated spy plane has U.S. military and intelligence bosses spooked. The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military and American intelligence agencies have quietly pushed the White House in recent weeks to deny a new Russian surveillance plane the right to fly over U.S. territory. This week, the White House finally began consideration of the decision whether to certify the new Russian aircraft under the so-called “Open Skies Treaty.” And now the question becomes: Will the spies and generals get their way?