John Sexton - Page 32

Wired magazine has apparently been contacted by the former FBI agent who served as a consultant on Eagle Eye. He says LaBeouf’s claims on Jay Leno were just a way to sell the film. Thomas Knowles tells Wired “I like

Military blog Blackfive has identified a falsehood in Edward Snowden’s self-reported biography. When Snowden came forward to announce that he was the person behind the NSA leaks he told the Guardian a story about his past. According to the Guardian

Edward Snowden is not the first person to blow the whistle on what the NSA is doing. Mark Klein was an AT&T technician for 22 years. He gradually learned the NSA had tapped into the fiber optic network which makes

The first trailer for the Hobbit sequel is out today: I saw the first Hobbit film in the theater. I thought it ranged between enjoyable and silly (and not always in a good way). In general the quieter scenes were

The Edward Snowden interview has been put on You Tube so if you haven’t seen it yet it’s worth watching: What to think of this individual? Some of what he’s saying about the “architecture of oppression” really should concern us

Geert Wilders opened the conference with a key note speech in which he suggested Europe was primed for a “European spring.” Wilders comment was an obvious reference to the so-called Arab spring in which numerous countries had mass protests pushing

Yesterday both the NY Times and Reuters claimed the Zazi terror plot against New York subways was foiled by an NSA email collection program called PRISM. That was not the case. The key to stopping the Zazi plot was an

ABC affiliate 10 News has revealed that employees at San Onofre nuclear power plant in Orange County, California created a Star Trek spoof inside the plant’s control room simulator. Revelation of the spoof, which was filmed in 2010 for just

One day after the story broke about the NSA’s PRISM program, Reuters reveals the NSA email gathering effort helped foil a 2009 terror plot. This new leak of information from unnamed administration sources seems designed to defend the efficacy of

During the promotional roll out of the film Eagle Eye, Shia LaBeouf told Jay Leno that an FBI consultant on the film had played him a recording of a private conversation with a girlfriend, one which took place two years

In response to So Totally Unlike Watergate You Guys: Senator Kirk Asks Holder if the Executive Spied on the Coequal Branch of Congress: One of the most interesting moments of the hearing came a few minutes later when Sen. Kirk

In August 2007 Senator Obama gave a foreign policy speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in which he mapped out a five point plan for a new approach to foreign policy. Part of that approach was a promise to reign

Last year James Bamford wrote a lengthy story for Wired on the NSA’s new data-mining operation being built in Utah. The report contained a number of eye-opening revelations but none more so than the conclusion of one former system designer

Apparently Gawker had stores of Mormon bashing that didn’t get used up during the last election. The site has been running a series about the states, sort of conventional wisdom for 20-something hipsters on which parts of the US to

Susan Rice has been appointed National Security Adviser to the President in a move that is seen as a thumb in the eye of Republicans. Rice’s previous job, Ambassador to the United Nations, will be filled by Samantha Power. Back

A 12 foot long, 1,323 lb. Mako shark was caught off the coast of Huntington Beach in deep water this week. It is believed to be a world record for this type of shark: The catch was filmed for a

During Tuesday’s congressional hearing on groups targeted by the IRS, Rep. Aaron Schock demolished the arguments being made Democrats in two bold strokes. Democrats in the hearing argued that scrutiny is appropriate for any group engaged in political activity and

Fitch’s ratings agency has downgraded Illinois’s general obligation bonds over the state’s failure to address pension reform. Illinois already has the worst debt rating in the United States. Fitch downgraded the state’s bonds from an ‘A’ rating to ‘A-‘ and

The Democrats word of the week may be overreach but the IRS scandal is not going to end until we know who is responsible for it. As today’s hearings reinforced, we still do not have an answer to that basic

Did news coverage of a Tea Party group launching a 501(c)(4) in February 2010–including a story at NPR– launch the two year scrutiny of Tea Party groups? It’s impossible to tell for certain but the IG report does offer some

Curtis Morrison in the individual who secretly recorded a strategy conversation that took place in Mitch McConnell’s campaign office in February. Audio of the conversation was later published by David Corn at Mother Jones. Today Morrison wrote a piece at

With MSNBC’s ratings in the dumps, various explanations are being offered as to why this is happening to a network that, just last fall, was challenging Fox. Let’s consider the three most popular explanations. One possible explanation is that progressives

One of the most overlooked bits of Obama’s drone speech last week was the claim that capturing terrorists is always our first option before using drone strikes. Obama claimed “America does not take strikes when we have the ability to

Joan Walsh recently mocked Peggy Noonan for suggesting Barack Obama bears any responsibility for the IRS scandal, but she had a somewhat different view of the way rhetoric influences action after the Tucson shooting in 2011. Back in January 2011,

Democratic Party Communications Director Brad Woodhouse just tweeted out his response to word that some news outlets, including the New York Times, have refused to attend a private meeting with AG Holder: POTUS asked AG to review how leak investigations

Progressive propaganda doesn’t seem to be doing well in the ratings since President Obama’s reelection. MSNBC dropped to fourth place behind the HLN network in May. The Hollywood Reporter notes it was a really bad month for the progressive network.

Last month a blogger at Green Car Reports noticed that Tesla had sold more of its Model S cars in the first quarter of 2013 than Audi, BMW and Mercedes had sold of their top models over the same time

In response to Trailer moments: Back in Dec. 2011 I wrote this after viewing the Prometheus trailer: I’m looking forward to this and yet I’m not sure this isn’t messing up the mythology a bit. Part of what was so

The Dean of Harvard College has stepped down over a scandal involving the search of email accounts without notifying account owners. The search of staff accounts was an attempt to plug a media leak about an ongoing cheating investigation. Evelynn