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WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --The Justice Department has reined in electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency after finding the agency had improperly accessed American phone calls and e-mails. The problems were discovered during a review of the intelligence activities, the Justice Department said in a statement Wednesday night. The New York Times, which first reported the matter on its Web site, said the NSA had been improperly intercepting communications by Americans...

The buzz online today may have been about Robert Scoble's exit from Fast Company, but there's a major change afoot at the top of the NCSC: Rod Beckström, the director, has submitted his resignation to DHS head Janet Napolitano effective in one week (that is, Friday the 13th). The move comes after rumors of ferocious power struggles at NCSC, which Beckström has led since its inception last year. The politics at DHS, which oversees NCSC, can't have been much fun for the co-author of The Starfish and the Spider, a book advocating for "the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations." In...

Suspicious phone conversations on Skype could be targeted for tapping as part of a pan-European crackdown on what law authorities believe is a massive technical loophole in current wiretapping laws, allowing criminals to communicate without fear of being overheard by the police. The European investigation could also help U.S. law enforcement authorities gain access to Internet calls. The National Security Agency (NSA) is understood to believe that suspected terrorists use Skype to circumvent detection. While the police can get a court order to tap a suspect's land line and mobile phone, it is currently impossible to get a similar order...

Col. Riley former division chief national security agency joins our action We ask our patriots from MO, OK , VA, and FL, where Colonel Harry Riley lives and was stationed to join the action and support their brave military constituents and fellow State Representatives!

(02-23) 17:32 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge in San Francisco is raising questions about the constitutionality of a law designed to dismiss suits against telecommunications companies accused of cooperating with government wiretapping. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has asked President Obama's Justice Department to present its views by Wednesday on whether the law gives the attorney general too much power to decide whether a company is immune from lawsuits. Obama supported the measure as a senator when Congress approved it last year. Department spokesman Charles Miller declined to discuss the administration's response before Wednesday's filing. But Obama's...

NEVER-BEFORE-REVEALED TERRORIST TRAINING VIDEO EXPOSES 35 COMPOUNDS ON AMERICAN SOILBy Steve Foley - Posted on February 9th, 2009 Press Release from the Christian Action Network “Act like you are his friend. Then kill him.” – Sheik Muburak Gilani explaining how to kill American infidels Washington, DC—Christian Action Network will show Homegrown Jihad at the Landmark Theater in Washington, DC, on February 11, 2009, at 7:30 pm. There is no charge to attend the viewing. Copies can also be obtained at www.christianaction.org. The American public was never supposed to know. The 2006 Justice Department document that exposes 35 terrorist training compounds...

President Obama's choice to run the Justice Department has assured senior Republican senators that he won't prosecute intelligence officers or political appointees who were involved in the Bush administration's policy of "enhanced interrogations." Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, Missouri Republican and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview with The Washington Times that he will support Eric H. Holder Jr.'s nomination for attorney general because Mr. Holder assured him privately that Mr. Obama's Justice Department will not prosecute former Bush officials involved in the interrogations program. Mr. Holder's promise apparently was key to moving his...

...These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003. Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism." She said US military officers, American journalists and American...

I canceled Direct TV. I used a purchased (no contract) PVR and paid Direct TV for dual reception. Now they say they own the PVR and I must return it or pay them $400+. Is this true?

The plan being discussed would eliminate the independent homeland security adviser’s office and assign those duties to the National Security Council to streamline sometimes overlapping functions. A deputy national security adviser would be charged with overseeing the effort to guard against terrorism and to respond to natural disasters. Mr. Bush's aides, including the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, have privately urged Mr. Obama's advisers not to get rid of the separate homeland security office, warning that it would load too many responsibilities on the National Security Council and risk important matters' falling through the cracks.

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2009/01/20090107-4.html For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary January 7, 2009 Remarks by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley at the Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS Washington, D.C. White House News National Security Council In Focus: National Security 10:40 A.M. EST MR. HADLEY: Thank you, John, very much for those kind words. I'm honored to be here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I thank you for the research you conduct, the analysis you provide, and the policy ideas that you develop. In less than two weeks, a new...

Guess who thinks Leon Panetta will be just perfect at CIA? Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, Lake's deputy before becoming national security adviser himself, said that Panetta "was part of the decision-making process for every single issue we were dealing with, whether this was in the Oval Office with the president or the Cabinet Room — the Middle East, Kosovo, China. He was a part of a small group of people who advised the president how to proceed on strategy and substance." Yes, that Sandy Berger. Former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was sentenced Thursday to community service and probation and...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2009/01/20090105-4.html For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary January 5, 2009 Statement by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley White House News In Focus: Africa Today, President Bush announced his approval of the airlift of equipment for the United Nations/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). The President also authorized the waiver of the 15-day congressional notification requirements to allow the airlift assistance to proceed immediately, because failing to do so would pose a substantial risk to human health and welfare. The U.S. provision of airlift will deliver equipment and vehicles that are critical...

The U.S. National Security Agency has patented a technique for figuring out whether someone is tampering with network communication. The NSA's software does this by measuring the amount of time the network takes to send different types of data from one computer to another and raising a red flag if something takes too long, according to the patent filing. Other researchers have looked into this problem in the past and proposed a technique called distance bounding, but the NSA patent takes a different tack, comparing different types of data travelling across the network. "The neat thing about this particular patent...

The current Newsweek cover story by Michael Isikoff identifies one of the major sources for the New York Times article blowing the government's terrorist surveillance program. He is one Thomas Tamm. Newsweek asks: "Is he a hero or a criminal?" As I wrote over the weekend, the perspective of the photograph accompanying the article -- looking up at Tamm's craggy face -- leaves no doubt about where Newsweek stands. It's a little like Monica's accustomed perspective on Bill Clinton. In "Newsweek's hero," I argued that Tamm was quite obviously a criminal. Other bloggers have done a good job rounding out...

Thomas M. Tamm was entrusted with some of the government's most important secrets. He had a Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance, a level above Top Secret. Government agents had probed Tamm's background, his friends and associates, and determined him trustworthy. It's easy to see why: he comes from a family of high-ranking FBI officials. During his childhood, he played under the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, and as an adult, he enjoyed a long and successful career as a prosecutor. Now gray-haired, 56 and fighting a paunch, Tamm prides himself on his personal rectitude. He has what his 23-year-old son,...

House Panel to Ask for NSA Spying Probe A congressional panel will ask the National Security Agency's internal watchdog to investigate whether the super-secret spy agency eavesdropped without warrants on a Muslim scholar and later hid that evidence in a 2005 terror prosecution that got him a life sentence.The House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel and the judge overseeing the case want the NSA's inspector general to find out if the government failed to disclose evidence that might have cleared the name of a Northern Virginia spiritual leader Ali al-Timimi, Rep. Rush Holt (D- New Jersey) told the New York Times.That...

WASHINGTON — A Democratic official says retired Marine Gen. James Jones is President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be national security adviser. Obama plans to name his foreign policy team after the Thanksgiving holiday.

The US government eavesdropped on Tony Blair while he was British prime minister, according to claims made by a former employee of the National Security Agency. ABC News on Monday reported that the NSA had eavesdropped on Mr Blair and Ghazi al-Yawer, the first Iraqi president following the 2003 invasion. The White House did not respond to inquiries. Making the allegations to ABC, David Faulk, a former NSA Arabic linguist who worked for the spy agency at Fort Gordon, Georgia, claimed to have had access to a top secret database called “Anchory” in 2006 that included personal details about Mr...