Free Republic

"It’s obvious that Pelosi’s Select Committee went to great lengths to prevent Americans from seeing certain documents produced in their investigation," Loudermilk said... Forensic investigators hired by a Republican-led committee recovered more than 100 encrypted files that the Democratic-led House Jan. 6 Select Committee deleted days before the GOP took over the House majority, according to a new report released Monday. House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chair Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., sent a letter to former Select Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., demanding he provide answers and passwords for the data, which was deleted against House rules, according to Fox News Digital....

EXCLUSIVE: The former House Select Committee on Jan. 6 deleted more than 100 encrypted files from its probe just days before Republicans took over the majority in the House of Representatives, Fox News Digital has learned. The House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee is leading an investigation into Jan. 6, 2021, led by Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga. The panel is investigating the security failures on that day, as well as the “actions” of the former select committee investigating the Capitol riot. Loudermilk, last week, told Fox News Digital his investigation has entered a “new phase” with renewed support from House Speaker...

For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret. The company, Crypto AG, got its first break with a contract to build code-making machines for U.S. troops during World War II. SNIP The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican. But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly...

Mark Warner was texting a Russian oligarch using an encrypted app, Signal, and his messages were set to automatically delete. FoxNews broke a huge story about Senator Mark Warner, which has been discussed elsewhere. What I haven’t seen anyone else cover is the fact that the “text messages” were not ordinary messages. Warner was communicating via Signal, an encrypted app. Moreover, Warner had his messages set to disappear. (The hour glass icon in the text exchange.)

What is going on at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? It’s a clown show, or it’s rapidly becoming one. Richard Cordray, the former director of the agency, resigned at the end of November. There’s speculation that he’s mulling a gubernatorial bid in Ohio. Alas, comes the showdown. President Trump tapped Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to run the agency, whereas Cordray had selected Leandra English, his deputy, to take the reins. The fact is the president has the power to appoint a new director, but as Guy noted, liberals saw the CFPB, the temple of of Liz...

Germany on Thursday passed a controversial new law that expands the power of authorities to spy on the content of encrypted message services such as WhatsApp and Skype. Amid the wave of jihadist attacks in Europe, German lawmakers voted in favor of the law designed “to reinforce the effectiveness of criminal procedures”. German investigators will now be able to insert into users’ cellphones and computers spy software (or a “Trojan horse”) to access data in encrypted message services such as popular applications WhatsApp and Skype, including as part of criminal investigations. Up to now, such surveillance tools were not authorized...

American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case. Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the hard drive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21--or face the consequences including contempt of court. Blackburn, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the Fifth Amendment posed no barrier to his decryption order. The Fifth Amendment says that nobody may be "compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," which...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has circulated across the internet an encrypted “poison pill” cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay. One of the files identified this weekend by The (London) Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file -- has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia. Assange warns that any government that tries to curtail his activities risks triggering a new deluge of state and commercial secrets. The military papers on Guantanamo Bay, yet to be published, believed to have been supplied by Bradley Manning,...

SANTA ANA, Calif. - A Navy investigator testified Wednesday that a computer disk seized from the brother of a Chinese-born engineer accused of stealing U.S. defense technology secrets contained encrypted files. Nicholas Mikus, an investigative computer specialist for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said the files could only be unlocked with a specific "key," a chain of 113 letters that was stored on a floppy disk. Mikus was the latest witness called by the government in its case against Chi Mak, an engineer accused of passing sensitive military information to the Chinese government for more than 20 years. Mak, a...

This past November, I wrote about the right's semantic trickery and proposed an idea for how we could debunk and decode the conservative's Orwellian Code of encrypted language: A Republican Dictionary. I put together a small list and asked readers to send me their own entries. Response has been overwhelming--more than 375 people have sent definitions. I published a small sample of the entries I've received in this space earlier this month. Below I'm publishing a second batch of reader submissions to this on-going project. We're going to continue posting additional entries in the weeks ahead, so click here to...