Free Republic

Earlier this spring, the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky was testing an advanced antivirus software on one of its computers when it stumbled on something big: As the Moscow-based company puts it, it was "one of the most skilled, mysterious and powerful" spy viruses in the world. The piece of software was so sophisticated that it left few traces. It didn't leave files on the disk drive, and to stay hidden, it burrowed inside a computer's kernel memory, which is the place where a computer's most basic software is kept.Kaspersky says it assigned a team to watch its movements, and the team...

From calling for the destruction of Israel to the National Security Council. "Why Is Georgetown Providing a Platform for This Dangerous Group?" an op-ed in the Washington Post had asked. The group was the Palestine Solidarity Movement, a BDS anti-Israel hate group whose conferences had a history of antisemitism, supporting Hamas and the murder of Jews. Maher Bitar, one of the executive board members of Students for Justice in Palestine, was one of the principal organizers of the 2006 conference which was being hosted by Georgetown University's SJP hate group. A photo appears to show him dancing in a keffiyah...

For the past year, defenders of the FBI have consistently downplayed the significance of an FBI staff lawyer falsifying evidence in the government’s investigation into Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia. They argue Kevin Clinesmith’s crime of altering a CIA document to obscure the fact that former Trump campaign aide Carter Page worked for U.S., not Russian, intelligence was a rare lapse in judgment by an overworked bureaucrat. It was not, his apologists say, part of any broader conspiracy to conceal exculpatory information from surveillance court judges, who never learned of Page’s history with the CIA before approving FBI warrants to...

WASHINGTON--An executive from a company that manages a large portion of the Internet's infrastructure on Thursday slammed federal wiretapping rules expected to take effect next spring. Paul Kouroupas, vice president of regulatory affairs for Global Crossing, strongly criticized the Federal Communications Commission's broadening of a 1994 law--originally intended to cover telephone providers--as disproportionately costly, complex, and riddled with privacy concerns. His company is one of the world's largest Internet backbone providers. "Our customers are large Fortune 500 companies--not too many of those companies are conducting drug deals or terrorist activities out of Merrill Lynch's offices or using their phones in...

Former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s “plan” to tie the Trump campaign to Russia as a means of distracting the public from her private email server scandal before the 2016 election, according to newly declassified documents. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday declassified Brennan’s handwritten notes along with a CIA memo showing that officials referred the alleged scheme to the FBI for potential investigation. “Today, at the direction of President Trump, I declassified additional documents relevant to ongoing Congressional oversight and investigative activities,” Ratcliffe said in a statement. Brennan’s notes, which were...

As one of the hundreds of thousands who has proudly worked for the National Security Agency either directly or as a subcontractor, I believe the New York Times missed the real story under its Dec. 16 headline "Bush lets U.S. spy on callers without courts." Here is why. The New York Times concedes the story starts with the CIA capture of top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in March 2002. With Zubaydah's capture came a treasure trove of eavesdropping intelligence sources -- e-mail addresses, cell phone numbers, and personal phone directories. These are prime intelligence sources that may...

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained 323 pages of emails between former FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page showing Comey’s FBI was investigating President Trump over his critical tweets of Barack Obama and the FBI. The FBI is purposely slow-rolling its production of emails to Judicial Watch and only processing 500 pages per month in response to a 2017 FOIA lawsuit. Judicial Watch obtained a March 2017 email Peter Strzok sent his boss Bill Priestap and others about probing President Trump’s tweets about being wiretapped by the FBI. Judicial Watch reported:

Subtitle: Americans deserve a stronger assurance than “hope” that their Fourth Amendment rights are being respected. The F.B.I.’s investigation of the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, we can now say with assurance, was a train wreck. In his report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz cataloged a damning list of egregious errors, omissions or misrepresentations in filings to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approved nearly a year’s worth of wiretaps on Mr. Page. Many Republicans have taken this as proof that the investigation was hopelessly contaminated by anti-Trump political bias. That would be the optimistic scenario. Unfortunately,...

A former FBI attorney reportedly referred for criminal prosecution by Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz—for allegedly altering an email connected to the surveillance warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page—was assigned in early 2017 as “the primary FBI attorney assigned” to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russian election interference. The lawyer, who has been identified as Kevin Clinesmith in media reports, had been incorrectly portrayed by many members of the media as a “low-level” or junior member of the FBI’s legal team. Text messages obtained by Horowitz, covered in a June 2018 report, showed that Clinesmith...

One of the many illegal actions that President Obama partook during his eight years in office was the assimilation of personal data on all Americans. His “Operation Hammer” will soon be uncovered and show his contempt for Americans and the rule of law...… Obama’s illegal initiative labeled “Operation Hammer” was in full force in March 2016, via American Report: FBI Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division Peter Strzok and his supposed paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, exchanged a cryptic, indeed coded, text message on Sunday, March 19, 2017, twenty-six minutes after retired U.S. Air Force Four Star General Thomas...

The White House is seeking reauthorization of a law that lets the N.S.A. gain access to logs of Americans’ phone and text records — while acknowledging that the program has been indefinitely halted. Breaking a long silence about a high-profile National Security Agency program that sifts records of Americans’ telephone calls and text messages in search of terrorists, the Trump administration on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the system has been indefinitely shut down — but asked Congress to extend its legal basis anyway. In a letter to Congress delivered on Thursday and obtained by The New York...

When then-AG Jeff Sessions announced 15 months ago that US Attorney for Utah, John Huber, would be conducting a review of the FBI’s use of wiretapping on the Trump campaign, initial hopes soon turned to disappointment that nothing seemed to be happening. But yesterday, former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker rather casually mentioned (or perhaps let slip) during an interview with Sandra Smith that Huber is looking at “Comey’s memos and the like…. And there’s a lot of things Bill Barr is going to be bringing to a conclusion.” Watch below, cued to the moment he mentions this: (hat...

Nellie Ohr, the wife of Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, told her husband she was deleting emails sent from his government account. The revelation comes as both Ohrs remain under intense scrutiny for their ties to Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier that was used to obtain warrants to wiretap a member of President Trump's 2016 campaign. Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained a series of April 2016 emails from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department that show a correspondence between the Ohrs, an aide to Bruce Ohr named...

As the Spygate scandal unfolds, new information has revealed a possible listening device was discovered at the White House. One America's Jack Posobiec breaks down this exclusive story. Video at Link

Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday ... "With respect to Barr's comments, I really don't know what he's talking about when he talks about spying on the campaign," Comey said. "It's very concerning because the FBI, the Department of Justice conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance. I have never thought of that as spying."

A Salisbury University student has been charged with illegal wiretapping after prosecutors said he streamed a meeting with a congressional staffer for Maryland Rep. Andy Harris via Facebook Live without permission. Jake Burdett, 20, was charged last week with two felony counts of making an illegal recording and distributing the video filmed during a Maryland Marijuana Justice rally at Harris’s Salisbury office in October, the state prosecutor’s office announced Thursday. Marijuana legalization protesters have long tangled with Harris, who in 2014 worked to block full legalization of the drug in the District of Columbia. A protest outside the Republican’s Capitol...

They discussed a range of options, including the idea of Rosenstein wearing a wire while speaking with Trump, which Rosenstein later denied. Ultimately, then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe took the extraordinary step of opening an obstruction of justice investigation even before special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed...

ROBERT MUELLER’S BELTWAY COVER-UP By using the justice system as a political weapon, Mueller and his supporters in both parties are confirming what many Americans already believe: We are not all equal under one law. Past and present FBI officials who broke the law may be seen to have the largest stake in Mueller’s investigation continuing as long as possible. The inquiry has plenty of other constituencies as well. National security hawks are rightly worried that the abuses of foreign intelligence surveillance may jeopardize programs that are designed to keep Americans safe from terrorism. For the time being, Mueller’s probe...

MI6 chiefs are secretly battling Donald Trump to stop him publishing classified information linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. The UK is warning that the US president would undermine intelligence gathering if he releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers. However Trump allies are fighting back, demanding transparency and asking why Britain would oppose the move unless it had something to hide. It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI's investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin. The Telegraph...

Eric Schneiderman, the embattled former New York Attorney General who stepped down from his post after multiple women came forward with allegations of assault, will not face criminal charges for the incidents reported, the prosecutor tasked with overseeing the case told CNN. Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas told CNN Thursday morning that her team interviewed members of Schneiderman’s security detail, employees who worked with him at the New York Attorney General’s office and witnesses. Singas was appointed to be the special prosecutor overseeing the investigation. “I personally interviewed each of the women who cooperated with our investigation along with...