NewsTrust - National Security - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

No Afghanistan ‘Checkposts’ Abandoned While Pak Military Offensive Proceeds ?

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Oct. 19 (News Analysis) - "A piece in the Pakistan paper the News accused the U.S. military of taking the inexplicable step of abandoning “checkposts” on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border while the Pakistani military offensive in nearby Waziristan intensifies. According to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s staff, it’s just not true".

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Clinton: Not ‘Either/Or’ Between Negotiating With Iran and Supporting Dissidents «

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Oct. 05 (News Report) - Asked at the George Washington University forum about whether the Obama administration was effectively undermining the Iranian opposition by negotiating with the Iranian regime over its nuclear program, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the choice was not “either/or.” Citing the U.S. experience throughout the Cold War of “always press[ing]” the Soviet Union on [...]

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Experts Weigh in on Obama’s Explanation of Iran’s Nuclear Facility

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Sep. 28 (News Report) - Flanked by the French president and the British premier, President Obama on Friday dramatically stated that the “size and configuration” of a previously undisclosed Iranian nuclear facility near the clerical city of Qom make it “inconsistent with a peaceful program.” Several independent experts believe the facility is most likely being constructed to support a nuclear weapons program, especially as Iran’s concealment of it comes after years of nondisclosure and obstruction of inspections. But even those experts believe that the “size and configuration” of the facility does not necessarily mean it could only be used to build an atomic bomb.

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Meet The New State Secrets Policy, Not So Different From The Old State Secrets Policy

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Adam Serwer - Sep. 23 (News Analysis) - The Obama administration's abuse of the state secrets privilege mirrors the Bush administration's, and that's despite months of promises to reform its use.

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Grayson, POGO Use ACORN Defunding Push to Go After Military Contractors

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Sep. 22 (Breaking News) - Ryan Grim has the story, I have stifled guffaws. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between [...]

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N.C. native wrongly deported to Mexico

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

charlotteobserver.com - By Kristin Collins - Sep. 01 (News) - Lyttle is one of a growing number of people who have been swept up in the federal immigration detention system since 2001, when terrorist attacks prompted an unprecedented effort to find and deport illegal immigrants. The U.S. government deported 350,000 people in the fiscal year that ended in October 2008.

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Memos Suggest Legal Cherry-Picking in Justifying Torture

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Daphne Eviatar - Aug. 27 (Special Report) - On the same day that the government produced the 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report on interrogations, it also turned over seven more memos and letters from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

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Blackwater Heir Wants to Keep State Dept. Security Contract

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Aug. 10 (News Report) - Even as a wrongful-death lawsuit moves forward against the controversial private security company formerly known as Blackwater, the firm seeks to renew its contract with the State Department to guard diplomats when the deal expires next year.

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Climate change ranked as a threat to U.S. security

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Pioneer Press - By John M. Broder - Aug. 09 (News Report) - The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

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Feingold Set to Oppose Further Troop Boost for Afghanistan

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Aug. 05 (News Report) - “I don’t think the case has been effectively made for continuing to send more and more troops into Afghanistan,” Feingold said in a Wednesday interview. “I am very unhappy with the answers I’ve received about the issue of whether constantly increasing troops is helping the situation in Pakistan or making it worse. I suspect it could be making things worse.” Feingold fears that increasing troops in Afghanistan might lead insurgents to cross the border into Pakistan, which is engaged in its own fight against a distinct but affiliated insurgency,

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Fight Brews Between Civil Liberties Groups and Obama

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Spencer Ackerman - Jul. 01 (News Analysis) - It was a blind quote hitting the civil-libertarian solar plexus. Bad enough that, as ProPublica’s Dafna Linzner and The Washington Post’s Peter Finn reported late on Friday afternoon, the Obama administration was readying an executive order for a system for preventive detention in terrorism cases.

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AP source: NKorea may be prepping new nuclear test

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

seattlepi.com - By Pamela Hess - Jun. 11 (News Report) - North Korea may be preparing for its third nuclear test, a show of defiance as the United Nations considers new sanctions on the dictatorship for conducting an underground nuclear explosion in May, according to a U.S. government official.

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Reporters' families seek mercy, N.Korea makes threats

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

news.asiaone.com - Jun. 09 (News Report) - Relatives of two U.S. journalists sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korea called on the reclusive state to show compassion, while Pyongyang threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend itself.

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America refuses airspace to Air France jet citing No-Fly rules

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

DigitalJournal.com - By Michael Cosgrove - Apr. 27 (News Analysis) - The reason given was the presence on board of Ospina, a Monde Diplomatique correspondent. He has written many articles criticising the Columbian Government of President Alvaro Uribe and United States’ involvement in Latin American affairs.

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Big Break From Bush on ‘State Secrets’ Unlikely Under Obama

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Daphne Evitar - Apr. 11 (News Analysis) - In an interview that aired Wednesday night on the CBS Evening News, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested to Katie Couric that the Obama administration is unlikely to depart dramatically from the Bush administration’s position on the use of the state secrets privilege, noting just one case out of about 20 currently under review in which the Justice Department is seriously considering changing its stance. He did not say which case that was.

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Glenn Beck and the rise of Fox News' militia media

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - By Eric Boehlert - Apr. 07 (News Report) - Beck's sure "[d]epression and revolution" are what await America under Obama, and fears moving "towards a totalitarian state." The country today sometimes reminds Beck of "the early days of Adolf Hitler." Beck thinks that Obama, who has "surrounded himself by Marxists his whole life," is now "addicting this country to heroin -- the heroin that is government slavery."

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Report: Security Holes Could Wreak Havoc in Proposed Smart Grid

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

technewsworld.com - By Renay San Miguel - Mar. 23 (News Report) - The smart grid, which is being eyed as a next-generation technology for delivering and managing electricity, could be vulnerable to the same kinds of attacks Web sites experience, but the result would be a lot more widespread and dangerous, according to a recent report.

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Mexico's Drug Wars

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Link TV - Mar. 06 (News Analysis) - Beheadings, assassinations, gun battles on the street -- Mexico is ground zero in the global war on drugs. U.S. media focuses on the spread of violence north of the border, as drug cartels spread fear and intimidation south of it. What will it take for Mexico to beat the drug lords?

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Helicopters, Cover-ups and War Crimes

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jeffrey Klein, Paolo Pontoniere - Feb. 19 (News Analysis) - When reviewing the helicopter contract, President Obama can either be actively complicit by continuing with Finmeccanica; he can duck and cover by simply switching to the proper supplier, Sikorsky; or he can use the mandated review of this purchase decision to root out those in military, the aerospace industry and Congress who were willing to compromise the security of all subsequent American presidents so that Bush could cover up his core war crime.

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NSA Spied on Journalists? Whistleblower Reveals Surveillance Target

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Common Dreams - By Olbermann, Russell Tice - Jan. 22 (News Report) - In an exclusive interview tonight on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," former NSA analyst Russell Tice says that the agency under the Bush administration secretly collected communications data on civilians, including journalists.

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FBI official in 'Omaha Two' case was master media manipulator and self-described liar

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - By Michael Richardson - Dec. 30 (Special Report) - In a rare moment of candor, Sullivan confessed to his deceptions. "The bureau system made liars of us all. If you didn't lie you couldn't survive."

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Man-Made Disaster

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Jeffrey Rosen - Dec. 16 (Special Report) - The Department of Homeland Security was a bureaucratic and philosophical mistake.

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New FBI Guidelines: More COINTELPRO?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Sep. 04 (Special Report) - [Disclosure: author is a NewsTrust staff member. The portion quoting Jeanne Roberts was added after her review and hence there is no reference to her relationship to the piece in her review.] At 9:30 a.m. on September 17, the Senate Judiciary Committee will be hearing from Robert S. Mueller, III, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the wake of complaints. I wait, wondering, what, if anything, will come out of this hearing--how much further will we erode our Constitution and how much further will we descend from our proclamation in our national anthem that we live in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."

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Evidence of Extremist Infiltration of Military Grows

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Southern Poverty Law Center - By David Holthous - Aug. 27 (Special Report) - alarming numbers of neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacist extremists [are] taking advantage of lowered armed services recruiting standards and lax enforcement of anti-extremist military regulations by infiltrating the U.S. armed forces in order to receive combat training and gain access to weapons and explosives.

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The PATRIOT Act's War on Charity

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Maya Schenwar - Aug. 05 (News Report) - Since the PATRIOT Act's passage almost seven years ago, many of its adverse effects on activist organizations and peace groups have become plain. The law grants the government broad new surveillance privileges and access to private property, and protests and demonstrations have been heavily monitored and contained in the wake of 9/11. But according to a new report, the worst effects on nonprofit organizations have garnered little attention. New powers granted to the Treasury Department currently allow the government to shut down charities based on unfounded claims; to bar nonprofits from operating in some international disaster zones, and to freeze the assets of "designated" charities, leaving large sums of money intended for humanitarian causes to fester indefinitely in Treasury vaults.

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