Free Republic

Washington -- As President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk work to overhaul the federal government, they are forcing out thousands of workers with insider knowledge and connections who now need a job. For Russia, China and other adversaries, the upheaval in Washington as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency guts government agencies presents an unprecedented opportunity to recruit informants, national security andintelligence experts say. Every former federal worker with knowledge of or access to sensitive information or systems could be a target. When thousands of them leave their jobs at the same time, that creates a lot of targets, as...

WTH, Great Britain?President Trump is working to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student who has been an organizer of pro-Hamas rallies and who has been committing crimes, recruiting others to commit crimes, and illegally supporting a terrorist organization as an alien. John has been doing yeoman's work covering this case. Immigration law is explicit about the last: you may not have, may not now, nor may you at any point as a visa or green card holder support terrorists. It is black letter law. The Left is going crazy, because, well, the Left. If it is bad, they support...

The government now has access to its citizens messages and camera roll. This is the biggest breach of privacy Western civilisation has ever seen. Britain is in big trouble.

The Chinese balloon that sparked panic when it flew over the US two years ago was, as long suspected, set up to spy on Americans — but surprisingly with US-made technology, according to a new report. The 200-foot-tall balloon was loaded with a satellite communication module, sensors and other technology from at least five American firms, two sources with direct knowledge of a classified US military report told Newsweek. The craft — which floated from Alaska over Canada and into the US Midwest before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, 2023 — could...

Some of the US’s most sophisticated spy planes that typically monitor the Chinese and Russians are now flooding the air targeting Mexican drug cartels as part of President Trump’s crackdown, a new report says. The ultra-hi-tech aircraft include Navy P-8s with advanced radar — and a U-2 originally designed to conduct high-altitude surveillance of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, CNN said Monday. It’s the first time a U-2 is believed to have been used by the US to root out cartels, military experts told the outlet. The decked-out spy planes have flown at least 18 missions over the...

DeepSeek’s terms of service explicitly states it stores user data on Chinese servers and that it governs that data under Chinese law — which mandates cooperation with the country’s intelligence agencies. But that didn’t stop U.S. Department of Defense workers from getting caught up in the DeepSeek hype this week and connecting their work computers to Chinese servers, using the service for at least two days, Bloomberg reported. The Pentagon has since started blocking DeepSeek on some of its network, although some employees could still access the service, according to Bloomberg. The U.S. government is grappling with the national security...

The United Kingdom has confirmed that one of its Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarines surfaced close to the Yantar, a notorious Russian spy ship late last year, to make it clear it was being observed. The revelation came as the Royal Navy was once again closely tracking the Russian ship after it returned to British waters. According to the U.K. defense secretary, the Yantar has, in recent months, been “mapping the U.K.’s critical underwater infrastructure,” at a time when NATO, in general, is increasingly concerned about apparent sabotage to undersea cables. The Yantar was sailing in British waters in November last...

In our modern age of camera-equipped cellphones and laptops, ubiquitous social media websites, and constant GPS tracking that everyone seems to use to go anywhere, you are not paranoid if you worry that Big Brother—the government—along with companies like Google and Facebook, are recording your every move. If the allegations made by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are true, you can add automobile insurance companies and a host of third-party app developers to that list. That is according to a lawsuit filed by Paxton that brings up shades of George Orwell’s book “1984” and the constant surveillance of citizens he...

Prince Andrew will not be joining his brother King Charles III and other members of the royal family for Christmas this year. Instead, the Duke of York, 64, will “honourably withdraw” from the royal family’s Christmas celebrations at their estate in Sandringham, England to avoid being a distraction, according to the BBC. It is expected that Andrew will remain home at Royal Lodge in Windsor Park — the palatial estate he has fought to remain in after King Charles attempted to evict him. Andrew’s bowing out comes after a British high court hearing last week heard evidence suggesting that an...

Before January 6th, 2021, financial surveillance in the United States was largely limited to a well-defined framework designed to combat money laundering and terrorism. Judicial oversight and clear legal protocols acted as key safeguards, ensuring that government access to citizens' financial information respected the rule of law. However, after the Capitol protests, these boundaries have shifted dramatically. Under the Biden administration, the purpose of surveillance has shifted from securing national interests to a tool for targeting political dissent—particularly individuals linked to Donald Trump and the "MAGA" movement. Take, for instance, the scrutiny faced by those who attended rallies or made...

WASHINGTON—The classified documents that investigators say were leaked by a junior member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard indicate the extent to which U.S. spy agencies rely on clandestinely intercepted communications to keep tabs on their adversaries and allies alike. In vivid examples, the documents track foreign governments’ military movements, diplomatic efforts and clandestine weapons sales, as well as debates in friendly capitals and more. The powerful eavesdropping program that enables some of that intelligence gathering is due to lapse at the end of the year. To persuade Congress to renew the program, Biden administration officials had been debating whether...

X/Heshmat Alavi Ariane Tabatabai, a Pentagon official whose troubling links to the Iranian regime were revealed more than a year ago and who is reportedly suspected of being behind the leak of top secret US intelligence documents related to Israel, is no longer chief of staff for Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher Maier.Politico reports that Tabatabai has been promoted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Education and Training, a position she's (also) completely unqualified for:ARIANE TABATABAI is now the deputy assistant secretary of defense for force education and training within the Office of the Secretary of Defense,...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed on Sunday that the U.S. government is now investigating the unauthorized release of these documents, which are believed to have originated from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Now, a senior Pentagon official has been identified as the primary suspect in a classified leak involving the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) plan to strike Iran. The American official under suspicion has been named as Ariane Tabatabai, an Iranian-American scholar of political science who currently serves as a senior policy advisor at the Pentagon.

Madness -- politically correct madness. The FBI showed it wasn't anti-Arab by hiring Nada Prouty, and she handsomely repaid them for it, too. Nada Nadim Prouty Update: "Fake citizen worked on major terror cases," by David Ashenfelter for the Detroit Free Press (thanks to Sr. Soph): Nada Prouty, the Lebanese immigrant who parlayed a sham marriage into U.S. citizenship and key jobs at the FBI and CIA, worked on several counter-terrorism investigations, including the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, her lawyer said in court documents Thursday. "Nada Nadim Prouty accepts full responsibility for her actions and is...

It’s Ms. Sun goes to Washington. The alleged Chinese spy who infiltrated the New York governor’s office was able to get into the White House — while under federal investigation, The Post has learned. Linda Sun’s tour of the Executive Mansion came just two months before the FBI raided her gaudy $3.5 million Long Island home as they wrapped up their case into her alleged work for Beijing. The May visit was facilitated by Sun’s former boss Queens Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), the congresswoman’s office confirmed Friday. Sun — a former high-ranking aide for Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov....

Several New York Republicans are calling for an investigation into New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) after the arrest of a former top aide for working as an agent of influence of China. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), and Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) were among the Republicans who have called for an investigation surrounding Linda Sun, 41, and her husband, Chris Hu, after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging Sun, a naturalized American citizen who was born in China, conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, money...

A former aide to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and current Gov. Kathy Hochul was arrested Tuesday morning on charges of violating and conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), visa fraud, alien smuggling, and money laundering conspiracy. The former aide, Linda Sun, is accused of acting on behalf of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, to further their interests in the United States. Her husband, Chris Hu, was also arrested and charged with money laundering conspiracy, as well as conspiracy to commit bank fraud and misuse of means of identification. Sun was...

The Nicaraguan newspaper Confidencial reported on Sunday that Russia established a spy center in one of Nicaragua’s military bases under the auspices of the country’s communist regime. Confidencial, citing unnamed sources in the Nicaraguan military, warned in its report that the communist regime uses the spy base’s systems to monitor embassies and detect possible “traitors” of dictator Daniel Ortega.

Korbein Schultz, a U.S. Army soldier and intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty today to all charges against him in the indictment returned by a federal grand jury in March 2024 charging him with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, exporting technical data related to defense articles without a license, conspiracy to export defense articles without a license, and bribery of a public official. “The defendant abused his access to restricted government systems to sell sensitive military information to a person he knew to be a foreign national,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National...

Federal authorities have indicted the wife of Max Boot, a deranged leftist who works for the Washington Post, for operating as an unregistered foreign agent for South Korea. Which is honestly kind of hilarious given how Boot is one of those TDS morons who accused Trump of being a foreign agent without any evidence. He’s also one of those Zelensky simps who begs the American government to send even more countless billions to Ukraine, which isn’t a surprise given how his unregistered foreign agent wife used to work for the CIA.