Free Republic

During his appearance on 60 Minutes Sunday, President Barack Obama had the chance to admit that he got a whole lot about Iraq wrong.He could have admitted that he got the surge wrong in 2007, when he denounced it and declared that there is no military solution to the problems in Iraq and never was. That was wrong. Obama opposed that surge, which worked and bequeathed a quiescent Iraq to him in 2009. He later implemented a surge of his own in Afghanistan — half-hearted though it was.Obama could also have admitted that he withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq...

...[C]urrent U.S. intelligence and defense officials who spoke to The Daily Beast on Monday say the process for exchanging Taliban for Bergdahl this time was rushed and closely held, in some instances leaving little room for any push back against a policy clearly favored by the White House. “This was an example of forcing the consensus,” one U.S. military official said. “The White House knew the answer they wanted and they ended up getting it.” The White House did not even consult or inform Congress until after the prisoner release had begun. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate...

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....

Employees of U.S. intelligence agencies have been barred from discussing without authorization any intelligence-related matter - even if it isn’t classified - with journalists, under a new directive issued by Director of National Security James Clapper. Intelligence agency employees who violate the policy could suffer career-ending losses of their security clearances or out-right termination, and those who disclose classified information could face criminal prosecution, according to the directive signed by Clapper on March 20. Under the order, only the director or deputy head of an intelligence agency, public affairs officials and those authorized by a public affairs official may have...

Former FBI Counterterrorism expert John Guandolo, known for his controversial calls for Americans to “expose Al Qaeda agents” in their neighborhoods, has reiterated his calls to the public to pressure officials to prosecute the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for supporting terrorism. In an interview with Arutz Sheva, the author of the book explained how CAIR—which claims to be a “civil liberties” organization representing moderate Muslims in the US—was established by Islamist leaders closely linked to the radical Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot. The organization was set up specifically to provide propaganda and other forms of nonviolent...

In less than one week, top officials in the Obama administration have contradicted one another about the threat al Qaeda poses to the United States today. On Friday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center is Washington, D.C., where he credited President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama for putting the terrorist group “on the path to defeat.” “Through our government’s counterterrorism efforts in both the Bush and Obama administrations, we have put al Qaeda’s core leadership on the path to defeat,” Johnson said. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said,...

Iran now has all the technical infrastructure to produce nuclear weapons should it make the political decision to do, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in a report to a Senate intelligence committee published Wednesday. However, he added, it could not break out to the bomb without being detected. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign up! In the “US Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessment,” delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Clapper reported that Tehran has made significant advances recently in its nuclear program to the point where...

Obama's National Intelligence Director, James Clapper, blatantly lied to Congress last Spring when in response to a question stated the NSA does not "not wittingly" collect information on Americans in bulk. The lie was revealed thanks to American hero and true patriot, Edward Snowden. Proven a liar, Clapper now freely admits he gave the "least untruthful" answer he could without revealing classified information. The Hill reports Patriot Act author says "Obama’s intel czar should be prosecuted" Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the original author of the Patriot Act, says Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be prosecuted for lying to...

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...

Shutting down the government in an effort to use a budget fight to get rid of Obamacare is not the strategy I would have recommended for the GOP. And while Republicans can be blamed for starting the shutdown, it's increasingly apparent that President Obama and the Democrats deserve the lion's share of blame for not only prolonging it, but for making it as painful as possible. Obama has always had a bit of a vindictive streak when it comes to politics. I think it stems from his Manichaean view of America. There are the reasonable people -- who agree with...

Nations looking to recruit U.S. spies have an opportunity in the government shutdown, the national intelligence director said Wednesday. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said it could be easier for enemies to recruit U.S. spies among the federal employees hit by furloughs from the sequester, and now the shutdown. "This is a dreamland for foreign intelligence service to recruit, particularly as our employees already ... [subjected] to furloughs driven by sequestration, are gonna have even greater financial challenges," he said. "I've been in the intelligence business for about 50 years. I've never seen anything like this," Clapper added during...

Stung by public unease about new details of spying by the National Security Agency, President Barack Obama selected a panel of advisers he described as independent experts to scrutinize the NSA’s surveillance programs to be sure they weren’t violating civil liberties and to restore Americans’ trust. But with just weeks remaining before its first deadline to report back to the White House, the review panel has effectively been operating as an arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA and all other U.S. spy efforts.The panel’s advisers work in offices on loan from the...

The real answer is Congress, but the President's answer to NSA spying on Americans is to put the guy who lied under oath about spying on Americans in charge of investigating the NSA. Is your head spinning yet? Today, Obama ordered Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to name an outside panel to review the United State's global collection of signals intelligence - meaning its efforts to target phone calls, internet messages, and various forms of electronic communication. And a flashback: DNI James Clapper says that the NSA does not collect data on millions of Americans

...Remember on Friday how one of President Obama's efforts to get people to trust the government more concerning the NSA's surveillance efforts was to create an "outside" and "independent" board to review it all?... ...Except, that was Friday. Today is Monday. And, on Monday we learn that "outside" and "independent" actually means setup by Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper--the same guy who has already admitted to lying to Congress about the program, and has received no punishment for doing so. This is independent? From this we're supposed to expect real oversight?!? This is from the letter sent to Clapper:...

The director of the National Intelligence says an effort in the House to rein in the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance program would dismantle a critical tool in the fight against terrorism. James Clapper issued the statement just hours ahead of a House vote on an amendment by Republican Rep. Justin Amash that would end the statutory authority under the USA PATRIOT Act for the NSA to collect hundreds of millions of phone records. …

Our courts have too often become expressions of the popular will. In ancient Athens, popular courts of paid jurors helped institutionalize fairness. If a troublemaker like Socrates was thought to be a danger to the popular will, then he was put on trial for inane charges like “corrupting the youth” or “introducing new gods.” Convicting gadflies would remind all Athenians of the dangers of questioning democratic majority sentiment. If Athenian families were angry that their sons had supposedly died unnecessarily in battle, then they might charge the generals with capital negligence — a warning to all commanders to watch their...

The director of National Intelligence apologized in June to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee for lying during a hearing, according to a letter published on the DNI website on Tuesday. Director James Clapper appeared before the committee in March, where Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked him specifically if NSA spies on millions of Americans. Clapper answered, "No."

Forty-seven U.S. senators attended a closed-door briefing with top national security officials Thursday to learn more about how telephone and Internet-tracking programs used by the National Security Agency have thwarted multiple terrorist attacks — details that lawmakers said the general public will begin learning more about by Monday. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it is taking longer to release the information as top NSA officials work to ensure that any information released publicly is as accurate as possible.

Security: With the director of national intelligence defending a program he told Congress didn't exist, the Patriot Act's author says this isn't the targeted surveillance intended and warns of losing needles in a too-big haystack. Edward Snowden is quite possibly a traitor, but we have been caught in a Prism of our own making, outsourcing our national security to 29-year-old unstable contractors, one of nearly 500,000 employees of private firms with access to the government's most sensitive secrets. Perhaps if we were doing the targeted surveillance envisioned by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., when he wrote the Patriot Act, we wouldn't...

Weeks before the National Security Agency (NSA) began a massive phone sweeping operation on U.S. cellular provider Verizon, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress the agency does not conduct intelligence on American citizens. "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" committee member Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper during the March 12 hearing. In response, Clapper replied quickly: "No, sir." "There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect [intelligence on Americans], but not wittingly," the U.S. intelligence chief told Wyden and the rest of the committee....