Free Republic

U.S. spy agencies are preparing to deliver a classified briefing to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, the nation’s intelligence director said Thursday, despite deep unease among many spy officials with the real estate mogul’s pro-Russian rhetoric. National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. indicated that Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton are eligible to receive intelligence briefings within days of the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention.

The Bush administration is urging Congress to pass a law that would halt dozens of lawsuits charging phone companies with invading ordinary citizens' privacy through a post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance program. The measure is part of a legislative package drafted by the Justice Department to relax provisions in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that restrict the administration's ability to intercept electronic communications in the United States. If passed, the proposed changes would forestall efforts to compel disclosure of the program's details through Congress or the court system. The proposal states that "no action shall lie . . ....