Free Republic

(Reuters) - The United States on Friday issued a fresh travel alert for Americans attending the Sochi Winter Olympics, citing cybersecurity threats and warning them to have "no expectation of privacy" using Russian communications networks. The U.S. State Department's alert - coming the same day that Turkish security forces in Istanbul seized a Ukrainian man accused of trying to hijack an airliner and redirect it to Sochi - updates one issued two weeks ago. "U.S. travelers should be aware of cybersecurity threats and understand that they have no expectation of privacy when sharing sensitive or personal information utilizing Russian electronic...

A newly disclosed audio recording purportedly depicts a conversation between two American diplomats, in which one curses the European Union as they discuss how to handle turmoil in Ukraine. American officials were quick to suggest a Russian role in the apparent leak, which came as Russia is engaged in a tug of war with the E.U. and the United States for influence over Ukraine. The audio recording, incorporated into a video with Russian subtitles and posted on YouTube Tuesday, appears to be a conversation between the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey...

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that the Obama administration may continue to withhold a Justice Department memo that apparently opened a loophole in laws protecting the privacy of consumer data. The memo establishes the legal basis for telephone companies to hand over customers’ calling records to the government without a subpoena or court order, even when there is no emergency, according to a 2010 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general. The details of the legal theory, and the circumstances in which it could be invoked, remain unclear.

Germany’s Tea Party Alternative for Deutschland wants out of the euro and an end to the bailouts. Bonn, Germany — Even though Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe, the issue of how much it should surrender its sovereignty and wealth to Europe has been pretty much a non-issue in its elections this coming Sunday. But a new protest party challenging the wisdom of the euro and the bailouts Germany keeps paying to support is on the verge of breaking through the silence. Polls show Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), which wants Germany to withdraw from the euro but remain in...

A team from universities in the US, Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany have published research demonstrating that subtle changes below the gate level of chips can alter functionality in a controlled but covert manner. The possibility for hardware trojans to be inserted into motherboards and processors – especially since many of these are manufactured abroad in countries such as China – has been a growing concern. But, say the researchers in a paper titled 'Stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans' published last week, "since there have been no reported hardware trojans in practice yet, little is known about how such a trojan would...

Boeing Co. has suffered another setback with its 787 Dreamliner after the model’s biggest operator, ANA Holdings, says it discovered wiring defects in the fire-suppression system on three aircraft.

President Obama today made clear that he rejects growing calls for the U.S. to boycott the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi over Russia’s new anti-gay law. “I want to just make very clear right now: I do not think it’s appropriate to boycott the Olympics,”

What happened to freedom of the press in the United States of America? Six month ago the United States was voted number 32 in the Press Freedom Index. This cannot be the land of the free, can it? On the bottom of this article see a table with the rating of 179 countries showing Finland number one and Eritrea number 179. How would the already low rating of the United States stand now after last Friday when the US administration got what it wanted - an ice-cold chilling effect - from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on...

The Army is blocking all access to The Guardian newspaper's reports about the National Security Agency's sweeping collection of data about Americans' email and phone communications, an Army spokesman said Thursday. The Monterey (Calif.) Herald reported that employees at the Presidio of Monterey, an Army public affairs base about 100 miles south of San Francisco, were unable to gain access to The Guardian's articles on former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and his professed leaks of classified information about the intelligence programs.

Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence contractor who leaked classified documents revealing US internet and phone surveillance, has asked Ecuador for asylum. The request was confirmed by Ecuador's foreign minister on Twitter. Mr Snowden had fled the US for Hong Kong but flew out on Sunday morning and is currently in Moscow.