Controversial Czar to ‘Probe’ Government Surveillance

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sunsteinNEW YORK – A White House panel established to review federal surveillance measures is set to include a controversial former administration official who once advocated government agents infiltrate chat rooms and online social networks, WND has learned.

Also reportedly slated to join the panel is a resigning CIA official fingered in the scandal surrounding the White House’s edited Benghazi talking points.

ABC News reported Cass Sunstein, Obama’s former regulatory czar, will be among what President Obama has called a “high-level group of outside experts” probing government surveillance programs.

Also slated to join the investigative body is recent acting head of the CIA, Michael Morell, who announced his resignation in June, the news network reported.

Obama announced the panel’s formation two weeks ago, stating at the time the group will “consider how we can maintain the trust of the people [and] how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse.”

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Court: No Mail-In Ballots for Colorado Recall Election for Anti-Gun Legislators

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

With mail ballots out of the question, recall elections for two Democratic state senators who backed new firearm restrictions will test how enthusiastic their backers are about getting to the polls in person — and how badly gun-rights advocates want to kick out the lawmakers.

At a time when most Colorado voters prefer voting by mail, a court ruling this week that requires in-person voting injects uncertainty about which side has the advantage in the state’s first legislative recalls…

Democrats were hoping that an elections law they passed this year requiring mail ballots to all voters would boost turnout with their base. But a Denver district judge ruled this week that third-party candidates should have until Aug. 26 to qualify for the Sept. 10 recall ballot. That means there won’t be enough time to send mail ballots to everyone, except for overseas voters and those requesting one in an emergency.

Recall supporters say the court decision gives them an advantage because gun-rights advocates who pushed for the election are more driven to go to the polls and make sure Morse and Giron are kicked out of office.

“We happen to be pleased with the decision. We think it’s in our favor that people actually have to show up at the ballot box to vote,” said Jennifer Kerns, a spokeswoman for the Basic Freedom Defense Fund, which is supporting the recalls. “We feel like we have a very motivated base.”

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Doctors’ Organization Demands Hospitals Perform More Abortions, Young Doctors Eager to Learn Killing Art

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

In a statement set to be published in the September issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 100 ob-gyns condemn new state restrictions on abortion as a “political regression.” The article, obtained by TIME, criticizes hospitals for relinquishing abortion to stand-alone clinics that are easily targeted by abortion activists, and calls on the medical community to integrate the procedure into women’s-health services and medical training…

It’s a rare call to arms for the medical community, which tends to lay low when it comes to abortion. A 2011 study from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that while 97% of ob-gyn doctors in the U.S. have met with a patient who wants an abortion, just 14% actually perform the procedure.

Hospitals provide just 4% of abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit sexual-health-research organization, and many facilities limit the procedure to rare cases, like fetal abnormalities or when the life of the woman is at risk. The majority of hospitals perform fewer than 30 abortions per year. Others refuse to provide the procedure at all…

Despite these obstacles, however, pro-choice physicians say they have already made progress toward normalizing abortion in the medical community, most notably by expanding training through residency programs and family-planning fellowships. About 50% of the 200 ob-gyn residency programs in the U.S. now integrate abortion into training requirements, up from just 12% in 1992. Professors believe that a new generation of doctors will use their training to bring abortion back into hospitals and doctors’ offices. A 2011 study of ob-gyns found that female doctors and those ages 35 and younger were far more likely than their colleagues to perform abortions.

“It is very unusual for us to find new residents who don’t want to learn abortions,” Darney says. “They may find it difficult to practice, but we have a whole new generation of young women who are replacing the old men, and they have a very different view about their relationships with their patients. It’s very promising.”

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U.S. Spy Agency Edges into the Light After Snowden Revelations

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

There was a time when the U.S. National Security Agency was so secretive that government officials dared not speak its name in public. NSA, the joke went, stood for “No Such Agency.”

That same agency this month held an on-the-record conference call with reporters, issued a lengthy press release to rebut a newspaper story, and posted documents on a newly launched open website – icontherecord.tumblr.com (which stands for intelligence community on the record).

The steps were taken under pressure as President Barack Obama’s administration tries to calm a public storm over disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the surveillance agency and its British counterpart scoop up far more Internet and phone data than previously known.

The NSA’s moves out of the shadows were meant to show that it operates lawfully and fixes mistakes when they are detected, but not everyone is convinced that it is a fundamental shift toward more openness at the intelligence agencies.

Some steps toward openness were unprecedented.

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When Energy Dreams Fall Short

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

If the energy visions of past years had come true, throngs of Americans would be using switchgrass to fuel their cars and running their homes on electricity from nuclear fusion or carbon-capturing coal plants.

But reality has worked out differently.

Many of the nation’s most ambitious energy projects have fallen far short of their lofty goals, either because they were unrealistically optimistic, took too long develop or were abandoned as markets shifted. EPA offered a reminder of that reality this month, when it made sharp cuts in its production estimates for an advanced biofuel called cellulosic ethanol.

Some experts caution that struggling technologies can still strike gold, making it hard to judge when it’s too soon to stop investing in them.

“When do you know when to cut your losses?” asked Margot Anderson, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s energy project. “When is a flop a flop?”

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State Dept. Corruption: Egyptian Gov’t Claims Evidence that U.S. Bribed Muslim Brotherhood Officials

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

A question apparently being raised in next week’s trial in Cairo of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders facing criminal charges is this: Was the Obama administration paying bribes as large as $850,000 a year to the Morsi government that were distributed by top ministerial level officials to Muslim Brotherhood leaders, with the direct involvement of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo?

WND is in possession of an official document from inside the Morsi government that lends credibility to a report published in Arabic by an Egyptian newspaper in Cairo that lists the charges brought by the current military-controlled government against Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

As seen above, WND has obtained official records from the deposed Morsi government in Egypt, with signatures, documenting monthly “gifts” paid to Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt by the former prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani.

The document was seized from Egyptian government offices in Cairo when the Morsi government was deposed by the military July 3.

As translated by former PLO member and native Arabic-speaker Walid Shoebat, the monthly “gifts” listed in the document amount to bribes paid by the Morsi government to leading Muslim Brotherhood members in Egypt, including an annual payment of $750,000 to $850,000 in U.S. dollars.

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Obama: Assault Weapon Industry’s No. 1 Customer, Buys 600,000 AK-47 Magazines

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

There he goes again. President Obama’s anti-gun administration, which recently pushed legislation banning assault weapons and large ammo magazines, is proving again that it is the industry’s No. 1 customer.

On the heels of major purchases of AR-15-styled weapons for agencies like the IRS and millions of bullets used by assault-weapons and similar semi-automatic arms owned by federal forces, the Army has just announced that it is buying nearly 600,000 high capacity AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle magazines.

The gun is popular among collectors and target shooters, and was the weapon of choice used by this week’s Georgia school shooter. But while fans of the gun help keep small weapon accessory companies in business, the Army’s purchase is a major boost for an industry the president and his grassroots campaign, Organizing for Action, has spent the summer attacking.

It’s just one purchase in a string of AK-47 equipment buys from the Feds.

Army officials told Secrets that the 30-round magazines, which would be banned under Obama’s gun control proposals, are going to Afghanistan. But unlike the Pentagon’s controversial purchase of Russian helicopters for Afghan special forces, the Soviet-Russian-styled AK-47 magazines are likely to be purchased from an American firm.

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NSA Officers Spy on Love Interests

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency’s enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said.

The practice isn’t frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade — but it’s common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT.

Spy agencies often refer to their various types of intelligence collection with the suffix of “INT,” such as “SIGINT” for collecting signals intelligence, or communications; and “HUMINT” for human intelligence, or spying.

The “LOVEINT” examples constitute most episodes of willful misconduct by NSA employees, officials said.

In the wake of revelations last week that NSA had violated privacy rules on nearly 3,000 occasions in a one-year period, NSA Chief Compliance Officer John DeLong emphasized in a conference call with reporters last week that those errors were unintentional. He did say that there have been “a couple” of willful violations in the past decade. He said he didn’t have the exact figures at the moment.

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EPA Employee Stole $886K from the Agency

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epa employee stoleAn Environmental Protection Agency employee knowingly stole more than $886,000 from the agency, according to a criminal filing from the Department of Justice.

The alleged fraud occurred in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation under the nose of former administrator Gina McCarthy, who now heads up the entire agency.

“There appears to be corruption to the umpteenth degree,” said Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter. “I think it’s appalling that Administrator McCarthy and former acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe could claim that sequester is depriving the agency of important resources when in fact their own employees are stealing from the government.”

EPA employee John Beale, who worked in the air office, stole $886,186 from the agency between 2000 and 2013. According to the criminal filing, Beale had stolen agency funds through salary, benefits, and certain bonuses that Beale “had not earned by providing employment services to the EPA.”

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Father Arrested after Punching Firefighter and Assaulting Nurse Who Were Trying to Save his Son’s Life

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Photo Credit: gwire

Photo Credit: gwire

A Dallas man faces felony assault charges after punching a firefighter and assaulting a nurse who were trying to save the life of his one-year-old son.

The son, whose name has not been released, suffered from an undisclosed medical condition and trouble breathing. The child, who lived on Preakness Lane in West Oak Cliff, was under 24-hour nursing care, police said.

At around 8:15 a.m. Saturday, the child began struggling with his breathing. The nurse on duty, Lisa Decatur, tried to help, police said, but was assaulted by the father. Decatur then called 911 and two firefighters responded to the scene.

One firefighter, Michael Barrett, attempted to intervene, but was punched in the face by the father and knocked unconscious. The other firefighter radioed for help and police soon responded. The father was then handcuffed, allowing rescuers to perform CPR on the child.

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