Free Republic

Germany’s protestant church has secured a coup: Barack Obama will address the annual assembly to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It could be Obama’s first major appearance since leaving the presidency. […] The former president can likely look forward to a warm welcome in Germany, where he still enjoys a favorable reputation despite revelations that the NSA once tapped Chancellor Merkel’s cell phone under his watch. …

Last night we reported on Mike Cernovich’s breaking story that it was former National Security Advisor under Obama, Susan ‘Benghazi’ Rice who unmasked Trump and his private associates during surveillance. Fox News is reporting that the unmasked names of private citizens were spread to many different agencies and given to James Clapper, John Brennan and Ben Rhodes.

President Donald Trump must provide the American people, not just the Senate Intelligence Committee, with proof of his claims that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, and if he doesn't have the proof, he needs to retract his statements, Sen. John McCain said Sunday. "If his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we've got a serious issue here, to say the least," McCain told CNN's "State of the Union" program, while pointing out that he himself has no reason to believe the allegations are true.

FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday he plans to serve his entire 10-year term, even as controversy swirls over his attempt to rebut President Donald Trump’s claim that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the election. “You’re stuck with me for another 6½ years,” Comey said during a cybersecurity conference at Boston College. Comey was appointed 3½ years ago by then-President Barack Obama. Controversy erupted last weekend after Trump tweeted that Obama had tapped his phones at Trump Tower during the election. Trump offered no evidence of his claim. Comey asked the Justice Department to publicly reject the allegation...

Toll gates at the Big Apple’s bridges and tunnels will disappear next year as a cashless system is rolled out, Gov. Cuomo announced Wednesday. The new system will be set up beginning in January at the Queens-Midtown and Hugh Carey tunnels, and then throughout the year at the Rockaway, RFK, Verrazano-Narrows, Throgs Neck and Bronx-Whitestone bridges. The system will collect money from drivers using E-ZPass. Those without E-ZPass will get their license plates recorded and receive a bill within 30 days. They will have 30 days to pay. All license plates will be scanned and scofflaws will be ticketed immediately....

The U.S. intelligence community will soon disclose an estimate of the number of Americans whose electronic communications have been caught in the crosshairs of online surveillance programs intended for foreigners, U.S. lawmakers said in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday. The estimate, requested by members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, is expected to be made public as early as next month, the letter said. Its disclosure would come as Congress is expected to begin debate in the coming months over whether to reauthorize or reform the so-called surveillance authority, known as Section 702, a provision that...

In Britain, Big Brother just got bigger. After months of wrangling, Parliament has passed a contentious new snooping law that gives authorities — from police and spies to food regulators, fire officials and tax inspectors — powers to look at the internet browsing records of everyone in the country. The law requires telecoms companies to keep records of all users’ web activity for a year, creating databases of personal information that the firms worry could be vulnerable to leaks and hackers. Civil liberties groups say the law establishes mass surveillance of British citizens, following innocent internet users from the office...

BERLIN — Leaders and citizens in Germany, one of America’s closest allies, simmered with barely contained fury on Thursday over reports that American intelligence had tapped into Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, the latest diplomatic fallout from the documents harvested by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. In an unusual move between staunch allies, Germany summoned the United States ambassador over the claims. The damage to core American relationships continues to mount.

German lawmakers have approved a bill that allows the country’s foreign intelligence agency to spy on European Union institutions and fellow EU member states. The legislation passed Friday is part of a range of measures meant to improve oversight of espionage in the wake of the revelations by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. […] Critics say that instead of clamping down on questionable BND activity, the law will merely legalize them. …

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer says inward-facing cameras should be installed on all New York City metropolitan area railroad systems to avoid accidents such as the recent New Jersey Transit crash. The New York Democrat says cameras will help deter bad behavior, improve safety and help investigators determine crash causes. …

Yahoo scanned hundreds of millions of incoming emails at the behest of U.S. intelligence or law enforcement, according to a report published Tuesday. The internet company conducted the surveillance last year after receiving a classified demand from the National Security Agency or the FBI, Reuters said in its story. The report cited three former Yahoo employees and another unidentified person familiar with the matter. Those individuals told Reuters that the government pushed Yahoo to search for a string of letters, numbers or other characters. That meant the fishing expedition could have involved finding a specific phrase or code in the...

The commissioner of the IRS is apologizing to Congress for information his agency lost and inaccurate statements he made during congressional investigations of its treatment of tea party and other conservative groups. John Koskinen is facing an impeachment effort by House conservatives, and he’s set to testify Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee. That panel released his opening statement late Tuesday. …

FBI Director James Comey is again warning about the bureau’s inability to access digital devices because of encryption. In a speech Tuesday, Comey said default encryption built into smartphones is “making more and more of the room that we are charged to investigate dark.” He said the FBI is working to collect information on the issue so that “next year we can have an adult conversation in this country.” …

Even though the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records has ended, calls and emails are still being swept up by U.S. surveillance work targeting foreigners. Congress is making a renewed push to find out how many. Six Republicans and eight Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have asked the nation’s top intelligence official for the number of Americans’ emails and phone calls collected under programs authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. […] Intelligence officials have tried to assuage concerns of Congress and others by saying that any domestic communications collected are “incidental” to the targeting of...

President Barack Obama signed legislation Wednesday that would extend some U.S. privacy protections to citizens of allied countries and let foreigners sue the U.S. government if their personal data is unlawfully disclosed.In a separate ceremony just a few minutes later, Obama signed into law a bill that beefs up trade enforcement and includes a ban on Internet access taxes. Obama said both bills had bipartisan support. The bill extending certain privacy protections was aimed at shoring up trust among European allies following leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Obama said the new law makes sure data is...

In the midst of its espionage operations against the State of Israel, the Obama administration's National Security Agency (NSA) listened in on private conversations conducted with members of the U.S. Congress and American-Jewish groups, a late Tuesday report in the Wall Street Journal reveals. The NSA operations revealed to President Obama that Israeli officials had coordinated on messaging with U.S. Jewish groups that had come out against the Iran nuclear deal, the report says, citing unnamed officials familiar with the espionage operations. At the time, President Obama was facing a wave of criticism from European leaders-such as French President Francois Hollande...

A majority of Americans say they support warrantless government surveillance of the Internet communications of U.S. citizens, according to a new poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It's at least somewhat important for the government to sacrifice freedoms to ensure safety, most say in the survey. ...

A German federal court has ruled that the country’s spy agency is under no obligation to divulge to the media a list of names compiled from search terms provided to it by the U.S. National Security Agency. A newspaper publisher sought an injunction forcing the Germany agency, the BND, to disclose information about what German companies and citizens were on the list after the spy agency refused to answer questions. …

The German-American friendship no longer exists. It may still remain between citizens of both countries, but not between their governments. Perhaps it has always been an illusion; perhaps the United States pulled away over the course of time. But what binds these two nations today cannot be considered friendship. Openness and fairness are part of the essence of friendship, which is about mutual respect and trust. A quarter century after the United States helped the German people restore their national unity, little remains of this friendship. As new documents from WikiLeaks and reporting by Spiegel show, the NSA has been...

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office Thursday asked the US ambassador to discuss new allegations about NSA spying, a German government source said. “We confirm that US ambassador [John] Emerson was invited to the chancellery to talk,” the German government source told AFP, after the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily said Merkel’s chief of staff Peter Altmaier had asked for the meeting. On Wednesday Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that new documents released by WikiLeaks show that the United States did not just tap German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone but also eavesdropped on several ministers. …