Free Republic

WASHINGTON — National Intelligence Director James Clapper is apologizing for telling Congress earlier this year that the National Security Agency does not collect data on millions of Americans. In a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, Clapper says his answer was “clearly erroneous.” Leaks by NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden have revealed the NSA’s sweeping data collection of U.S. phone records and some Internet traffic every day, though U.S. intelligence officials have said the programs are aimed at targeting foreigners and terrorist suspects overseas. Clapper was asked in March if the NSA gathered “any type of data at...

RICHMOND, Va. - A university student appears to be responsible for an advertising class assignment that went awry when the teacher's pug was threatened to be killed online, the school said. Virginia Commonwealth University had previously said it did not suspect a student was behind the posting on networking site MySpace.com in which someone identifying himself as Jason threatened to kill the pug, Oscar, online this week. The school later traced the postings to a school computer. It refused to identify the suspect because of federal privacy laws regarding students. Mike Lear, an adjunct professor at VCU's Adcenter, last week...