65833325
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
A former CBS News reporter who quit the network over claims it kills stories that put President Obama in a bad light says she was spied on by a “government-related entity” that planted classified documents on her computer.
In her new memoir, Sharyl Attkisson says a source who arranged to have her laptop checked for spyware in 2013 was “shocked” and “flabbergasted” at what the analysis revealed. “This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America,” Attkisson quotes the source saying.
63880995
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, a Justice Department official admitted that former IRS official Lois Lerner’s apparently missing e-mails actually exist on a backup server, but the government doesn’t plan to retrieve them.
59053455
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
Unpublished data and records collected by university scientists is exempt from the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled, rejecting a request for former U-Va. professor Michael Mann's (of Hockey Stick fame) unpublished data.
Lawyers for U-Va. turned over about 1,000 documents , but withheld another 12,000 papers and e-mails, saying that work 'of a propriety nature' was exempt under the state’s FOIA law.
About the ruling, David Schnare, attorney for the plaintiff, said '[the Court] accepted U-Va.’s unsubstantiated fears that release of the e-mails would significantly chill intellectual debate and on that basis allowed U-Va. to continue to operate under a veil of secrecy that the citizens may not penetrate.'
56613267
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) is filing a class action lawsuit against President Obama and other members of his administration over the National Security Agency's collection of phone metadata, a practice he believes violates the Fourth Amendment. In a YouTube video released Tuesday, Paul compared the government surveillance to the warrantless searches practiced by the British military prior to American independence.
56572324
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
Should the government be able to read your emails without a warrant? Representative Matt Salmon (R-AZ) tackled that question today at the Heritage Foundation’s first annual Conservative Policy Summit in Washington, DC.
'Privacy and transparency are the core of a republic. Today, that is reversed [...] “Mass spying did not protect us from the Boston bombing, the Times Square bombing, etc.'
Salmon is determined to stop the government’s secret snooping by leading the House version of the Electronics Communications Privacy Amendments Act, legislation that specifically targets a 1986 law declaring government had a right to search one’s emails without a warrant. Salmon’s legislation has been able to attract bipartisan support.
55254203
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
The latest gadget in hunting equipment could make the stalking prey a little less challenging. Drone usage is already infiltrating farming, real estate marketing, sports photography, wildlife research and highway monitoring. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) also began selling the "Air Angel" drone to monitor hunters. So while hunters survey animals, PETA will be surveying the hunters.
54848009
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
Five years after UK passage of the 2008 Climate Change Act, the chief proponent of the act, Nick Stern, has responded to "A Review of the Stern Review". The "Stern Review" was a massive economic assessment that helped convince Parliament that climate mitigation measures would be worth the cost.
The result was quite possibly the most expensive legislation ever passed by Parliament. However, it appears that Stern’s analysis may have been deeply flawed.
52484263
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
The Obamacare website has more than annoying bugs. A cybersecurity expert found a way to access users' accounts.
Until the Department of Health fixed the security hole last week, anyone could easily reset a user's Healthcare.gov password without their knowledge and potentially hijack the account.
The glitch was discovered last week by Ben Simo, a software tester in Arizona. Simo found that gaining access to people's accounts was frighteningly simple.
49122207
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
As reported by CNSNews.com, according to the Daily Treasury Statement for July 26, which the U.S. Treasury released this afternoon, the U.S. federal debt has been stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00 for 70 straight days.
That is approximately $25 million below the legal limit of $16,699,421,095,673.60 that Congress has imposed on the debt.
48797311
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
A landmark federal study on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, shows no evidence that chemicals from the natural gas drilling process moved up to contaminate drinking water aquifers at a western Pennsylvania drilling site.
After a year of monitoring, the researchers found that the chemical-laced fluids used to free gas trapped deep below the surface stayed thousands of feet below the shallower areas that supply drinking water.
47421737
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
Shortly after the news broke that the Department of Justice had been secretly monitoring the phones and email accounts of Associated Press and Fox News reporters (and the parents of Fox News Correspondent James Rosen), CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson said her computer seemed like it had been compromised. Turns out, it was.
'A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.'
45811783
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
A new report reveals that, despite previous testimony, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya vulnerable by approving lax security measures.
44287319
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
MSNBC's opinionated programming far outweighs its “factual reporting,” according to a new Pew study. While Fox News, too, had more opinionated programming, the network had a much smaller discrepancy between opinion and straight reporting.
43679457
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
White House-backed legislation in the Senate to replace $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts would raise the deficit through the end of the budget year by tens of billions of dollars, officials said late Wednesday as the two parties maneuvered for public support on economic issues.
So, as pointed out on townhall.com, 'their "deficit reduction" plan entails defense cuts, new tax hikes, and adding to the deficit. No wonder these guys have avoided committing a budget to paper for the last four years.'
43462677
submission
RoccamOccam writes:
North Carolina's Civitas Institute has revealed that the North Carolina State Board of Elections and the Obama campaign conspired to register at least 11,000 people via the internet in violation of state law.
The technology from Allpoint Voter Services uses remote-control pens to transmit “signatures” over the Internet, according to techpresident.com[iii]. After entering voter information in an online form, the citizen “signs” it with a stylus or a finger. The Allpoint technology records the signature and then transmits it to one of two autopens – one in California, the other in Nevada. One of the pens transcribes the signature on to a paper voter registration form. Allpoint then mails the documents to local election boards.
