Stats: Obama Administration Paused Iran Sanctions for Rouhani

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

New statistics indicate that the Obama administration intentionally refrained from sanctioning Iran following the June election of President Hassan Rouhani, lending credence to multiple reports that the White House began secretly courting Tehran from the first moments of Rouhani’s presidency.

Prior to Rouhani’s June 14 election, the U.S. Treasury Department issued 10 sanction announcements targeting a total of 183 entities that were aiding and abetting Iran’s rogue oil trade and its nuclear weapons program, according to statistics compiled from publicly available releases on the Treasury’s website.

New designations were issued each month from February to June 4, including six in the month of May alone.

However, just two announcements targeting a total of 29 rogue entities were issued following Rouhani’s election, which was accompanied by a three-month silence from the Treasury Department.

Treasury did not issue a new designation until Sept. 6, and it targeted some 10 rogue entities.

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By Cracking Cellphone Code, NSA has Capacity for Decoding Private Conversations

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The cellphone encryption technology used most widely across the world can be easily defeated by the National Security Agency, an internal document shows, giving the agency the means to decode most of the billions of calls and texts that travel over public airwaves every day.

While the military and law enforcement agencies long have been able to hack into individual cellphones, the NSA’s capability appears to be far more sweeping because of the agency’s global signals collection operation. The agency’s ability to crack encryption used by the majority of cellphones in the world offers it wide-ranging powers to listen in on private conversations.

U.S. law prohibits the NSA from collecting the content of conversations between Americans without a court order. But experts say that if the NSA has developed the capacity to easily decode encrypted cellphone conversations, then other nations likely can do the same through their own intelligence services, potentially to Americans’ calls, as well.

Encryption experts have complained for years that the most commonly used technology, known as A5/1, is vulnerable and have urged providers to upgrade to newer systems that are much harder to crack. Most companies worldwide have not done so, even as controversy has intensified in recent months over NSA collection of cellphone traffic, including of such world leaders as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The extent of the NSA’s collection of cellphone signals and its use of tools to decode encryption are not clear from a top-secret document provided by former contractor Edward Snowden. But it states that the agency “can process encrypted A5/1” even when the agency has not acquired an encryption key, which unscrambles communications so that they are readable.

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No Change: White House says Plans No Split of NSA, Cyber Command

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/JASON REED

Photo Credit: REUTERS/JASON REED

By Warren Strobel.

The Obama administration on Friday said it will keep one person in charge of both the National Security Agency spy agency and the military’s Cyber Command, despite growing calls for splitting the roles in the wake of revelations about the vast U.S. electronic surveillance operations.

The White House had considered splitting up the two agencies, possibly giving the NSA a civilian leader for the first time in its 61-year history to dampen controversy over its programs revealed by former contractor Edward Snowden.

Both the NSA and Cyber Command, which conducts cyber warfare, are now headed by the same man, Army General Keith Alexander, who is retiring in March. Given that the head of Cyber Command must be a military officer, the White House decision means that Alexander’s successor will be from the military as well.

“Following a thorough interagency review, the Administration has decided that keeping the positions of NSA Director and Cyber Command Commander together as one, dual-hatted position is the most effective approach to accomplishing both agencies’ missions,” said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council.

“Without the dual-hat arrangement, elaborate procedures would have to be put in place to ensure that effective coordination continued and avoid creating duplicative capabilities in each organization.”

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Photo Credit: Gary Cameron/Reuters

Photo Credit: Gary Cameron/Reuters

White House to preserve controversial policy on NSA, Cyber Command leadership

By Ellen Nakashima.

The Obama administration has decided to preserve a controversial arrangement by which a single military official is permitted to direct both the National Security Agency and the military’s cyberwarfare command, U.S. officials said.

The decision by President Obama comes amid signs that the White House is not inclined to impose significant new restraints on the NSA’s activities and favors maintaining an agency program that collects data on virtually every phone call that Americans make, although it is likely to impose additional privacy protection measures.

Some officials, including top U.S. intelligence officials, had argued that the NSA and Cyber Command should be placed under separate leadership to ensure greater accountability and avoid an undue concentration of power. An external review panel appointed by Obama was also inclined to recommend that a civilian head be installed at the NSA, effectively splitting the roles, according to an official familiar with some of the early recommendations.

“Following a thorough interagency review, the administration has decided that keeping the positions of NSA Director and Cyber Command commander together as one, dual-hatted position is the most effective approach to accomplishing both agencies’ missions,” White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in an e-mail to The Washington Post.

The announcement comes as the external panel readies a report on NSA surveillance and the White House nears completion of its own internal review. The White House will take the five-member panel’s recommendations under consideration but is free to reject or modify them.

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Federal Judge: Mt. Soledad Cross Must Come Down, Unconstitutional

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Photo Credit: AP FILE

Photo Credit: AP FILE

A cross atop Mount Soledad in California is an unconstitutional religious display on government land and must come down, a federal judge in San Diego ruled late Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns ordered the cross, which honors veterans, must be removed within 90 days — a decision that could result in the case being sent back to the U.S. Supreme Court. Burns immediately stayed his order pending an expected appeal.

The original lawsuit was filed in 2006 by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Jewish Veterans of the United States of American and several other Southern California residents.

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True Unemployment Rate 11% or Higher in 49 of the Last 50 Months

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The official unemployment rate has fallen to a five-year low of 7%. But put away the champagne.

That gradual decline reflects a historic drop in labor force participation. Without that drop, joblessness would be 11.3%, holding at 11% or higher in every month but one in the last 50 months.

To be considered unemployed, a person has to be out of work but actively looking. So when people give up the job hunt, they reduce unemployment — even if the number of people working hasn’t risen.

At the start of the recession in December 2007, the labor force participation rate was 66%. It fell sharply, tumbling to 62.8% in October, a 35-year low. It rose slightly to 63% last month.

The actual labor force has declined by 217,000 so far this year, even with nonfarm payrolls up by 2.1 million.

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North Carolina Democrat Warns Private School Vouchers Will Lead to Terrorist Kids

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

North Carolina’s superintendent of public instruction has warned that the state’s new voucher law could end up funding schools run by hardened terrorists who will churn out little terrorists hell-bent on the destruction of America.

June Atkinson made the comments while speaking at the state school board association’s public policy conference last week in Wilmington, reports local NBC affiliate WECT.

“With the voucher legislation that we have we could be in dangerous territory as far as taxpayers’ dollars going to private schools,” Atkinson told reporters.

The elected Democrat’s appears to be laboring under the belief that no state or federal laws prevent that sort of thing now. Only the limitation of not being flush with tax dollars precludes private schools from offering coursework in suicide bombing to North Carolina’s ready-to-be-radicalized grade schoolers.

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NYC Mayor de Blasio Walks Away From White House Meeting With Sweeping National Hopes for Progressivism

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Photo Credit: Politicker

Photo Credit: Politicker

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio went down to Washington, D.C. today to meet with President Barack Obama, emerging emboldened that a “progressive movement” was sweeping the nation.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, which included 15 other newly-elected mayors, Mr. de Blasio said it was clear to him that the fight against inequality–which formed the centerpiece of his campaign–was gaining steam far beyond the five boroughs.

“You can’t have a room full of mayors–literally every corner of the country–all spontaneously saying to the president of the United States the same exact things from their own experience: Something’s going on here … So what we have to do is organize it and amplify it,” he told Politicker.

“It was very interesting: a lot of them talked about pre-K, a lot of them talked about early childhood education as one of the breakthrough things we have to do to change the dynamics, a lot of them talked about their growing poverty levels and how it was undermining the future of their cities. So I think there was a really organic unity among all of us of the fact that this is the issue of our times. Fighting inequality is the mission of our times,” he said.

The meeting, organized by the White House, had been called “discuss the ways in which the Obama Administration can serve as an active partner on job creation and ensuring middle class families have a pathway to opportunity.” Speaking in the Roosevelt Room, Mr. Obama said he hoped to partner with the city leaders to help them achieve their goals.

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Last light: Incandescent Bulbs Become Illegal Jan. 1

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Photo Credit: AP PHOTO/ED ANDRIESKI

Photo Credit: AP PHOTO/ED ANDRIESKI

It’s lights out for the light bulb.

On Jan. 1 it will become illegal to manufacture or import traditional 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent bulbs, thanks to a 2007 bill that set strict minimum efficiency standards – and effectively outlawed the ordinary bulb.

And like a politician on Election Day, Home Depot is urging consumers to buy early and often.

“Get them while you still can,” the nation’s largest bulb retailer urges on its website. “Stock up on incandescent light bulbs before they are completely discontinued.”

That’s not quite correct. The 2007 law doesn’t mandate that manufacturers discontinue their bulbs, just that they improve them: 40W bulbs must draw just 10.5W, and 60W bulbs 11W. But the result is the same: Incandescents simply can’t keep up with those twisty compact fluorescent (CFL) and newer LED bulbs, and even retailers are buying in bulk as the calendar winds down.

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Breaking News: Man Arrested for Planned Suicide Bombing at Kansas Airport (UPDATED)

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Photo Credit: lumachrome

Photo Credit: lumachrome

By Tim Potter.

Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams says a 1 p.m. news conference Friday will address “a major situation for our city that was averted” through a collaborative investigation.

NBC News reported that federal officials arrested a man who planned to detonate a suicide bomb at Wichita’s Mid-Continent airport.

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Photo Credit: FBI

Photo Credit: FBI

‘Brother Bin Laden is a great inspiration to me’: Authorities thwart suicide bombing ‘by Islamic extremist flight technician who plotted to blow up Kansas airport’

By Louise Boyle and Associated Press.

An aviation technician with extremist Islamic views was charged on Friday after he planned to detonate a car bomb at a Kansas airport.

Terry Lee Loewen, 58, was arrested on Friday morning at Mid-Continent regional airport in Wichita, according to U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom, after being thwarted by an undercover FBI investigation.

Grissom said Loewen planned to drive a car that he believed was full of explosives into a terminal at the airport and trigger the device in a suicide mission.

Investigators say Loewen is an avionics technician who lives in Wichita and works at the airport.

Grissom said the 58-year-old spent months developing his plan of driving a car filled with explosives into the airport, triggering the bomb and killing himself.

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Thanks to Nuclear Option, Begich and Rest Of Senate Dems Confirm Radical Judge

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RTRN4F91-e1386873210394She’s the kind of nominee the Democrats went nuclear for. Cornelia “Nina” Pillard was confirmed by a 51-44 vote in the U.S. Senate in the middle of the night last night, as a judge on the powerful D.C. Circuit court. Prior to the nuclear option, she would have been (justifiably) filibustered and blocked.

Her views on a myriad of subjects are clearly outside the mainstream. Consider, for example, Pillard’s thoughts on abortion. This is from 2007: ”Casting reproductive rights in terms of equality holds promise to recenter the debate…away from the deceptive images of fetus-as-autonomous-being that the anti-choice movement has popularized…” (Bold mine.) (page 990)

This suggests a sort of anti-science view that is especially worrisome when found in someone who is supposed to put facts (and the law) ahead of political ideology. It’s a position that’s meant to serve her political theory, but flies in the face of science. Sonograms, of course, have changed the game. People put these pictures on their Facebook wall precisely because it’s very obviously their child. Nothing else quite captures her doctrinaire rigidity better than this statement.)

She went on to argue that limiting abortion “reinforces broader patterns of discrimination against women as a class of presumptive breeders…” (p.975) and that abortion rights “play a central role in freeing women from historically routine conscription into maternity.”…

The only good news for conservative? Vulnerable Democratic Senators like Mark Begich and Mary Landrieu are now on the record as supporting Pillard’s radical agenda. (And I guess the question over whether Bob Casey, Jr. was ever really pro-Life has been settled.)

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