Free Republic

President Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone during his trip to China. He returned from his Beijing summit with Xi Jinping yesterday full of praise for the “great leader,” who is, in Trump’s estimations, “an incredible guy.” The summit was “very successful, world-renowned, and unforgettable,” according to the President, who insisted that “a lot of different problems were settled.” But there’s one problem that hasn’t been addressed: the growing number of Chinese operations on US soil. Last week Eileen Wang, the mayor of the southern Californian city of Arcadia agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent of...

The FBI is offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension and prosecution of Monica Witt, a former U.S. service member and counterintelligence agent.Witt was indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia in February 2019 on charges of espionage, including transmitting national defense information to the government of Iran.Witt, a former active-duty U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, served in the military between 1997 and 2008 before working as a U.S. government contractor until 2010. FBI Washington Field Office Announces $200,000 Reward for Information...

Like Fang Fang, the Chinese spy who had former Rep. Eric Swalwell under her thumb, Arcadia's Democrat mayor, Eileen Wang was quite the social butterfly. She got around. She was an active member of the Arcadia Rotary Club, the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce, the Arcadia Lions Club, the Arcadia Association of Realtors and the Arcadia High School Chinese Parents Booster Club in addition to organizing the “U.S. Heroes Music and Art Festival” which sounds like a pretty busy calendar.AdvertisementAnd with all this socializing, she won a seat on the Arcadia city council in 2022, which in its rotating system, allowed...

President Donald Trump’s upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping is drawing renewed attention to concerns that Chinese electric vehicles entering North America through Canada could pose national security risks inside the United States. Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang joined FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings with Maria" to discuss tensions surrounding China’s trade practices, energy policy and Beijing’s growing EV footprint ahead of the high-stakes Beijing meeting. The discussion comes as lawmakers push legislation aimed at blocking Chinese electric vehicles from entering the U.S. market, citing concerns over surveillance technology and connected-vehicle systems capable of collecting sensitive data.

The FBI and NSA jointly announced that Russia has been systematically compromising the security of home and small office routers since at least 2024. They obtained a court order to allow them to remotely reset thousands of affected devices in the US, but if yours is one of them, it needs to be urgently replaced … CNET reports. Federal agencies, including the FBI and NSA, disclosed on April 7 that a unit of Russia’s military intelligence directorate, the GRU group known as APT28 or Fancy Bear, has been systematically compromising home and small office routers since at least 2024, using...

Netflix has been sued in Texas over claims it collects data belonging to children and adults in the US state without their consent, and uses "addictive" design to keep them hooked. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused the streaming giant of "spying" on citizens saying it "records and monetises billions" of pieces of information about how users behave on the platform, despite suggesting otherwise. "Every interaction on the platform became a data point revealing information about the user," his office said. Netflix has rejected the claims and says it will challenge them in court, according to a statement shared with...

On January 9, 2026, Mexico enacted a new law requiring all cell phone numbers to be verifiably associated with an individual. Any cell phone number not associated with a person and their government-issued ID by June 30, 2026, will be suspended until/unless the number is registered by a verified user. If you have an active Mexican cell phone number: Whether you are situated in Mexico or abroad (or travel between countries); and Whether that number is active with a physical SIM card or a virtual eSIM; and Whether you are on a contract or a prepay phone plan; and You...

Are you ready for your car to decide if you’re fit to drive? If not, you’d better buckle up. A federal mandate declares new vehicles must have in-car surveillance for 2027 models onward that can decide if a person is fit to drive and can make the car inoperable via a so-called “kill switch.” And don’t count on brushing your teeth or gargling with Listerine to work around the driver monitor if you’ve had one too many. Most new cars won’t make the determination via breathalyzer, but infrared cameras continually monitoring potential impairment cues. They include pupil size, head movements,...

Revelations last year claimed the Biden FBI snooped on the phone records of multiple Republican members of Congress, including eight senators, during its January 6 investigation known as Arctic Frost. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan expanded his committee's investigation Monday into allegations that the Biden administration spied on Republican lawmakers. Revelations last year claimed the Biden FBI snooped on the phone records of multiple Republican members of Congress, including eight senators, during its January 6 investigation known as Arctic Frost. Jordan sent the latest letter to Alpine Bank CEO Glen Jammaron requesting documents and communications related to allegations that...

Months after opening Rampart Twelve, the FBI and DOJ still had no evidence to indicate that Lauren Boebert and Paul Gosar were guilty of the allegations against them. Partisan prosecutors at the Biden administration’s Department of Justice charged forward with an investigation into Republican members of Congress after privately saying the primary evidence lacked credibility, new records show. The documents, released by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Tuesday, show the beginnings of “Operation Rampart 12.” The operation, which the FBI launched to investigate multiple Republican members of Congress based on claims that they assisted Jan. 6 Capitol...

A law that became the subject of scrutiny following surveillance on 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page is up for renewal with an April 20 deadline, and the debate is creating unusual battle lines. The debate centers on whether reforms should be made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702, or if there should be a “clean” extension of the law. FISA allows for the federal government to gather foreign intelligence, but some critics have warned that it opens the door for Americans to be spied on in the process. President Donald Trump is asking for a “clean...

nti-liberty/gun cracktivists find themselves stuck on recycling old, failed narratives because there is really nothing new in the distortions and lies they tell in trying to obliterate the Second Amendment. Among those failed narratives is microstamping, a nonsensical measure about which I last wrote in Microstamping And Zombies, 2024 in June of 2024 at my home blog. Microstamping is laser engraving a unique, identifying code on the tips of firing pins which will “stamp” that code—letters, numbers, etc—on the primers of fired cases. Some microstamping schemes also demand a second stamp elsewhere on a fired case. California has always been...

Recently, a researcher working for the large AI company Anthropic was sitting in a park near its San Francisco headquarters, enjoying a lunchtime sandwich. Scrolling on his phone, he suddenly received an email that must have instantly ruined his appetite. It was from a new AI model the company was testing: a program that was meant to have no access to the internet, let alone be able to send emails. Chillingly, the AI informed the researcher that it had successfully broken its way out of its digital 'sandbox' – a supposedly secure enclosure used to test potentially dangerous software without...

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday denied Anthropic’s request to temporarily block the Department of Defense’s blacklisting of the artificial intelligence company as a lawsuit challenging that sanction plays out. The ruling comes after a judge in San Francisco federal court late last month, in a separate but related case, granted Anthropic a preliminary injunction that bars the Trump administration from enforcing a ban on the use of its Claude model. “In our view, the equitable balance here cuts in favor of the government,” the appeals court said in its decision. “On one side is a relatively...

GLYNN COUNTY, Ga. — A Secret Service agent in training in South Georgia has been arrested on felony charges of eavesdropping at the nation’s premier federal law enforcement training academy in Glynn County. ABC News confirmed that Joel Lara Canvasser secretly recorded his roommate’s every move with a spy camera hidden in a phone charger. Canvasser had been spying on his roommate for weeks, and barraged him with text messages like he was being watched by a stalker who could see into his suite and bathroom, investigators said. Canvasser was arrested on Wednesday and charged with unlawful eavesdropping or surveillance....

Mexico now requires all cell phone users to register with CURP and photo ID by June 2026. Learn how expats can comply, registration deadlines, and what happens if you don't register. If you have a Mexican cell phone number, you need to pay attention. Starting January 9, 2026, Mexico now requires all cell phone lines to be linked to official identification. This new mandate affects an estimated 137 million mobile lines across the country—and that includes the phones of American and Canadian expats living in Mexico. If you fail to register your line by the deadline, your cell phone service...

Americans’ personal data could be collected and stored overseas — even if they’ve never downloaded a foreign-developed app themselves — according to a new FBI alert warning about the risks tied to popular mobile platforms. That means information like a person’s name, email address or phone number could be pulled from someone else’s contact list and potentially stored abroad if a friend or family member grants an app access to their device. The warning comes after years of scrutiny over TikTok’s ties to China, but the FBI alert suggests the concerns extend beyond any single platform to a broader range...

Louis Rossmann opens by greeting viewers and introducing a discussion about televisions that now require a Walmart account for full functionality, highlighting how this has become a real trend. He references a Consumer Rights Wiki article explaining that certain newer Vizio TVs—and other brands using the Vizio operating system—require users to create or log into a Walmart account just to complete setup and access smart features. Walmart frames this as a way to streamline setup and connect streaming activity with retail behavior, but he argues the real motivation is clear: companies now make more money from advertising and user data...

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s targeting of Kash Patel and numerous congressional Republicans as part of his lawfare against Donald Trump was worse than originally thought, new records show. Released Tuesday by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the new documents demonstrate that Smith and his team’s efforts to acquire Patel’s phone records during his time as a private citizen were far more extensive than previously reported. The bid to acquire such information came as part of Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation, which ultimately became his elector lawfare against Trump. Now-FBI Director Patel originally told Reuters last...

Alleged Iranian spies with ties to regime bigwigs have been charged with infiltrating Silicon Valley. Last month, a federal grand jury indicted three Iranian software engineers for allegedly stealing trade secrets from tech companies, including Google. Two of the suspects are sisters, Samaneh Ghandali, 41, and Sorvoor Ghandali, 32. They were charged alongside Mohammadjavad Khosravi,40, who is Samaneh’s husband, with allegedly using their employment at unidentified technology companies to “obtain access to confidential and sensitive information,” according to the Department of Justice. The tech workers then allegedly “exfiltrated confidential and sensitive documents, including trade secrets related to processor security and...