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A heads up for patriots. I received a notification from the offices of NC pols Richard Burr, Thom Tillis, and Virginia Foxx that they had received and would soon reply to correspondence from me. I had NOT (this time) created the correspondence. Turns out a group called “Seniors Speak Out” (SSO) and “Voter Voice” (VV) had forged my name and email address to the correspondence delivered to Burr, Tillis, and Foxx. I found the administrator of SSO “Nona Bear” and SSO’s blog, twitter, and Linkedin accounts. None of the direct message functions allowed contact. Turned out that VV had a...

The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian. The technology companies, which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, incurred the costs to meet new certification demands in the wake of the ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court. The October 2011 judgment, which was declassified on Wednesday by the Obama administration, found that the NSA's inability to separate purely domestic communications from...

Senator: At Least One Foreign Country Assisted the 9/11 Terrorists Senator Graham knows where the bodies are buried>>> On 11 December 2002, the Senate and House Intelligence Committees released portions of their joint report on intelligence failures regarding the September 11 terrorist attacks. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, on PBS, reported on the release that day. After asking her guests a bunch of predictable questions, and receiving predictable answers, guest host Gwen Ifill asked Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a good question and got an amazing answer. GWEN IFILL: Senator Graham, are there elements...

Microsoft has collaborated closely with U.S. intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, top-secret documents obtained Thursday by the British Guardian show. The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month. According to the Guardian, the documents show that: snip

Saddam's nephew finds sanctuary in Syria By Con Coughlin in Baghdad (Filed: 18/05/2003) A leading member of Saddam Hussein's family has been discovered living in Damascus under the protection of the Syrian government after fleeing Iraq last week, The Telegraph can reveal. Fatiq al-Majid, one of Saddam's nephews, entered Syria last Monday after leaving Iraq at the al-Rabie'a checkpoint, which is under the control of American troops. Majid was given a Syrian visa and made his way to Damascus, where he is now living in exile. Majid confirmed his presence in Damascus when contacted by telephone by The Telegraph last...

HER dusty file was one of hundreds of thousands of documents stacked in a house in a wealthy neighbourhood of Baghdad. Asma Rasheed married a pilot, lived comfortably in the presidential compound of Saddam Hussein and directed a microbiology programme that was not supposed to exist. Rasheed’s light blue folder has emerged from a huge archive seized by forces loyal to Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, which opposed Saddam. The archive — a dark who’s who of Iraq — reveals the tiniest details of blandishments and humiliations by a paranoid regime that shared the Nazis’ obsession...

Part three: The Fedayeen have vowed to step up their suicide bombings. Neil Mackay reports that they are just one string of militias ready to fight to the death for Saddam YOU'LL have seen one of their number already -- a middle-aged man in a blue serge suit with a keffiyeh scarf wrapped around his head. As the TV cameras rolled, he triumphantly waved his Czech-made assault rifle in the air while Iraqi villagers in the distance behind him stripped down the US Apache helicopter he'd just shot down. This avuncular-looking farmer, Ali Obeid, now praised as a national hero...