NewsTrust - National Security - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Fact check: GOP national security debate

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley - Nov. 23 (Fact Check) - The latest GOP debate was thin on memorable moments or major factual bloopers, but we do have some leftover claims to dispute before we shut down for the Thanksgiving holiday. We wouldn't want anybody's turkey dinner to be spoiled by worries that terrorists have come over the border with Mexico, for example. We also found misstatements about an oil pipeline, presidential contacts with Iran and cuts to the defense budget.

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DHS seeks intelligence on "domestic threats" from Twitter traffic

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Boing Boing - By Xeni Jardin - Nov. 01 (News) - Popular uprisings in the Mideast and North Africa, and now, Occupy Wall street: all examples of popular unrest powered in part by Twitter and other online social networks. In response, the U.S. government is reported to now be developing guidelines for culling intel from social media, according to a Homeland Security official.

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Petraeus’s CIA Fuels Iran Murder Plot

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Ray McGovern - Oct. 13 (News Analysis) - Before Ignatius’s article, I had seen no one allude to the fact that much about this crime-stopper tale had come from the CIA. In public, the FBI had taken the lead role, presumably because the key informant inside a Mexican drug cartel worked for U.S. law enforcement via the Drug Enforcement Administration.

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Columbia Spent U.S. Anti-Drug Aid on Hiding Government Ties to Drug Rings

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

yahoo.com - By Ujala Sehgal - Aug. 22 (News) - The U.S.-funded counterinsurgency campaign against a Marxist rebel group in Columbia was viewed as so successful that it has become a model for strategy in Afghanistan. But things were not what they seemed: the Washington Post reports that U.S. ally and former president Alvaro Uribe has been implicated in "egregious abuses of power and illegal actions," involving U.S. aid an "possibly U.S. officials" -- all under the cover of fighting drug trafficking. American cash, equipment, and training were sent to Columbia to help break up cocaine-smugglers, but were actually used "to carry out spying operations and smear campaigns against Supreme Court justices, Uribe’s political opponents and civil society groups."

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TSA Airport Scanners Wouldn’t Catch an Implant Bomber

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Michael Grabell - Jul. 06 (Special Report) - A number of news outlets are reporting today on the bizarre-sounding story of terrorist groups considering how to implant explosive devices into humans to blow up a passenger jet. A U.S. security official confirmed the story for ProPublica, and the Transportation Security Administration released a statement that it had recently briefed domestic and foreign airlines. The agency said that passengers flying to the United States may notice additional security measures, such as more interaction from TSA officers, pat-downs and the use of “enhanced tools and technologies.”

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Scientists Cast Doubt on TSA Tests of Full-Body Scanners

Mon, 16 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By by Michael Grabell - May. 16 (News Report) - "There's no real data on these machines, and in fact, the best guess of the dose is much, much higher than certainly what the public thinks," said John Sedat, a professor emeritus in biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF and the primary author of the letter.

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Obama says border patrol has doubled the number of agents since 2004

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - May. 10 (Fact Check) - In a speech on immigration reform in El Paso, Texas, President Barack Obama boasted about an unprecedented number of border security agents along the U.S. border with Mexico, but he said critics probably still won't be satisfied. "Under Secretary Napolitano’s leadership, we have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible," Obama said in his May 10, 2011, speech. "They wanted more agents on the border. Well, we now have more boots on the ground on the southwest border than at any time in our history. The Border Patrol has 20,000 agents –- more than twice as many as there were in 2004, a buildup that began under President Bush and that we have continued." Obama said that commitment is beyond what was requested by some Republicans "who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement." "I suspect there will be those who will try to move the goal posts one more time," Obama said. "They’ll say we need to triple the border patrol. Or quadruple the border patrol."

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Prepare for the pat-down

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Towerlight - By Jordan Russell - May. 05 (News) - Tigerfest, a Towson tradition now only a day away, promotes fun, safety, and this year, pat-downs. Along with increased security for this year’s Tigerfest, the Office of Student Activities will subject students to pat-downs before entering Johnny Unitas Stadium. SAFE management, a company that oversees the stadium, facilities and special events, will be responsible for [...]

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The Mosaic Philosophy at Gitmo

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Harper's - By Scott Horton - Apr. 30 (News Report) - Several in the U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.

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The FBI Has Been Violating Your Liberties in Ways That May Shock You

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd - Feb. 03 (News) - As Congress seeks to renew the Patriot Act, new information exposes egregious FBI violations.

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Obama Expresses Displeasure With Guantanamo Restrictions But Signs Them Into Law

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

ProPublica - By Dafna Linzer - Jan. 10 (News Analysis) - "Obama should have issued no statement rather than this one, which is a confession of impotence"

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Plucking Learning From the WikiDeluge

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Emily Badger - Oct. 21 (Special Report) - After journalists swept over the trove of WikiLeaked documents from the Afghan war with a broad-toothed comb, historians and social scientists consider what might be of more lasting value there.

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'Sovereign' Citizen Kane | Southern Poverty Law Center

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Southern Poverty Law Center - Aug. 12 (News) - 'Sovereign' Citizen Kane

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Birth of a Salesman

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

guernicamag.com - By Amitava Kumar - Aug. 03 (Special Report) - The U.S. government’s exhibit 1002 in United States of America v. Hemant Lakhani was a document from the commissary in the Corrections Bureau in Passaic County, New Jersey. It indicated that on March 16, 2005, in the “early afternoon hours the defendant went to the commissary and notwithstanding his medical condition ordered four bags of hot buffalo chips.” That same afternoon, the defendant also purchased one bag of crunchy cheese chips. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stuart Rabner flipped through the rest of the pages of exhibit 1002. On March 21, Rabner told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the defendant had received five bags of hot buffalo chips, five bags of salty peanuts, and five bags of crunchy cheese chips. On March 28, he received one cheese pizza, and again, five bags each of hot buffalo chips, salted peanuts, and crunchy cheese chips—and five apple pies. Turning to another page, Rabner said that on April 8 the defendant had ordered five bags of hot buffalo chips, five bags of salted peanuts, and two bags of crunchy cheese chips. And then on April 11, the food items ordered were five bags of hot buffalo chips, five bags of salted peanuts, three apple pies, two honey buns, and a cheese pizza.

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Lockheed Martin: Information Systems And Global Services | Crocodyl

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Crocodyl: Collaborative Research on Corporations - By Tim Shorrock, et. al. - Jul. 19 (Investigative Report) - [a] 2008 investigation, U.S. officials confirmed that 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget goes directly to private companies working under contract to the CIA, the NSA, and other agencies. With the U.S. intelligence budget estimated at $60 billion a year, the outsourced business of intelligence is a $45 billion annual industry. To help the public and media understand this new phenomenon, CorpWatch is today with Shorrock, the first journalist to blow the whistle on the privatization of U.S. intelligence, to create a groundbreaking database focusing on the dozens of corporations that provide classified intelligence services to the United States government.

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ProPublica Photographer: I Was Followed by BP Security and Then Detained by Police

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Lance Rosenfield - Jul. 07 (Special Report) - The photographer detained while shooting pictures for ProPublica’s BP Texas City refinery articles tells his story.

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AT&T's Worst Security Breach: 114,000 iPad Owners Exposed | TPM LiveWire

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Talking Points Memo - Jun. 09 (News) -

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Cries From the Past: Torture's Ugly Echoes

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By H.P. Albarelli Jr., Jeffrey Kaye - May. 23 (News Report) - In a superb op-ed, written by Leonard S. Rubenstein and Stephen N. Xenakis, published recently in the New York Times (Doctors Without Morals, March 1, 2010, p. A23), the issue of holding physicians and psychologists accountable for their ethical breaches in participating in the conduct of torture is expertly raised, along with a well-needed call for investigations into such violations and violators.

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Living at the 'Tip of the Spear'

Sat, 08 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Koohan Paik - May. 08 (Investigative Report) - I witnessed the rage and hurt, exploding suddenly--and so unexpectedly--from the Chamorro people and other island residents, who have had no say in the planning of cataclysmic changes that will turn their homeland into an overcrowded waste dump for the creation of the hemisphere's pre-eminent military fortress. My friends told me it's all part of what's called the Guam Buildup.

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Second Arrest for Dan Choi: Protesters to Be Arraigned for Chaining to White House Fence

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

SouthFloridaGayNews.com - Apr. 21 (Breaking News) - GetEqual.com reports that the six military service members who were arrested yesterday after chaining themselves to the White House fence will be arraigned on April 21st. The protest against the U.S. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, included protester Lt. Dan Choi, who was previously arrested for the same act a few weeks ago.

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CIA’s top spy: Intelligence hasn’t ’suffered at all’ from waterboarding ban

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Raw Story - By Andrew McLemore - Apr. 04 (News Report) - President Obama's ban on waterboarding hasn't hampered US intelligence efforts "at all," one of the CIA's top officials said to an audience of students last week.

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Key Figure in Bush’s Military Commissions Set for Obama Job

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackmann - Feb. 09 (News Report) - Lietzau will be central to decisions about trying the remaining Guantanamo detainees in reformed military commissions or in federal courts, and to the construction of a new terrorism detention policy.

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Public Still Supports Obama’s Foreign Policy

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Jan. 26 (News Analysis) - On the eve of his first State of the Union address — a speech likely to be viewed as a response to a new Washington pessimism over his domestic agenda — President Obama is recording consistent support for his handling of foreign affairs and national security, according to an overview of recent polls. But despite this stable if mild support for his international agenda, dissatisfaction with his handling of foreign and security issues is growing.

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Intel Chief Presents Obama With Another Headache

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Jan. 22 (News Report) - If President Obama didn’t have enough headaches after the loss of the Democrats’ filibuster-proof Senate majority on Tuesday night, another one emerged for him at a Senate hearing on Wednesday morning: Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence.

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The Airport Scanner Scam

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By James Ridgeway - Jan. 07 (Special Report) - Scan, baby, scan. That’s the mantra among politicians at all levels in the wake of the thwarted terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound passenger jet. According to conventional wisdom, the would-be “underwear bomber” could have been stopped by airport security if he’d been put through a full-body scanner, which would have revealed the cache of explosives attached to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s groin.

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