Free Republic

NEW CASTLE, Ind. – Should teachers be allowed to use students as props for their personal political causes? It happens all the time in school districts around the nation, particularly at the secondary level. Local teacher unions will protest the lack of a new collective bargaining agreement with a school board, and the next thing you know, high school and middle school kids are walking out of class in support of the teachers. Who do you suppose gets the students all riled up? But now some teachers are apparently willing to involve elementary-aged children in their labor wars. Or at...

US citizens and other non-EU nationals who enter Europe will be asked to have their faces image-captured and fingerprints scanned upon arrival at a half-dozen major airports. The biometric dragnet is part of a pilot test of the EU’s so-called “smart borders” package. Passengers can refuse to give the data for now, but there are plans to eventually make it obligatory.A draft internal EU document dated Wednesday (18 February) and seen by this website says the “proof of concept” is set to start in March and will run until September this year. “Should traveler participation be lower than expected, there...

Ben Lucas was shocked when he found his packages damaged earlier this month. That's when he went to the surveillance videotape and saw the shocking moment the driver urinated on his home. UPS eventually apologized and fired the seasonal deliveryman. This guy puts the pee in UPS. A Houston deliveryman was canned from his job after a customer caught him on camera taking a leak on the side of his house. Ben Lucas went to the tape after items inside a package delivered to his home this month in the Heights neighborhood were broken and busted open. He suspected the...

A Montgomery County couple says they’re being investigated for neglect for allowing their two children to walk home from a park by themselves. Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say the county’s Child Protective Services began investigating them after police stopped their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter about half-way through a mile-walk home on Dec. 20 in Silver Spring. Police say they stopped the children and drove them home after someone reported seeing them. …

Former CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson — who claims the government hacked her computer, TV and phone while she reported on the Benghazi terror attack — has released a new video showing what could be evidence of the government taking over her computer. “That very night, with [White House spokesman Eric] Schultz, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line...

A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light says she was spied on by a “government-related entity” that planted classified documents on her computer. In her new memoir, Sharyl Attkisson says a source who arranged to have her laptop checked for spyware in 2013 was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” at what the analysis revealed.

From the moment that Sharyl Attkisson met a shadowy source I’ll call Big Mac, she was plunged into a nightmare involving mysterious surveillance of her computers. They met at a McDonald’s in Northern Virginia at the beginning of 2013, and the source (she dubs him Number One) warned her about the threat of government spying. During their next hamburger rendezvous, Big Mac told Attkisson, then a CBS News reporter constantly at odds with the Obama administration, that he was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” by his examination of her computer and that this was “worse than anything Nixon ever did.” Attkisson’s forthcoming...

O'REILLY: "Personal Story" segment tonight. CBS News announced on Friday that Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson's computer was hacked into late last year. This, combined with the James Rosen situation here at Fox News and the A.P. snooping, causing a lot of concern. With us now on a Factor Cable Exclusive is Ms. Attkisson. So, when did you know that somebody was messing with your computer. SHARYL ATTKISSON, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, CBS NEWS: Well, there were signs probably around 2011 but I don't think I recognized exactly what was going on until perhaps the fall of last year when so many things...

Last year Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who is known for incredible work on Operation Fast and Furious, Benghazi and other White House scandals, noticed her computers at work and at home were acting strange. She suspected someone had hacked into her computer, specifically into a desktop in her home due to the machine turning on and off by itself at all hours of the night. An initial review of the hard drive revealed that her computer had in fact been compromised, but it wasn't known at the time who did it. The intruder into her system didn't...

Via the Right Scoop, a follow-up to Friday’s post. Forgive me for a possibly stupid question but when she says that her computers were turning on and off, she means they were powering on and then powering down, not that they were merely “waking up” from sleep mode, right? When I tweeted the link to this, a bunch of people tweeted back that a computer might “wake up” automatically due to Windows Update. But Attkisson has had professional computer forensics people investigate, though; obviously she knows the difference by now between a computer updating itself and doing something freaky weird...

The Internet of Things (IoT) has connected everything from smoke alarms to fridges and cars, making life easier and safer – but it has also given hackers a new way to attack their victims, warns HP. In a study of the ten most popular IoT devices (which it did not name in its report) HP found 250 potentially dangerous security vulnerabilities. The devices came from manufacturers of TVs, webcams, home thermostats, remote power outlets, sprinkler controllers, hubs for controlling multiple devices, door locks, home alarms, scales and garage door openers. All of the devices included remote smartphone applications which were...

The National Security Agency recently used a novel argument for not holding onto information it collects about users online activity: it's too complex. The agency is facing a slew of lawsuits over its surveillance programs, many launched after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked information on the agency's efforts last year. One suit that pre-dates the Snowden leaks, Jewel v. NSA, challenges the constitutionality of programs that the suit allege collect information about American's telephone and Internet activities. In a hearing Friday, U.S. District for the Northern District of California Judge Jeffrey S. White reversed an emergency order he had...

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder, Jr. on Monday announced the creation of a task force within the Justice Department to combat an “escalating danger” from “homegrown” terrorists within the United States.. The Justice Department, in a news release accompanying Holder’s weekly video address, cited a Congressional Research Service report last year that said domestic terrorists were responsible for more than two dozen incidents in the U.S. since 9/11. [....] The task force will chiefly comprise leaders from the FBI, the Justice Department’s National Security Division and U.S. Attorneys. Called the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, it is a recreation of a...

A bill designed to allow police access to EU airline passenger details would help prevent future attacks by suspected terrorists inside Europe, says the European Commission. EU home affairs spokesperson Michele Cercone on Monday (2 June) told reporters in Brussels the 2011 EU passenger records name (PNR) proposal—which has been stalled due to opposition from the European Parliament—“could facilitate the endeavors of the member states” to fight what he said was a growing internal security threat. The proposal would oblige airlines flying to and from the EU to hand over the personal details of the passengers onboard. The renewed interest...

A 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans. The directive contains noncontroversial provisions on support to civilian fire and emergency services, special events and the domestic use of the Army Corps of Engineers. The troubling aspect of the directive outlines presidential authority for the use of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, in operations against domestic unrest. “This appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced a proposal Wednesday that would require all gun sales in the city to be videotaped, as part of a plan to allow gun stores back in Chicago under very tight restrictions. The measure, which would also ban gun stores near schools and parks, was introduced Wednesday at a city council meeting without discussion. It was then referred to the council’s Public Safety Committee. A vote on the proposal has not been scheduled. …

A few weeks back, I read a Washington Post story "Inside the admissions process at George Washington University" and noted this interesting tidbit towards the end: GW also asks students to list a role model and two words to describe themselves. As for herself, Freitag said, she would list “Martha Stewart/Tina Fey” and “sassy/classy.” This year, she’s seeing a lot of Edward Snowden citations. I had thought about writing it up, but decided it was a pretty small thing, really. It's not secret that, as a group, younger people have a much more favorable impression of Snowden than older people....

....I see only two paths for America today. First, some miracle will happen in which a couple hundred constitutionalists like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and Trey Gowdy will be elected to the House and Senate over the next few election cycles, and something resembling the Founder’s republic will be restored, but given the current climate of relentless progressivism, massive bureaucracy, government dependence, and voter ignorance, that seems like a very remote possibility. The second path is that complacency, ignorance, and indifference will allow more progressives and communists to be elected, the federal government will continue to grow and amass...

Net freedom could suffer after the US steps back from its role as ultimate overseer of the global network, former US President Bill Clinton has said. Many of the governments keen to help oversee the net just wanted to use it to silence dissent, he said. Mr Clinton made his comments during a debate sponsored by his charitable foundation, Clinton Global Initiative. The US had been a good steward of the net and had helped keep it open and accessible, he said. Free speech Mr Clinton said it was clear ongoing revelations about National Security Agency surveillance had fuelled demands...

The latest revelations regarding the NSA’s bulk data collection illustrate the vastness of the government’s spying apparatus. That vastness costs taxpayers a lot of money. The cost of the federal spy budget used to be secret, which was a bizarre thing for a government that is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. But in recent years, policymakers have taken a step toward transparency and released figures on total intelligence spending. The federal spy budget consists of spending on the National Intelligence Program (NIP) and the Military Intelligence Program (MIP). The Federation of American...