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Obama Orders a Review of Russian Meddling in the US Election—But How Much of It Will Be Public?

by MargaritoBarrie Posted on December 9, 2016

Mother Jones

President Barack Obama has added momentum to the call for an investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. On Friday morning, Lisa Monaco, a top White House aide on homeland security, told a group of reporters that the president has directed the national intelligence community to conduct a “full review” of Russian interference in the campaign.

Obama’s decision comes as members of Congress have upped the volume on demands that the Russian hacking of Democratic targets be probed. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House government oversight committee, has urged Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of that committee, to mount a congressional investigation of Moscow’s intervention in the election. But Chaffetz, who prior to the election vowed to fiercely investigate Hillary Clinton should she win, has not responded to Cummings’ request, according to a Cummings spokeswoman. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York have seconded Cummings’ call for a congressional investigation.

This week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he will mount a probe of Russian cyber penetrations of US weapons systems and noted that he expects this inquiry will also cover hacking related to the election. “The problem with hacking,” McCain said, “is that if they’re able to disrupt elections, then it’s a national security issue, obviously.” And the Washington Post reported that Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Richard Burr (R-S.C.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have also expressed interest in examining the Russian hacking.

Meanwhile, a group of high-ranking House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting a classified briefing on Russian involvement in the election, and seven Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee publicly pressed the Obama administration to declassify more information about Russia’s intervention in the election. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio have also urged a congressional investigation of Russian interference. “I’m going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia,” Graham told CNN. “I think they’re one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage, I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay a price.”

Cummings has also joined with Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Calif.), a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, to introduce legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate attempts by the Russian government or persons in Russia to interfere with the election. The commission would consist of 12 members, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, and would be granted subpoena power, the ability to hold public hearings, and the task of producing a public report.

And that’s the key thing: a public report.

With the Obama administration and its intelligence services having already declared that Russia hacked Democratic targets during the election and swiped material that was ultimately released through WikiLeaks, the public certainly deserves to know more about this operation. How did it happen? How has it been investigated by US agencies? How can future cyber interventions be prevented and future US elections secured from foreign influence?

The Obama-ordered probe is due before he leaves office on January 20, and it will likely be the first of all the possible investigations to be completed. (Presumably, the CIA, the FBI, and the National Security Agency were already looking into the topic.) But there’s no telling how much of this review, if any, will be released publicly. A White House spokesman tells Mother Jones, “Hard to say right now, but we’ll certainly intend to make public as much as we can consistent with the protection of classified sources and methods and any active law enforcement investigations.”

In response to the news of the Obama review, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top member of the House Intelligence Committee, declared, “The Administration should work to declassify as much of it as possible, while protecting our sources and methods, and make it available to the public.”

Yet this review may or may not yield a public accounting. And a congressional investigation might or might not include public hearings and a public report. Only the independent bipartisan commission proposed by Cummings and Swalwell would mandate the release of a public report.

While all the recent developments on this front are heartening for citizens who want to know to what degree American democracy was affected by covert Russian actions, there is so far no assurance that Americans will be presented the full truth. For Obama’s review to be released publicly, it will likely have to be scrubbed for classified information—a process that can take time. And if time runs out, the new Trump administration might not be keen on putting out a declassified version of the report. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to acknowledge Russian involvement with the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic targets. Would he want to release a report that contradicted him or that could be seen as tainting his electoral victory?

Talking to reporters, Monaco declined to say what she expected the Obama-ordered review to unearth. “We’ll see what comes out of the report,” she said. “There will be a report to a range of stakeholders, including Congress.”

But the biggest stakeholder of all is the American voter.

UPDATE: On Friday night bombshell news reports noted that the CIA had assessed Russia intervened in the US election to help Trump win; that during the campaign senior congressional Republicans, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, had resisted a private White House request to be part of a bipartisan effort to call out Russian hacking of Democratic and political targets; and that Moscow had penetrated the computer system of the Republican National Committee but had not publicly disseminated any of the stolen material.

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Obama Orders a Review of Russian Meddling in the US Election—But How Much of It Will Be Public?

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Democrats Intensify Push for Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign

by TamiLemmon13 Posted on December 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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Congressional Democrats are increasing the pressure for an official and public inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Calif.), a Democrat on the House intelligence committee, and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the House government oversight committee, announced they were introducing legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate any attempt by the Russian government or persons in Russia to interfere with the recent US election. The commission they propose is modeled on the widely praised 9/11 Commission. It would consist of 12 members, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. The members would be appointed by the House speaker, the Senate majority leader, and the two Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. This commission would be granted subpoena power, the ability to hold public hearings, and the task of producing a public report.

Cummings previously called on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chair of the House government oversight committee, to launch such an investigation via his committee. But Chaffetz, who before the election vowed to probe Hillary Clinton fiercely, has not replied to Cummings’ request, according to a Cummings spokesperson. Nor has Chaffetz responded to another Cummings request for a committee examination of Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) have both endorsed Cummings’ proposal for a congressional investigation of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 campaign. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) also have suggested that Congress examine Russian interference in the election.

The Democrats have not yet catapulted the issue of foreign interference fully into the media spotlight. But Swalwell and Cummings’ bill comes as more Democrats are demanding action. Last week, seven Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee publicly pressed the Obama administration to declassify more information about Russia’s intervention in the election. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who led that effort, wrote in a brief letter to the White House, “We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the US election that should be declassified and released to the public. We are conveying specifics through classified channels.”

On Tuesday, seven high-ranking House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting a classified briefing on Russian involvement in the election, including “Russian entities’ hacking of American political organizations; hacking and strategic release of emails from campaign officials; the WikiLeaks disclosures; fake news stories produced and distributed with the intent to mislead American voters; and any other Russian or Russian-related interference or involvement in our recent election.” The signatories were Cummings, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip, Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the homeland security committee, Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the armed services committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee. They wrote:

We are deeply concerned by Russian efforts to undermine, interfere with, and even influence the outcome of our recent election. This Russian malfeasance is not confined to us, but extends to our allies, our alliances and to democratic institutions around the world.

The integrity of democracy must never be in question, and we are gravely concerned that Russia may have succeeded in weakening Americans’ trust in our electoral institutions through their cyber activity, which may also include sponsoring disclosures through WikiLeaks and other venues, and the production and distribution of fake news stories.

In September, Schiff joined Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, to release a statement blaming Russia for the hacks of Democratic targets during the campaign:

Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the US election. At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election—we can see no other rationale for the behavior of the Russians. We believe that orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government.

The Obama administration has reached the same conclusion. In October, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security released a joint statement declaring, “The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.” A week after the election, the director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, was asked about the WikiLeaks release of hacked information during the campaign, and he said, “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.” He added, “This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily.”

For some reason, Moscow’s effort to influence the presidential election has not been as big a story as, say, Trump’s tweets about the musical Hamilton or Alec Baldwin. That may be because Democrats, busy licking their wounds, have not aggressively sought to keep the issue front and center. (Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have not said much on this subject.) And most Republicans have shown little interest in investigating an assault on American democracy that helped their party win the White House and retain majorities in both houses of Congress. But Cummings has been trying mightily to kick-start a public investigation. (Presumably, the FBI, CIA, and NSA have been looking into Russian hacking related to the election, but their investigations are not designed to yield public information—unless they result in a criminal prosecution.)

With the legislation to establish an independent commission, Cummings and Swalwell are opening another front. In the coming days, they will be signing up co-sponsors and looking for Republican support. Their bill provides a proposal that concerned voters—including upset Democrats and activists—can rally behind. (Were this measure to pass next year, Trump, who has steadfastly refused to blame Moscow for the hacks of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, would have to decide whether to sign it.)

In his recent letter to Chaffetz, Cummings noted, “Elections are the bedrock of our nation’s democracy. Any attempt by a foreign power to undermine them is a direct attack on our core democratic values, and it should chill every Member of Congress and American—red or blue—to the core.” So far, few Republicans, including Trump, have acknowledged feeling that chill, and there’s certainly more opportunity for the Democrats to turn up the heat.

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Democrats Intensify Push for Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign

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Trump Names Benghazi Zealot His CIA Director

by VickiHazel Posted on November 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Friday morning, President-elect Donald Trump named Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kans.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee with a history of hardline positions and controversial statements, to be his CIA chief.

Pompeo, a lawyer and former Army officer, is probably best known to the public for his role on the House Benghazi Committee. He was one of the committee’s harshest and loudest critics of Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, once claiming that the administration’s response was “worse in some ways” than the Nixon White House’s cooperation with Watergate hearings. While on the committee, Pompeo pushed false theories, including Hillary Clinton’s supposed reliance on longtime adviser Sidney Blumenthal for her intelligence. With Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), he issued his own final Benghazi report, which was more critical than the Republican committee’s findings.

Pompeo holds extremely hawkish views on key intelligence and national security issues. He has long fought the Iran nuclear deal and led the Republicans who charged that “side deals” between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency were keeping secret dangers hidden from US officials. (Arms control experts and US officials have said such agreements are standard practice.) On Thursday, he tweeted that he would push to end the deal under Trump.

Pompeo also wants to roll back surveillance reforms, which ended the NSA’s ability to collect phone records, or metadata, in bulk. In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in January, he and former Justice Department lawyer David Rivkin Jr. said the reform had “dumbed down” surveillance. “Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database,” Pompeo and Rivkin wrote, arguing for a vastly expanded surveillance tool. Trump supported reinstating bulk metadata collection during the Republican presidential primaries.

Torture techniques may also come back up for debate under Pompeo. Like Trump, he has criticized the ban implemented by the Obama administration on waterboarding and other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Intelligence professionals mostly welcomed Pompeo’s appointment. John McLaughlin, a former CIA deputy director under George W. Bush, wrote in an email to Mother Jones that “Rep. Pompeo looks like a well-qualified candidate for CIA Director. He is a serious member of the House Intelligence Committee who seems to work hard to understand the issues.” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and another member of the Benghazi inquiry, also praised Pompeo in a statement as “very bright and hard-working.” Schiff added, “While we have had our share of strong differences—principally on the politicization of the tragedy in Benghazi—I know that he is someone who is willing to listen and engage.”

Noting Pompeo’s record of controversial comments, McLaughlin sent a gentle warning to the future CIA head. “Fair enough for a congressman,” McLaughlin said, “but as CIA director, he will have to approach such issues dispassionately, some would say clinically.”

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Trump Names Benghazi Zealot His CIA Director

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Meet Ret. General Michael Flynn, the Most Gullible Guy in the Army

by MargoPinkney Posted on November 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump’s favorite general, Michael Flynn, was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency a couple of years ago. The circumstances have long been a bit mysterious. On one side, the story is that he was pushed out due to a revolt of his senior staff over his abusive and chaotic management style. Flynn himself says it was because he was tough on Islamic terrorism, and the weenies in the White House didn’t like it.

In any case, Flynn has been “right wing nutty” ever since, in Colin Powell’s words, so naturally he’s now in line for a top position in the Trump administration. Possibly National Security Advisor. But whatever you think of Flynn, he was the head of an intelligence agency and therefore ought to have a pretty good BS detector. Apparently he doesn’t:

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Meet Ret. General Michael Flynn, the Most Gullible Guy in the Army

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Liberals No Longer Allowed to Nominate Supreme Court Justices

by JuliannPRY Posted on November 1, 2016

Mother Jones

The latest hotness on the right is to promise not just to hold up Senate hearings on Merrick Garland until we get a new president, but to hold up all hearings for all Supreme Court nominees forever if Hillary Clinton wins:

That prospect — which could impact every aspect of American life including climate regulations, abortion and gun rights — was first raised by Senator John McCain of Arizona, then Ted Cruz of Texas and now Richard Burr of North Carolina, who CNN reported Monday talked up the idea at a private event over the weekend.

“If Hillary Clinton becomes president, I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the Supreme Court,” Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told a group of Republican volunteers, according to CNN.

Marco Rubio, taking his usual craven approach to political landmines, says it would be wrong to blockade everyone, but it would be OK to blockade anyone who’s not a conservative:

“If it’s someone good who understands that their job is to apply the constitution, according to its original intent, then that will be a welcome surprise,” he said. “But barring whether it’s Republican or a Democrat, if they appoint someone who I believe doesn’t meet that standard I’ll oppose that nominee.”

Ross Douthat explains the principled thinking behind this strategy:

There you have it. Liberal views of the law are inherently illegitimate, so Democrats don’t get to pick any more Supreme Court justices. There’s a name for this kind of republic. Starts with a B. Not quite coming to me, though.

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Liberals No Longer Allowed to Nominate Supreme Court Justices

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The Fear-Hate-Anger Click Machine

by KYZJeffere Posted on September 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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We’re at that point in the election cycle where everyone is in full-on hate-the-media mode—and not without reason. From Matt Lauer’s bizarrely imbalanced questioning of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, to Trump consultant Corey Lewandowski’s access to endless free airtime as a paid CNN analyst, to the false equivalency debate over the Clinton and Trump foundations, there’s plenty to get mad about.

So far, so familiar. People get mad about the media during every presidential campaign (and most of the time in between, too). But this year, there’s something more deeply problematic going on, and it’s rooted in the economics of online media. That’s something journalists—and people who read journalism—need to grapple with, because we’re all participants in the toxic feedback mechanism involved.

A good way to understand this mechanism is via the three words most often used to characterize what Donald Trump expresses, and feeds: Fear, hate, and anger.

Fear. Hate. Anger. Most pols appeal to these emotions in some way, but Trump doesn’t just appeal. He embodies, draws out, expertly modulates. Like a three-chord song, his campaign is an endless rearrangement of this basic vocabulary. Fear plus hate. Hate plus anger. Anger squared. Fear with an undertone of hate.

Why does this work so well? Part of the answer has become painfully obvious: It resonates with cultural bass notes that are stronger than many people believed. Racial resentment, economic anxiety, social dislocation. You can argue which one plays the biggest role, or whether all three reinforce and build on each other.

But there’s a fourth factor, and this is where journalists need to look in the mirror: A growing part of this profession, our profession, is also coming to depend on fear, anger, and hate.

Here’s why. There are, give or take, 40 percent fewer journalists employed in America than there were 15 years ago. And those journalists are working to fill not just a finite number of pages or hours of airtime. They are feeding the boundless appetite of the internet, cranking out post after post in search of advertising revenue. As advertising is becoming cheaper, and Google and Facebook are sucking up those dollars instead of publishers, a diminishing number of journalists have to push ever harder, against ever tougher competition, to draw eyeballs.

What do you do in that situation? You reach for what works—and fear, hate, and anger work incredibly well. Publish something that appeals to any of the three and it’s instant gratification: People will click on that headline, share that post. So you do it again, and you try to learn how to do it more effectively. It’s a pretty straight-up Pavlovian mechanism, and there’s no one seeking an audience on the internet—ourselves included—who has not felt its pull.

And the wheel keeps spinning faster. The more something pushes the fear-hate-anger buttons, the more likely it will turn out to be false or oversimplified. But the pressure is on to publish first and fact-check later, and the fact-check never gets as much attention (or as many shares) as the original outrageous bit. Plus outrage-stoking works best among people who already agree with each other, and thanks to the social-media algorithms, we don’t often see the people who disagree with us, so we close ourselves ever more tightly within our own bubbles. It’s the reign of the rage-share.

Trump, in a way, is the most powerful expression of this feedback loop. He understands it in the fine-grained, intimate way of someone who’s been tweeting a dozen times a day for seven years. He recognizes that fear, anger, and hate work whether you express them, elicit them in response, or both. He knows a lie gets around the world in the time a fact-checker is getting her boots on. He is, as some people have said, a comments section become flesh.

This is terrible for journalism, and for democracy. We need alternatives—and here at MoJo, that’s something we’ve been thinking about a lot.

As you know, we’re lucky enough not to have to grab traffic at any cost because advertising isn’t our primary source of revenue (though the 15 percent it contributes to our budget helps a lot). Instead, as you also know, what keeps us going is support from our readers, who provide 70 percent of our revenue in the form of subscriptions and donations.

But here we run into another way that the fear-hate-anger machine exerts its maleficent pull: Like other nonprofits, we have to make the case for support to our audience, and right now we’re in the closing days of a big fundraising campaign. Conventional wisdom holds that to get to our goal, we should push exactly those buttons. Fear :bad things will happen if we don’t meet our budget! (This of course is true—but panic mode doesn’t exactly appeal to your intelligence.) Hate: Look at the bad guy du jour (or even the evil mainstream media!). Anger: People are so misinformed, can you believe what fill-in-the-blank said?! (Also true—but the real point is, how do we fix that?)

We’re betting there’s a better way. We believe that conventional wisdom is wrong, that journalism doesn’t have to depend on the fear-hate-anger machine. And over the last few months at MoJo, we’ve launched an experiment to prove it. We’ve staked our future on gaining your support with transparent, reality-based arguments: diving into the challenges that investigative reporting faces, and the threat to democracy when billionaires try to silence journalists. We want to appeal to your frontal cortex, not your brain stem. And while it’s still early days, we’ve been inspired by the results.

A couple of months ago, when we published Shane Bauer’s investigation about working as a guard in a private prison, nearly 1.5 million people read it. And then they put the information to use. Some told us they were contacting their elected representatives and government officials. Some were government officials: We heard from the Department of Justice, which a few weeks after our investigation announced it was no longer going to do business with private prisons.

And perhaps most amazingly, these readers thought about their part in making journalism like this happen. Even though we didn’t plaster the story with fundraising appeals, a record number of people chose to donate to MoJo or subscribe to our magazine after reading it.

The support has kept coming. About a month ago, we launched our first-ever push to sign up monthly donors here on the site. Our goal is to raise $30,000 in new monthly donations from sustainers by September 30. That would give us more stability to focus on truly revelatory reporting, and to create a model for quality journalism that is supported by the users—voluntarily, without a paywall or even a tote bag.

So far, it’s working. We’re right around $22,000 raised in monthly gifts from nearly 1,900 readers, and we’ve gotten there without the sensationalism or panic that fuel so many fundraising drives. We’ve learned there is a big, powerful audience that wants to buck conventional wisdom.

That audience—you!—can build the alternative to the click machine. You can invest in facts and transparency. You can expose that which hides in the shadows (like the Trump campaign’s refusal to disavow endorsements from every far-right, Nazi, and militia group out there.) And you can ensure that when politicians try to push voters’ buttons, journalists don’t just give them a platform, but challenge them with the truth.

So join us. Help us show that it’s possible to make in-depth reporting sustainable, especially with ongoing, sustaining support. We want to build a model that others in the media can follow. Let’s all get off the fear-hate-anger treadmill.

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The Fear-Hate-Anger Click Machine

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The Obama Administration Finally Revealed How Many Civilians Have Died in Drone Strikes

by AntonyDodson Posted on July 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Obama administration announced on Friday that the United States has killed a much lower number of civilians in drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia than have been previously estimated by outside researchers.

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said airstrikes (overwhelmingly by drones) killed between 64 and 116 civilians in those four countries from 2009 to 2015. The numbers excluded “areas of active hostilities” such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

The report is the first time the Obama administration has provided official estimates of the death toll in the secretive drone war. President Barack Obama also issued an executive order on Friday that requires the government to deliver an unclassified report on drone strikes each year that includes the number of combatants and noncombatants killed. The order also instructs the government to ramp up its efforts to avoid civilian casualties and acknowledge them when they do occur. Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, reacted to the order on Twitter by calling it a “positive step but riddled with caveats and weak formulations.”

The official numbers are significantly lower than the totals compiled by journalists and researchers. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a London-based investigative news outlet, calculates that the Obama administration has killed at least 325 civilians in drone strikes outside of war zones (and possibly hundreds more). The liberal-leaning New America Foundation counts anywhere from 247 to 294 civilian deaths. In both cases, the minimum numbers are more than double the government’s maximum estimate. Those estimates also exclude strikes in Libya.

The government’s report acknowledged that official numbers would vary from outside estimates. While calling some of the nongovernmental data “credible reporting,” the report argued that the US government is more experienced in assessing strikes, and better informed, thanks to classified information about the strikes that outside sources can’t access. “The U.S. Government uses post-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over the years and that use information that is generally unavailable to non-governmental organizations,” it noted.

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The Obama Administration Finally Revealed How Many Civilians Have Died in Drone Strikes

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After Harambe’s Death, Rethinking Zoos

by Myrna Posted on June 2, 2016

One of the tragedies of the death of Harambe at the Cincinnati Zoo is that, captive from birth, he never experienced what it was like to be a gorilla. Taken from:  After Harambe’s Death, Rethinking Zoos ; ; ;

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After Harambe’s Death, Rethinking Zoos

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Tech and Privacy Experts Erupt Over Leaked Encryption Bill

by JaimeLevering Posted on April 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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A draft of a highly anticipated Senate encryption bill was leaked to The Hill late on Thursday night, sparking a swift backlash from technology and privacy groups even before the legislation has been introduced.

The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Both senators are leading advocates for encryption “backdoors” that would allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to read secure messages. Some government officials, led by FBI Director James Comey, say such access is needed because criminals and terrorists are increasingly using encryption to dodge surveillance as they plot crimes and attacks. But tech and privacy advocates say there’s nothing to prevent cybercriminals and hackers from exploiting the same backdoors.

The Burr-Feinstein bill would require companies to respond to court orders for data by providing decrypted information or giving the government “such technical assistance as is necessary to obtain such information or data in an intelligible format.” The bill covers virtually every company involved with providing secure internet services, from device manufacturers and the makers of encrypted chat apps to “any person who provides a product or method to facilitate a communication or the processing or storage of data.” The bill does not lay out the penalties for refusing to comply with such court orders, as Apple recently did when it rejected the FBI’s request to help unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. An Apple lawyer declined to comment on the bill during a conference call with reporters on Friday.

Cryptography experts and privacy advocates immediately and overwhelmingly condemned the bill. “I could spend all night listing the various ways that Feinstein-Burr is flawed & dangerous. But let’s just say, ‘in every way possible,'” wrote Matt Blaze, a prominent cryptographer and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, in a tweet late on Thursday night. Julian Sanchez, a privacy and technology expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, responded similarly:

Advocates charge that the bill’s broad language will act as a dragnet, making nearly every tech company that provides an encrypted service subject to decryption requests that smaller companies may be unable to handle. “It will force companies that have implemented the strongest security measures to backtrack in order to poke holes in their own systems, and will prevent others from developing those systems in the first place,” said Amie Stepanovich, the US policy director for the digital freedom advocacy group Access Now, in a statement.

Reuters reported on Thursday that the White House would not support the bill, in keeping with its pledge last year not to demand any laws mandating backdoors into encryption. But White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz insisted the report was wrong and that the bill was still under review. “The idea that we’re going to withhold support for a bill that’s not introduced yet is inaccurate,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

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Tech and Privacy Experts Erupt Over Leaked Encryption Bill

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What’s the Deal With Donald Trump’s Mustache?

by whatisthebestcctvdvrsoftware Posted on March 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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The last couple of weeks have been pretty hard on Donald Trump, and he’s showing the strain by turning up the insult meter to 11. His favorite quarry, of course, is Megyn Kelly:

Crazy @megynkelly supposedly had lyin’ Ted Cruz on her show last night. Ted is desperate and his lying is getting worse. Ted can’t win!
Crazy @megynkelly is now complaining that @oreillyfactor did not defend her against me – yet her bad show is a total hit piece on me. Tough!
Highly overrated & crazy @megynkelly is always complaining about Trump and yet she devotes her shows to me. Focus on others Megyn!
Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump! She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv.

Plus there’s been all this in just the past couple of days:

$35M of negative ads against me in Florida…. Stuart Stevens, the failed campaign manager of Mitt Romney’s historic loss…. lyin’ Ted Cruz has lost so much of the evangelical vote…. @WSJ is bad at math….Who should star in a reboot of Liar Liar- Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz?…. Lyin’ Ted Cruz lost all five races on Tuesday.

@EWErickson got fired like a dog from RedState…. millions of dollars of negative and phony ads against me by the establishment…. Club For Growth tried to extort $1,000,000 from me…. Lyin’ Ted Cruz should not be allowed to win in Utah – Mormons don’t like LIARS!…. Mitt Romney is a mixed up man who doesn’t have a clue.

I’ll grant that Trump has a point about the Wall Street Journal. Their editorial page really is bad at math. The rest is just a sustained whinefest from a guy who judges everyone in the world by the standard of how sycophantic they are toward Donald Trump. His preoccupation with Megyn Kelly prompted this from the normally mild-mannered Bret Baier:

Fox favorite Geraldo Rivera, no shrinking violet, said Trump’s obsession with Kelly “is almost bordering on the unhealthy.” Almost? Fox News itself followed up with a barrage of anti-Trump tweets and this statement on Facebook:

Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks against Megyn Kelly and his extreme, sick obsession with her is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate who wants to occupy the highest office in the land….As the mother of three young children, with a successful law career and the second highest rated show in cable news, it’s especially deplorable for her to be repeatedly abused just for doing her job.

So there you have it. It’s Fox vs. Trump yet again. So far, I don’t think Fox has won any of these street fights, but maybe they’re due. I guess it depends on whether they keep it up, or lamely make amends the way they usually do.

Finally, in other Trump news, this is from an interview he did a couple of days ago. What’s with the mustache?

Excerpt from:

What’s the Deal With Donald Trump’s Mustache?

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