Obama’s Net Neutrality Plan Could Lead to United Nations Control of Your Internet

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By Brendan Sasso. The U.S. government’s plan to enact strong net neutrality regulations could embolden authoritarian regimes like China and Russia to seize more power over the Internet through the United Nations, a key Senate Republican warned Wednesday.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune of South Dakota argued that by claiming more authority over Internet access for net neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission will undermine the ability of the U.S. to push back against international plots to control the Internet and censor content.

Countries like Russia already have made it clear that they want the International Telecommunications Union or another United Nations body to have more power over the Internet, Thune said.

“It seems like reclassifying broadband, as the administration is doing, is losing a valuable argument,” Thune said at his panel’s hearing on Internet governance. “How do you prevent ITU involvement when you’re pushing to reclassify the Internet under Title II of the Communications Act, and is everyone aware of that inherent contradiction?”

On Thursday, the FCC is set to vote on net neutrality regulations that would declare Internet access a “telecommunications service” under Title II. Advocates, including President Obama, argue that the move is the only way the FCC can enact rules that will hold up to legal challenges in court. The rules aim to prevent Internet providers from acting as “gatekeepers” and controlling what content users can access online. (Read more about the net neutrality plan HERE)

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FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai: Net Neutrality is a “Solution That Won’t Work to a Problem That Doesn’t Exist”

By Nick Gillespie & Todd Krainin. Net Neutrality is “a solution that won’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist,” says Ajit Pai, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Pai is an oustpoken opponent of expanding government control of the internet, including FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s plan to regulate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) under the same Title II rules that are used to govern telephone-service providers as public utilities. Under current FCC regulations, ISPs are considered providers of “information services” and subject to essentially no federal regulation.

He is also sharply critical of President Barack Obama’s very public push to influence policy at the FCC, which is technically an independent agency. Last year, it was widely believed that Wheeler, a former head of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, would not push for Title II. Pai calls the president’s actions—which included “creating a YouTube video of with very specific prescriptions as to what this agency should do”—unprecedented in his experience. Coupled with the fact that “the agency suddenly chang[ed]course from where it was to mimic the president’s plan,” says Pai, “suggests that the independence of the agency has been compromised to some extent.”

The FCC is scheduled to vote Thursday, February 26 on Wheeler’s plan. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Soros, Ford shovel $196 million to ‘net neutrality’ groups, staff to White House

By Paul Bedard. Liberal philanthropist George Soros and the Ford Foundation have lavished groups supporting the administration’s “net neutrality” agenda, donating $196 million and landing proponents on the White House staff, according to a new report.

And now, as the Federal Communications Commission nears approving a type of government control over the Internet, the groups are poised to declare victory in the years-long fight, according to the report from MRC Business, an arm of the conservative media watchdog, the Media Research Center.

“The Ford Foundation, which claims to be the second-largest private foundation in the U.S., and Open Society Foundations, founded by far-left billionaire George Soros, have given more than $196 million to pro-net neutrality groups between 2000 and 2013,” said the report, authored by Media Research Center’s Joseph Rossell, and provided to Secrets.


These left-wing groups not only impacted the public debate and funded top liberal think tanks from the Center for American Progress to Free Press. They also have direct ties to the White House and regulatory agencies. At least five individuals from these groups have ascended to key positions at the White House and FCC,” said the report which included funding details to pro-net neutrality advocates. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Trump 2016: Donald Trump Says He is Serious About Presidency

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreBy Robert Costa. This time, Donald J. Trump says, he really means it.

The billionaire real-estate mogul, who has long amounted to a one-man sideshow in GOP presidential politics, said in an interview Wednesday that he is “more serious” than ever about pursuing a run for the White House in 2016.

In recent days, Trump said, he has hired staffers in key primary states, retained an election attorney and delayed signing on for another season as host of NBC’s “The Celebrity Apprentice” because of his political projects.

“Everybody feels I’m doing this just to have fun or because it’s good for the brand,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Well, it’s not fun. I’m not doing this for enjoyment. I’m doing this because the country is in serious trouble.”

The moves are the most significant steps yet by Trump, 68, toward a bona fide presidential bid, which he considered briefly and flamboyantly in 2011 before deciding against a run. (Read more about how Donald Trump says he is serious about a run HERE)

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Reporter Mocks Scott Walker for Claiming to Communicate with God through Prayer

By Alex Griswold. Political Wire publisher Taegan Goddard caught a lot of flak on Twitter after mocking Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for claiming he could discern God’s will, only to admit that he had no idea Christians believed they could communicate with God through prayer.

It all began with a rather snarky tweet about Walker’s comments that he was still waiting for “God’s calling” before he announced a presidential run.

Gov. Scott Walker’s office was unable to provide any transcripts of his conversations with God https://t.co/R8dcqhNpqR — Taegan Goddard (@politicalwire) February 24, 2015

@lachlan I don’t pretend I can talk with God. But perhaps Scott Walker can. — Taegan Goddard (@politicalwire) February 24, 2015

(Read more from this story HERE)

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Investigation Finds Hundreds of Airport Security Badges Missing

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An exclusive NBC 5 investigation found hundreds and perhaps even thousands of airport security badges, known as Secure Identification Display Area (SIDA) badges, are unaccounted for across the country.

NBC 5 Investigates requested records from some of the nation’s largest airports asking how many SIDA badges are unaccounted for.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport sent a response saying more than 1,400 badges were lost or stolen over approximately two years.

Larry Wansley, who once led security for American Airlines, believes the missing badges present serious concerns for security officials and are something terrorists would like to have possession of in order to compromise security.

Before NBC 5 Investigates could get missing ID badge information from other airports, like Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the Transportation Security Administration stepped in and said we couldn’t have those numbers. (Read more about the missing airport security badges HERE)

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Watch Trey Gowdy’s Warning to Democrats on Immigration: ‘Be Careful What You Do…’

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By Pete Kasperowicz. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Wednesday warned Democrats and others that their support for President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration will only undermine the rule of law, potentially in ways they’ll regret years from now.

“You may benefit from the president’s failure to enforce the law today,” Gowdy said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Obama’s action.

“But I’ll make you this promise,” he warned. “There will come a day where you will cry out for the enforcement of the law. There will come a day when you long for the law to be the foundation of this republic.”

“So you be careful what you do with the law today, because if you weaken it today, you weaken it forever,” he concluded.

Republicans have been fighting all week to defund Obama’s action, which Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) called “one of the biggest constitutional power grabs ever by a president.” (Read more about the warning to Democrats on immigration HERE)

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Obama Pressing Republicans on Homeland Security Funding

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis. President Obama called on congressional Republicans on Wednesday to renew financing for the Department of Homeland Security and promised to veto any measure that tried to gut his executive actions on immigration.

“Instead of trying to hold hostage funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which is so important for our national security, fund that, and let’s get on with actually passing comprehensive immigration reform,” Mr. Obama told about 270 people at a town-hall-style meeting at Florida International University.


He was referring to Republican efforts to block his immigration plans while still financing most of the department. Their idea is to prevent any money, whether through the appropriations process or through fees collected from immigration applications, from being used for any of the president’s existing or future executive actions on immigration. Homeland Security financing will expire on Friday unless Congress passes, and Mr. Obama signs, a bill to continue providing it.

If Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, “want to have a vote on whether what I’m doing is legal or not, they can have that vote,” Mr. Obama said. “I will veto that vote.” (Read more about the homeland security funding HERE)

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The Names: This Is Who ISIS Has Recruited from the United States [+video]

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By Joshua Berlinger. These are some of the individuals we know have traveled or tried to join ISIS . . .

U.S. officials say more than 150 fighters have traveled from America to join the militant group. We don’t yet know the identity of any Americans who have successfully made it to ISIS-controlled lands, but we do know the identities of a handful of people who have been accused of trying.

On Wednesday, three men from New York — Abdurasul Juraboev, 24; Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19; and Abror Habibov, 30 — were arrested and charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization. An unsealed criminal complaint accused two of the men of discussing a potential attempt to assassinate President Barack Obama. One of the men had discussed hijacking a flight and handing it over to ISIS, the complaint said.

Four women from Colorado have been accused of attempting to join ISIS. Three Denver teenagers, who investigators say were recruited via social media, were stopped in Germany last October and sent back to the United States. After being arrested in spring 2014, Shannon Maureen Conley was one of the first Americans sentenced for conspiracy to support ISIS.

Two men who have appeared in horrific ISIS propaganda videos could be from the United States or Canada, according to analysts. The individuals — both of whom are shown wearing masks covering everything but their eyes — spoke in what sounded like North American accents. One was in a video entitled “Flames of War,” which shows the execution of a handful of men. The other militant is the speaker in ISIS’ first propaganda video out of Libya, which ends with the graphic beheading of more than a dozen Egyptian Christians. (Read more about who ISIS has recruited HERE)

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Watch: A Message to Obama From a Former Muslim About Who ISIS Really is

By Tim Brown. A former Muslim, whose father is an imam blasts Barack Hussein Obama on the issue of Islam. Of course, I’m not expecting Obama to actually take heed to this man’s comments simply because Obama is a stealth jihadist.

Brother Rachid, told Obama, “With all due respect, Sir, I must tell you that you are wrong about ISIL (Islamic State).”

As a former Muslim, Rachid dismissed the claims of Obama who has said that the Islamic State doesn’t speak for any religion.


“I’m a former Muslim,” said Rachid. “My dad is an imam. I spent more than 20 years studying Islam. I hold a bachelor’s degree in religious studies and I’m in the middle of my Master’s degree in terrorism studies. I can tell you with confidence that ISIL speaks for Islam.”

In correcting Obama (something Obama doesn’t need because he knows exactly what the Muslim religion teaches), Rachid said, “ISIL is a Muslim organization.” (Read more about who ISIS really is HERE)

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Black History Biden: Joe Biden Calls for ‘Emancipation’ of People’s Wealth

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Vice President Joe Biden used a Black History Month event at his official residence Monday night to decry the rich, both white and black, for stunting economic growth and suggested that “emancipation” is in order.

“A lot of wealthy white and black people aren’t bad but they control 1 percent of the economy and this cannot stand,” Biden told about 100 guests, including past civil rights activists and NBC weatherman Al Roker.

“It’s not fair because the business experts are saying that concentration of wealth is stunting growth. So let’s do something that’s worthy of emancipation,” said Biden, according to a press pool report of the event.

Then, explaining the impact of Civil War era emancipation, Biden concluded, “What happened is not only did we move toward freeing black Americans but also the conscience of white Americans.”

The White House has made income inequality an issue for the last two years of President Obama’s second term in office. (Read more from “Joe Biden Calls for Emancipation of Wealth” HERE)

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The Betrayal Papers: A National Security “Smoking Gun” of Obama’s Conspiracy with Muslim Brotherhood

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The first article of the Betrayal Papers asserted that the Muslim Brotherhood was not only influential in the United States government, but in fact dominated the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama. This article will name several key people who were or are in the Obama administration and who have various, documented associations with organizations which are directly tied to and/or funded by the Muslim Brotherhood and the State of Qatar (home to Brotherhood’s Spiritual Leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi). These individuals have helped dictate national security policies that have crippled counterterrorism efforts at home and abroad. Three more “Betrayal Papers” in this five-part series will be published in the coming weeks.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Network of Civic Organizations: Apologists for Terror

In 1963, the first Muslim Brotherhood front group established itself in the United States and Canada: the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), a group based on college campuses in North America. Through this organizational foothold, the Brotherhood has recruited and indoctrinated generations of American and Canadian Muslims into an Islamic belief system that pits Islam against the world. In more than a few cases, Muslims who join MSA chapters at their colleges have taken this ideology to its logical extreme: terrorism.

For example, it was recently reported by the Canadian Military Association that eleven (11) of Canada’s highest profile terrorists were tied to the MSA.

The Muslim Students Association (MSA): The MSA, the first Muslim Brotherhood organization to gain a foothold in the United States, was founded in 1963. Many founding members were Muslim Brothers or had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The three most significant founders of MSA were Hisham al Talib, Jamal Barzinji, and Ahmed Totanji, and all of whom were MB leaders of Iraqi descent. While a student at George Washington University, Hillary Clinton’s personal aide Huma Abedin was on the Executive Board of her MSA.

Since the early 1960s, the Muslim Brotherhood’s MSA has birthed a large number of purported “civic organizations,” which are anything but civil. We shall now name some of the groups, and establish the facts that link them to their parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): CAIR was founded by two individuals with close ties to a Hamas operative. Hamas, according to its own charter, is the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. In 2007, founder Omar Ahwad was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing trial. In November 2014, CAIR was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

Muslim American Society (MAS): MAS was founded in 1992 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to MAS secretary-general Shaker Elsayed. MAS, and the Muslim Brotherhood, advocate for Sharia law in the United States. MAS identifies the Islamic Society of North American (ISNA) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) as organizations with the same goal: the “Islamic revival movement.” In November 2014, MAS was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

Islamic Society of North America (ISNA): ISNA was created out of four Islamic organizations, including the Muslim Students Association. Its former president Mohamed Magid was appointed an advisor to DHS and the National Security Council by Barack Obama in 2011, and was a recent guest at the White House.

Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC): MPAC was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically Hassan and Maher Hathout, both whom were acolytes of Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al-Banna. MPAC supports the Tunisian Ennahda (Muslim Brotherhood) Party leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, whom they termed “one of the most important figures in modern Islamic political thought and theory.” Its current President is Salam Al-Marayati, who represented the US to the United Nations and UNESCO in 2010.

Additionally, a 1991 internal memorandum of the Muslim Brotherhood specifically identifies CAIR, ISNA, and the MSA in “A list of our organizations and organizations of our friends.” (Note: CAIR’s organizational predecessor, the Islamic Association of Palestine, is named.)

Finally, CAIR and ISNA were named un-indicted co-conspirators which materially supported terrorism by a federal court, in connection with the infamous Holy Land Foundation trial, an alleged humanitarian charity for Palestine. An incorporating member of MAS, Dr. Jamal Badawi, was named an unindicted co-conspirator. MPAC and MSA members are on the record supporting the Holy Land Foundation against government terrorism charges.

This evidence begs some questions from the honest reader:

• If these are all independent organizations, why is it that each of them is so neatly tied to the same parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood?
• Why are most of them named by the Muslim Brotherhood in their own memorandum?
• Why were all involved, directly as unindicted co-conspirators or indirectly as ardent supporters of the accused, with the Holy Land Foundation trial?

It doesn’t take a super sleuth to realize that these organizations are in fact fronts and subsidiaries of one organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. All one has to do is glance at the published information on their backgrounds, and the fact reveals itself.

The Anschluss (“Annexation”) of Georgetown and the Brookings Institution

You know the sayings. Money makes the world go ’round, and Follow the money, and Money is the root of all evil. These are important to keep in mind when considering the influence that Qatari money has had on two institutions as American as apple pie: Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution.

In 2005, Georgetown University established a new campus for their prestigious School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar (SFS-Q). (It bears stating here that the State of Qatar was the driving Arab force behind the Arab Spring, which resulted in the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.) Today they have a faculty of more than 35 academics.

As part of Qatar’s Education City, Georgetown has had all SFS-Q campus development costs covered by the Qatar Foundation, a charity with noted links to terrorism. May this, perchance, have some influence over the education that Georgetown is giving to future American diplomats in Qatar? At the very least, it may explain some of the blatant anti-Semitic comments in Georgetown’s student newspaper.


The Brookings Institution is also heavily funded by Qatar. In 2013, they received $14.8 million; in 2012, $100,000; and in 2011, $2.9 million. This explains why Obama had Brookings Vice President (and purported diplomat) Martin Indyk, negotiating the ‘peace terms’ between Israel and Hamas. Today, Indyk is busy negotiating with an aggressive and nuclear-aspiring Iran.

Is it any wonder why Israel doesn’t trust this administration? By all reasonable logic, they are on the side of Qatar and Hamas, which is officially the Palestinian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Obama Administration’s Agents

Given that these organizations function in a coordinated ideological manner, indeed they derive from the same root, it follows naturally that an individual associated with one organization would likely be associated with many, if not most of the others – not to mention the proxies of Georgetown and Brookings.

An experiment: Let’s choose seven Obama administration appointees with suspected ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Where to pluck these seven from? In December 2013, the Egyptian political magazine Rose El-Youssef, in an article titled Not Huma Abedin Alone, named six additional Obama appointees it claimed were operatives of the Muslim Brotherhood. You can read an English translation of the article here. Let’s see if their claims stack up, based on the information above.

Here are the six named operatives (plus Human Abedin) and their titles in the Obama administration:

Arif Alikhan – Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security for Policy Development. 2009-2010.
Eboo Patel – Member of the President’s Advisory Council to the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. 2009-Present.
Huma Abedin – Personal Aide/Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 2009-2013.
Mohamed Magid – DHS Countering Violence and Extremism Working Group. 2011-Present.
Mohammed Elibiary – Senior Member of DHS’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. 2010-2014.
Rashad Hussain – U.S. Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). 2010-Present. Deputy Associate Counsel to Barack Obama. 2009-2010.
Salam Al-Marayati – Administration representative to UNESCO and United Nations. 2010.

(Dates in administration are best efforts based on publicly available information.)

Now let’s compare their affiliations and associations, officially and less formally, across the above named organizations. We’ll also include the Department of Homeland Security, which earlier this week was praised by CAIR for identifying “right-wing sovereign citizen extremist groups,” not Islamic terrorism, as the prime terrorist threat facing the United States.

Green: Has worked or works in an official capacity for organization; is a named member of the organization.
Yellow: Has been associated with org., e.g., authored paper on their behalf; spoke on their behalf and/or at their events; proven personal relationship between the individual and organization’s leadership, etc.
Gray: No known or documented association.

No Coincidences

Notice the heavy concentration of green and yellow boxes, including for Georgetown and Brookings, in the table above. Notice the relatively few gray boxes. Individually these associations mean little; likewise, had this been just one random appointee in the entire administration, this story wouldn’t warrant the attention of the American public.

The intersection of individuals, organizations, Muslim Brotherhood money, and policy recommendations paint a picture of a carefully constructed conspiracy operating in plain sight. The Muslim Brotherhood has hijacked the American government and military and is using them as a tool to build a global Islamic Caliphate. The conspirators are changing the culture at home to accommodate sharia law and using law enforcement to demonize ordinary American citizens as national security threats.

These are Barack Hussein Obama’s appointees. This is Barack Hussein Obama’s administration and these are people chosen to advise him on national security and Islam.

From expunging DHS training materials of the threat posed by Islamic doctrine, to corrupting American foreign policy – the policy ramifications of these and similar appointments will be explored in the next articles.

* This analysis was completed after a careful survey of available press releases, news reports, and credible published information. They will be published in an upcoming report. Source is material regarding Obama’s conspiracy with Muslim Brotherhood available upon request.

The Betrayal Papers is a collaborative effort by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which includes: Andrea Shea King, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Benjamin Smith, Bethany Blankley, Brent Parrish, Charles Ortel, Chris Nethery, Denise Simon, Dick Manasseri, Gary Kubiak, Gates of Vienna, Hannah Szenes, IQ al Rassooli, Jeff Bayard, Leslie Burt, Marcus Kohan, Mary Fanning, General Paul E. Vallely, Regina Thomson, Scott Smith, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Colonel Thomas Snodgrass, Trever Loudon, Wallace Bruschweiler, and William Palumbo.

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Rahm Emanuel’s Corrupt Chicago Police: City has Special “Black Site” for Off-the-Books Interrogation of Americans

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The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.

Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:

•Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
•Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
•Shackling for prolonged periods.
•Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
•Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and was later pronounced dead. (Read more from about the corrupt Chicago police HERE)

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You’ll Never Guess What Edward Snowden Says His Only Regret is

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By Military. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden says he wishes he had come forward sooner with documents exposing the agency’s surveillance program.

In a Reddit ask-me-anything interview Monday, Snowden said that’s the one thing he would do differently in 2013 when he revealed NSA practices.

“I would have come forward sooner,” he said.

“Had I come forward a little sooner, these programs would have been a little less entrenched, and those abusing them would have felt a little less familiar with and accustomed to the exercise of those powers. This is something we see in almost every sector of government, not just in the national security space, but it’s very important: Once you grant the government some new power or authority, it becomes exponentially more difficult to roll it back,” he said. (Read more about Edward Snowden and his only regret HERE)

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Oscars Host Slams Edward Snowden at the Event

By Will Oremus. One of the first things users asked the fugitive whistleblower was what he thought of Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris’s pun about him Sunday night.

(“Edward Snowden couldn’t be here, for some treason,” NPH had quipped.)

Many of Snowden’s allies, including Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, slammed the one-liner as insulting and irresponsible.

But Snowden himself took it in stride:

To be honest, I laughed at NPH. I don’t think it was meant as a political statement, but even if it was, that’s not so bad. My perspective is if you’re not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don’t care enough.

(Read more from this story HERE)

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Snowden: Spy Agencies ‘Screwed All of Us’ in Hacking Crypto Keys

By Kim Zetter. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden didn’t mince words during a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Monday when he said the NSA and the British spy agency GCHQ had “screwed all of us” when it hacked into the Dutch firm Gemalto to steal cryptographic keys used in billions of mobile SIM cards worldwide.

“When the NSA and GCHQ compromised the security of potentially billions of phones (3g/4g encryption relies on the shared secret resident on the sim),” Snowden wrote in the AMA, “they not only screwed the manufacturer, they screwed all of us, because the only way to address the security compromise is to recall and replace every SIM sold by Gemalto.”


Gemalto is one of the leading makers of SIM cards used in billions of mobile phones around the world to secure the communications of telecom customers of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and more than 400 other wireless carriers in 85 countries. Stealing the crypto keys essentially allows the spy agencies to wiretap and decipher encrypted phone communications at will without the assistance of telecom carriers or the oversight of a court or government. The keys also allow the agencies to decrypt previously intercepted messages they hadn’t been able to crack. (Read more from this story HERE)

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17,000 Federal Employees Earned More Than $200K Last Year

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Eric Katz. More than 16,900 federal employees took home in excess of $200,000 in base salary in 2014, according to a partial database of federal salary data.

The information, compiled by FedSmith.com using data from the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies, shows the annual compensation for every civilian federal worker, save those at the Defense Department. The number of workers earning more than $200,000 represented about 1.6 percent of employees on the list and is up from about 15,000 who cleared that salary in 2013. It also makes up a slightly higher percentage of the employees on this list.

Most of the high earners worked as medical officers at the Veterans Affairs Department. Other agencies that require a highly specialized workforce paid several employees at least $200,000; these included the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

More than 1,600 federal employees cleared $300,000 in base salary last year. Just two—VA doctors in Palo Alto, Calif., and Pittsburgh—took in more than $400,000. (Read more from this story about what federal employees earned HERE)

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Lois Lerner Received $129K in Bonuses

By CJ Ciaramella. Former IRS official Lois Lerner received $129,300 in bonuses between 2010 and 2013, records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show.

Over a three-year period, Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division at the heart of the IRS targeting scandal, received a 25 percent retention bonus—averaging $43,000 a year—on top of her regular salary.

The federal government uses retention bonuses to incentivize valuable employees who are considering retirement or private sector jobs to stay at their agencies.


Former acting IRS commissioner Steven T. Miller recommended Lerner for a $42,000 retention bonus in December 2009, when she first became eligible for retirement.

“Ms. Lerner is eligible for retirement and as an attorney with extensive experience would likely command a much greater pay and benefits if she left the Service,” Miller wrote. “Without a retention incentive she will leave the Service.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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