Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Lied to Congress about NSA Surveillance in March

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Photo Credit: AP

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is under fire for statements he made before Congress that suggested he had no knowledge about federal government programs that collected data on millions of Americans’ phone calls and Internet activities.

In March, Clapper said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that he was not aware that the National Security Agency was involved in such large-scale efforts.

The questioning of Clapper’s statements follow blockbuster news last week that the federal government has since 9/11 been logging millions, perhaps billions, of calls and Internet activities and as the NSA’s top official goes before the same Senate committee for a closed-door briefing on the issue.

“Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Oregon Republican Sen. Ron Wyden asked Clapper at the March 12 hearing.
“No, sir,” Clapper responded.

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Mako Jumps in Boat, Stuns Anglers (+video)

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Photo Credit: Tom Rostron Jr.

Two anglers shark fishing east of Manasquan Inlet got a surprise when a 303-pound, 8-foot, 4-inch mako shark leapt into the bow of their 31-foot boat. Then [it] proceeded to eat the boat.

“It was epic. He back flipped right in,” said Clint Simek, of Brielle, who still sounded stunned by the shark’s theatrics as he retold the story Wednesday, a day after the wild encounter…

“At first we were in shock when he was in the boat. Then he started thrashing and we were like ‘Oh My God, we have a big problem, this thing is going to eat us,’ ” Rostron said.

The shark was way too green. From the time it was hooked to the time it jumped in the boat was only 25 seconds, Rostron said.

Once in, it took over the nine-foot wide bow eating anything in its path including two broom sticks, cushions, and speakers. It stayed alive for two hours.

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Aspiring New York Actress Turned Amateur Detective Tracks Down Her Father’s Killer

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Photo Credit: Fox News

While she may aspire to play a detective on the big screen, Joselyn Martinez could have a career as a real life gumshoe.

The 36-year old Dominican actress from The Bronx showed her sleuthing skills by helping track down the man who killed her father in a dispute in front of the family’s Dominican restaurant nearly three decades ago.

It took her eight years and about $280 paid to Internet-background check sites, but Martinez sniffed out confessed killer Justo Santos in Miami.

“Knowing the person my father was, I couldn’t live with myself if (Santos) stayed free,” Martinez told the New York Daily News Monday. “I need to see him in New York to know this has really happened.”

Santos remained on the lam for 26 years after shooting Martinez’s father, José, in cold blood after an argument. José Martinez had booted the then 16-year old Santos and two other goons from Martinez’s Dominican Express restaurant after the boys made disparaging and sexual remarks to his wife, Idalia.

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Boehner Calls NSA Leaker a “Traitor” (+video)

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House Speaker John Boehner today called NSA leaker Edward Snowden a “traitor” who put Americans at risk by releasing classified information to the media.

“He’s a traitor,” the highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives said in an extensive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.”

Boehner endorsed President Obama’s characterization of two programs, which allow the NSA to gather information about phone calls made in the U.S. as well as information on foreign suspects collected from major internet companies, as critical to the government’s ability to fight terrorism. He said that there are “clear safeguards” built into the programs to protect Americans.

“The president outlined last week that these were important national security programs to help keep Americans safe, and give us tools to fight the terrorist threat that we face,” Boehner said. “The president also outlined that there are appropriate safeguards in place to make sure that there’s no snooping, if you will, on Americans here at home.”

Snowden, a 29-year-old contractor with the National Security Agency, admitted that he was the source of several leaks of top secret NSA documents to the British paper, The Guardian, and the Washington Post.

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Belgium Poised to Legalize Euthanasia of Children

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Yves Herman

The Belgian Federal Parliament is reportedly about to expand its controversial “right to die” policies to include access to euthanasia for some gravely ill children.

A consensus among members of the legislative body has reportedly formed in support of legislation to allow children to choose to undergo euthanasia in certain dire cases, according to a report in the Belgian daily newspaper Der Morgen, as translated by the Paris-based news agency Presseurop.

If child euthanasia is legalized in Belgium, the country would become the first in the developed world to have a law on the books allowing the practice, although the Netherlands has since 2005 not prosecuted doctors who perform euthanasia on some minors as long as the doctors act in accordance with a set of medical guidelines dubbed the Groningen Protocol.

Belgium became the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalize euthanasia in 2002, but the statute currently extends only to people 18 or older.

The bill, introduced by the Socialist party in December, would lay out guidelines for doctors to decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not a child is mature enough to make the decision to end his or her own life, as well as whether a child’s health is grave and hopeless enough to warrant euthanasia.

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NSA’s Vast Surveillance Program Receiving International Scrutiny; Obama Admin. Doubles Down

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Photo Credit: Truthout.org

[T]he European Parliament planned to debate the spy programs Tuesday and whether they have violated local privacy protections. EU officials in Brussels pledged to seek answers from U.S. diplomats at a trans-Atlantic ministerial meeting in Dublin later this week.

The global scrutiny comes after revelations from Snowden, who has chosen to reveal his identity. Snowden has fled to Hong Kong in hopes of escaping criminal charges as lawmakers including Senate intelligence chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California accuse him of committing an “act of treason” that should be prosecuted.

Officials in Germany and the European Union issued calm but firm complaints Monday over two National Security Agency programs that target suspicious foreign messages – potentially including phone numbers, email, images, video and other online communications transmitted through U.S. providers. The chief British diplomat felt it necessary to try to assure Parliament that the spy programs do not encroach on U.K. privacy laws…

A senior U.S. intelligence official on Monday said there were no plans to scrap the programs that, despite the backlash, continue to receive widespread if cautious support within Congress. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive security issue.

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Mayor Bloomberg Wants to Spend $20 Billion to Protect NYC from Global Warming

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Photo Credit: Newsmax

Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a $20 billion plan on Tuesday to transform how New York City girds itself for storms and global warming, including removable flood walls that would be set up for much of lower Manhattan, a 15-to-20-foot levee to guard part of Staten Island, and a system of gates and levees to protect a Brooklyn creek.

Bloomberg’s proposals also include building dunes in Staten Island and the Rockaways, firming up the shoreline with bulkheads in various neighborhoods and considering building a levee and a new “Seaport City” development at the South Street Seaport that would echo nearby Battery Park City.

The mayor also is suggesting giving $1.2 billion in grants to property owners to flood-proof their buildings and $50 million to nursing homes to improve theirs; making hospitals even in rarely flooded areas to upgrade their pumps and electrical equipment; and expanding beaches and marshes.

“This plan is incredibly ambitious,” Bloomberg said in a speech at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, acknowledging that much of the work would extend beyond the end of his term this year. “This is urgent work, and it must begin now.

“Piece by piece, over many years and even decades, we can build a city that’s capable of preparing better, withstanding more and overcoming anything.”

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Pope Admits ‘Gay Lobby’ Exists in Vatican

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Pope Francis has acknowledged the existence of a “gay lobby” in the Vatican and says he is consulting advisers on what to do about it.

Speaking informally to a confederation of religious groups from Latin America and the Caribbean, he said: “In the Curia, there are also holy people, really, there are holy people.”

But, he added: “There also is a stream of corruption, there is that as well, it is true… The ‘gay lobby’ is mentioned, and it is true, it is there… We need to see what we can do.”

The Pope’s words, reported on the Rorate Caeli website, follow the completion of a secret report on the leaking of Vatican documents. The commission report, led by three retired cardinals, was presented earlier this year to Benedict XVI and Francis.

The contents of the dossier are unknown, but it’s thought to implicate a small number of Vatican officials in “gay lobby” activity as well as some financial malpractice.

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz: NSA Leaker ‘Should be Extradited, Arrested, and Prosecuted’

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Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the National Security Agency surveillance leaker should be extradited and prosecuted, CBS Miami reported Tuesday.

According to the local news outlet, the Florida Democratic congresswoman said that while she did not vote for the programs, she believes that the leaker, Edward Snowden should be prosecuted for revealing details about the Prism surveillance program.

“He should be extradited, arrested, and prosecuted,” CBS Miami quoted Wasserman Schultz. “That’s exactly what should happen to him because he violated the law. He violated America’s trust. He jeopardized millions of Americans.”

Wasserman Schultz’ tough talk echoes other lawmakers including New York Republican Rep. Peter King and House Speaker John Boehner.

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Will the U.S. Even Survive Obama’s Last Term?

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Photo Credit: WND

The rash of scandals facing Barack Obama and his administration in recent days has some people wondering if the president can survive his full term through January 2017.

Britain’s Telegraph newspaper is even running the headline: “You have to wonder: Will Obama see out his full term?”

But U.S. radio giant Rush Limbaugh says that’s the wrong question to ask.

“That’s not the question. The question is: Will America last through Obama’s full term?” Limbaugh said on his program Monday.

He continued:

Will the country survive the implementation of Obamacare? Will the country survive all this spying and all this data collecting? Will the country survive amnesty, will the country survive every plan this man’s got? That’s the question. The question is not will he serve out his second term ’cause that’s a no-brainer. Yet the UK Telegraph, ’cause they live in the real world and think, my gosh, the population of any country learning this about their president, they’d be livid. Not here. Not here. The racial component alone is not gonna permit it. It’s not gonna allow it. That coupled with the basic ignorance of the low-information voter.

There’s no real uptick on jobs. There aren’t any careers being created. People have lost jobs. Jobs are vanishing. Taxes are going up, skyrocketing high. The divide between rich and poor is only gonna get worse. Obamacare’s gonna be fully implemented. If it is, folks, 20 grand for a family to be insured? Then we’re talking immigration, amnesty, 11, 12 million people. Look at what’s on tap. If Obama could he’d wipe out the Second Amendment, if he could. You know who he is; I know who he is; you know where he’s headed. Everybody in this administration’s headed the same way. Look at the IRS scandal. Look at what the FDA is doing and the EPA and the autocratic-like, dictatorial regulations coming out of the various branches and cabinet positions of this administration, and the question is not is Obama gonna survive. The question, will America as founded.

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