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Obama is offering high school seniors $30,000 a year for college tuition, PLUS a job, housing, transportation and a galore of other benefits. Apparently, Obama is having a hard time finding youths willing to spy on their friends, so he’s upping the ante. NSA.Gov currently has a “job” posted for young people who are desperate for a job, thanks to Obama’s lackluster recovery. Under “Careers” and “Opportunities for You,” the NSA has this posting with a bold red alert notice at the top: “Notice: Stokes Scholarship Application Deadline extended until 30 November 2013.” The objective of this job is ambiguous....

The Central Intelligence Agency is building a vast database of international money transfers that includes millions of Americans' financial and personal data, officials familiar with the program say. The program, which collects information from U.S. money-transfer companies including Western Union, WU -4.30% is carried out under the same provision of the Patriot Act that enables the National Security Agency to collect nearly all American phone records, the officials said. Like the NSA program, the mass collection of financial transactions is authorized by a secret national-security court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Government requests for data soared from 3,580 in 2009 to 10,918, Google said on Thursday -- and those are only the data demands the web giant is allowed to publish. A 2013 Transparency Report described on the Internet giant's Public Policy blog is the latest in an ongoing effort to provide a window into worldwide governmental efforts to tap into the digital profiles Google builds and the digital communications it relays. The report revealed a tremendous increase worldwide in government efforts to mine Google’s data.

WASHINGTON — U.S. agencies collected and shared the personal information of thousands of Americans in an attempt to root out untrustworthy federal workers that ended up scrutinizing people who had no direct ties to the U.S. government and simply had purchased certain books. Federal officials gathered the information from the customer records of two men who were under criminal investigation for purportedly teaching people how to pass lie detector tests. The officials then distributed a list of 4,904 people – along with many of their Social Security numbers, addresses and professions – to nearly 30 federal agencies, including the Internal...

Along with Russia, China and Iran, Brazil was one of the countries of most interest for US intelligence agencies, according to the leaks from the US National Security Agency (NSA). But whereas those other countries may not have appeared too surprised by the extent of US spying, Brazil was outraged.

In July, a series on the organization and financing of the federal government's post-9/11 secret programs ran in the Washington Post. Investigative journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin called attention to the fact that nearly 2,000 private corporations administer and provide essential services to this "alternative geography." Like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, homeland security is a byproduct of business-government collaboration. While two years in the making and accompanied by an elaborate website, the series overlooks the threats posed to constitutional rights by the new wave of secrecy. The authors do not mention the Maryland spying scandal that was...

<p>Rome — US secret services allegedly eavesdropped on cardinals before the conclave in March to elect a new pope, Italian weekly magazine Panorama claimed Wednesday.</p> <p>"The National Security Agency wiretapped the pope," the magazine said, accusing the United States of listening in to telephone calls to and from the Vatican, including the accommodation housing cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio before he was elected Pope Francis.</p>

The German newspaper Der Spiegel over the weekend revealed that not only did the U.S. monitor the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it also allegedly utilized the American embassy in Berlin as a listening station by means of a windowless structure filled with hi-tech gadgetry on the roof to monitor cellphone and other sensitive communications.An Israeli intelligence analyst has now discovered similar mysterious white structures positioned on the rooftops of many key American embassies including in Beijing, Moscow, and Tel Aviv and published the photos to support his claims. While the structures appear to have a solid exterior, they...

The nation’s top spymaster said on Tuesday that the White House had long been aware in general terms of the National Security Agency’s overseas eavesdropping, stoutly defending the agency’s intelligence-gathering methods and suggesting possible divisions within the Obama administration. The official, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that the N.S.A. had kept senior officials in the National Security Council informed of surveillance it was conducting in foreign countries. He did not specifically say whether President Obama was told of these spying efforts, but he appeared to challenge assertions in recent days...

The head of US intelligence has told lawmakers that discerning foreign leaders' intentions is a key goal of the nation's spying operations. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said such efforts were a "top tenet" of US intelligence policy. But he told the intelligence panel of the House of Representatives the US did not "indiscriminately" spy on nations. Mr Clapper was reacting to a growing international row over reports the US eavesdropped on foreign allies. "Leadership intentions is kind of a basic tenet of what we collect and analyse," Mr Clapper said, adding that foreign allies spy on US officials...

But instead of the indignation seen in France, Spain and Germany at the prospect that the National Security Agency listened in to the phone calls of top leaders, Israelis seem to take in stride the prospect of Uncle Sam listening in. “I think it is almost a universal assumption that everyone tries to spy on everyone,” Mark Heller, of Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies told FoxNews.com. “It’s almost a given” Heller continued. “The whole story reminds me of the scene from Casablanca when the Chief of Police is shocked to find out that there is gambling going on...

European lawmakers in Washington on Monday blasted the United States in the wake of reports of massive US surveillance activities against its allies, including alleged eavesdropping by US intelligence on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Confidence is vanished,” Elmar Brok, a German member of an EU Parliament delegation visiting the US capital this week, said after meeting with members of the US Congress on Monday to discuss the alleged surveillance, Reuters reported. The White House has been scrambling into damage-control mode in the aftermath of the disclosures about the surveillance dragnet, including allegations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) tapped...

President Obama is poised to order the National Security Agency to stop eavesdropping on the leaders of American allies, administration and Congressional officials said Monday, responding to a deepening diplomatic crisis over reports that the agency had for years targeted the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. The White House informed a leading Democratic lawmaker, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, of its plans, which grew out of a broader internal review of intelligence-gathering methods, prompted by the leak of N.S.A. documents by a former contractor, Edward J. Snowden. In a statement on Monday, Ms. Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate...

<p>The White House will halt surveillance of U.S. allies, according to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, reflecting a major shift in policy.</p> <p>The move comes in the wake of revelations that the U.S. has been spying on world leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and appears to include any surveillance of allied foreign leaders.</p>

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I must, using my instincts here, apologize for the last 15 minutes or so. I may have sounded like I was on the verge of out-of-control and I wasn't. My passion got the best of me, and I really did not mean to be shouting at everybody like that. Passion's one thing. Shouting is another. I hope you will accept my apology. I don't take back anything I said, 'cause it is just amazingly frustrating to be confronted with such willful ignorance. It's so unnecessary. The truth did not require a password. The truth...

The White House refused on Monday to confirm a report that President Obama first learned this summer that the U.S. was spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phones. Press Secretary Jay Carney whiffed on a perfectly teed-up chance to legitimize a Wall Street Journal story that also had Obama ending the National Security Agency program immediately when he learned that the agency was surveiling foreign leaders. Addressing questions about alleged U.S. spying on Merkel, Carney would only say that 'we do not and will not monitor the chancellor’s communications.' Obama reportedly denied it during a phone call Wednesday with...

Hillary Clinton has questioned the mental health of Cristina Kirchner and asked US diplomats to investigate whether the Argentinian president is taking medication to help her "calm down". The US secretary of state painted Kirchner as a volatile and emotional leader who suffered from "nerves and anxiety", according to a secret cable sent to the US embassy in Buenos Aires. Clinton asked diplomats a series of questions in December last year which could infuriate Kirchner and sabotage a recent rapprochement between Argentina and America. In a section headed "mental state and health" she asked how the first lady-turned president was...

The White House was unaware of National Security Agency surveillance targeting world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and ordered the spy agency to cease some monitoring programs after learning of them, according to a report Sunday in The Wall Street Journal. According to the paper, the White House first learned of the operations during an internal administration review over the summer. After their revelation, the White House ordered the NSA to halt some monitoring programs, including the one tracking Merkel. Other surveillance efforts are still winding down. The Journal report contradicts a story in the German newspaper Bild am...

President Barack Obama knew of the organization’s spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel – and approved of the efforts, a National Security Agency official has reportedly told a German newspaper. The Economic Times writes the “high-ranking” NSA official spoke to Bild am Sonntag on the condition of anonymity, saying the president, “not only did not stop the operation, but he also ordered it to continue.” The Economic Times also reports the official told Bild am Sonntag that Obama did not trust Merkel, wanted to know everything about her, and thus ordered the NSA to prepare a dossier on the politician....

The US government may have been monitoring German chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone for more than 10 years, according to a report by Der Spiegel based on internal documents from the National Security Agency (NSA). President Barack Obama told Merkel that he was not aware her phone was being bugged, or he would have stopped it. However, he declined to say whether her phone had been monitored in the past. A separate report in Die Welt said the number of Merkel's Nokia 6120 Slide was listed in leaked NSA documents, although she's since switched to a BlackBerry Z10 smart phone....