Google Must Face Most Claims in Gmail Wiretap Lawsuit

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photo credit: brionv

photo credit: brionv

Google Inc. (GOOG) must face most claims in a lawsuit alleging it illegally reads and mines the content of private messages sent through its Gmail e-mail service in violation of federal wiretap laws.

U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh in San Jose, California, today granted Google’s request to throw out state claims, while allowing the plaintiffs to refile. She refused to dismiss federal claims, rejecting the company’s argument that the plaintiffs agreed to let Google intercept and read their e-mails by accepting its service terms and privacy policies.

“The court finds that it cannot conclude that any party — Gmail users or non-Gmail users — has consented to Google’s reading of e-mail for the purposes of creating user profiles or providing targeted advertising,” Koh said in the ruling.

Users of Gmail and other e-mail services from states including Texas, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida contend that Google “does not disclose the extent of its processing,” according to a May 16 court filing. The case consolidates seven individual and group lawsuits.

“We’re disappointed in this decision and are considering our options,” Google said in an e-mailed statement. “Automated scanning lets us provide Gmail users with security and spam protection, as well as great features like Priority Inbox.”

Read more from this story HERE.

NRA Blasting Obama Admin for Signing UN Arms Trade Treaty (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

On September 25, Secretary of State John Kerry signed the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The NRA described the action as another clear example of the Obama administration’s “contempt for our fundamental, individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms.”

According to the NRA: “This treaty threatens individual firearm ownership with an invasive registration scheme [and is full of regulations and requirements that are] blatant attacks on the constitutional rights of every law-abiding American.”

The NRA warns that the ATT “urges record keeping of end users, directing importing countries to provide information to an exporting country regarding arms transfers, including ‘end use or end user documentation’ for a ‘minimum of ten years.'” This information on end users is a de-facto registry and one that could be “made available to foreign governments.” Read more from this story HERE.

Listen as Rep. Mike Kelly, Rep. Jim Bridenstine and their colleagues explain the extreme dangers of what the Obama Administration has done with the ATT:

Ted Cruz Might Just Have Won the Future for the GOP

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Photo Credit: The Washington Post

Photo Credit: The Washington Post

Make no mistake about it: the “extended speech” by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had absolutely nothing to do with defunding the Affordable Care Act—or even delaying it for one go*da** day.

As the long list of Senate Republicans who declined to back a full-blown, fill-your-hands-you-son-of-a-bitch filibuster over Obamacare could tell you, it’s a done deal that the president’s consistently unpopular health-care law is going forward even if the government shuts down. Come next week, the enrollment period is going to start, and come January 1, 2014, the plan will kick into gear despite every reason to believe it will be a clusterfudge of epic proportions.

So what exactly was Cruz doing up there, hogging the limelight on C-SPAN’s low-wattage webstream for a couple of hours, if he wasn’t serious about stopping Obamacare? He was playing his part in a pretty goddamned brilliant strategy to win the future not for himself but for the Republican Party.

Cruz and his fellow Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) are the best-known of the gaggle of legislators that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) denounced as “wacko birds” earlier this year. “It’s always the wacko birds on right and left that get the media megaphone,” sputtered McCain in the wake of Paul’s immensely popular and influential filibuster, which called much-needed attention to the Obama administration’s glib attitude toward civil liberties and executive branch overreach.

Read more from this story HERE.

Lawmakers Seek to End Bulk NSA Phone Records Collection

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picture - NSADemocratic and Republican senators introduced legislation Wednesday to end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ communication records and set other new controls on the government’s electronic eavesdropping programs.

The measure introduced by Democrats Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Richard Blumenthal and Republican Rand Paul is one of several efforts making their way through Congress to rein in sweeping surveillance programs.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is holding a public hearing Thursday where the panel’s leaders are expected to discuss their surveillance reforms. The Senate Judiciary Committee is addressing the issue, and several members of the House of Representatives have also introduced legislation.

“The disclosures over the last 100 days have caused a sea change in the way the public views the surveillance system,” said Wyden, a leading congressional advocate for tighter privacy controls, told a news conference.

The surveillance programs have come under intense scrutiny since disclosures this spring by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the government collects far more Internet and telephone data than previously known.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Republicans: We’ll Move on Immigration Reform Sometime This Year

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Remember immigration reform? Like Syria, it was a scalding-hot topic for awhile, only to recede to back-burner status as other political conflagrations took its place in the national spotlight. There’s been some drama percolating behind the scenes, though, and it looks like the issue may re-emerge in the coming months, as House Republicans have indicated that they’ll take it up before the calendar flips to 2014:

House Republicans intensified their outreach to Latino groups last week, offering renewed pledges that the House will deal with immigration reform this year. The effort has revived hope among advocates that a bipartisan deal can be reached to address the fate of the nation’s 11 million undocumented workers and students. The chances of a comprehensive deal passing Congress remain doubtful, advocates cautioned, and they worry that the legislative process will spill into 2014, presenting new complications in a year when lawmakers face reelection battles. But they were encouraged by signals from key GOP leaders that the House is willing to move forward on legislation that could produce a breakthrough in the stalled negotiations. Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said Thursday that his panel is working on four new pieces of legislation dealing with border-control laws. He did not disclose details but emphasized the need to resolve the status of people living in the country illegally.

Lots of caveats there. The House is likely to “deal with” reform, but the bill won’t necessarily be “comprehensive,” and a key committee chairman is holding his cards close to the vest on how the legal status question will be resolved. House leadership could either break the bill up into bite-sized pieces, or pursue a broader reform package along the lines of Rep. Raul Labrador’s proposal…

Read more from this story HERE.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Says Oct. 17 is the Debt Ceiling Deadline

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned Congress in a letter Wednesday morning that Oct. 17 will be the last day that the government has the funds to meet all its obligations if the debt ceiling is not raised.

That is within the range Lew has previously indicated, and in line with projections from outside analysts. But now Congress has a specific deadline. If it does not act before Oct. 17, a Thursday, the government risks defaulting on the debt, an outcome that Lew warned “could be catastrophic.”

Lew previously said that the Treasury would exhaust the extraordinary measures it has used to create headroom under the debt limit by mid-October, at which point it would have only $50 billion in cash on hand and whatever revenues come in on a given day with which to pay the government’s bills.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Biggest Shakeup in Talk-Radio History’

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Fulfilling a prediction he made last month, top-rated radio host Michael Savage told his listeners tonight he will take over the prime afternoon-drive slot on Cumulus Media Networks stations in January.

Opening his show with the announcement, Savage called it “the biggest shake-up in talk radio history.”

The 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time slot is currently held by Sean Hannity, who has ended his relationship with the network.

Savage said he expects immediately to have five to six times as many listeners.

“The time slot says that something about my show has resonated with the American people,” Savage said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Team USA Stages Greatest Comeback in America’s Cup History (+video)

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picture - America's CupSAN FRANCISCO – Now that Oracle Team USA has improbably retained the 34th America’s Cup, what can Larry Ellison & Co. do for an encore?

Oracle’s billionaire bankroller has many questions to answer in the weeks ahead after his team, under the never-say-die skipper Jimmy Spithill, staged the greatest comeback in 162 years of the competition.

Trailing 8-1 a week ago, Oracle sailed away from Emirates Team New Zealand by 44 seconds on Wednesday to retain the Auld Mug, the oldest trophy in international sports, in a winner-take-all finale on San Francisco Bay.

The American-backed team won eight consecutive races to win 9-8 in the first-to-nine series.

Read more from this story HERE.

Illegal Aliens Awaiting Deportation Got Preferred Jobs in U.S. Prisons

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Federal Prison Industries (FPI), the government-owned corporation that operates factories in federal prisons, employed 37 inmates as of June 2012 who had been issued final deportation orders and were therefore ineligible for FPI employment.

Although those 37 illegal alien inmates represented less than one percent of Federal Prison Industries’ total inmate employees, the audit shows a “weakness in FPI’s internal controls,” says a recent report from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).

“We found that FPI’s internal controls did not ensure that aliens who were ordered deported were removed from FPI employment as required,” the report said.

Federal Prison Industries says once the matter came to its attention, it immediately removed 35 of the 37 deportable inmates from FPI employment. Of the remaining two inmates, one claimed he had been misidentified, and one had already stopped working at FPI.

Of the 12,394 inmates FPI employed as of June 2012, 1,580 (approximately 13 percent) were not U.S. citizens, but only 37 had received final deportation orders, which should have precluded them from holding FPI jobs.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: President Obama’s Approval Underwater

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Barack Obama is viewed more unfavorably than favorably for the first time in his presidency, according to a new poll.

In a Bloomberg poll released late Tuesday, 49 percent viewed Obama unfavorably compared with 47 percent who viewed him favorably, the first time he has seen a net unfavorability in Bloomberg’s polling during his presidency.

While the Republican Party is still viewed more unfavorably than Obama, 56 percent to 34 percent favorable, more people blame Obama for pursuing the wrong policies than Republicans for stymying the economy, 32 percent to 28 percent. Thirty percent of those surveyed said the recession is too severe for government to help it rebound.

Read more from this story HERE.