The impossible-to-answer question, of course, will be how much yesterday's @AP call of nomination for Clinton widened her #CAPrimary margin

The AP's call for Hillary Clinton ruined California's election party--and here’s why that matters https://t.co/tv736OUu5D

— Mark Steyn (@MarkSteynOnline) June 8, 2016

BOOM! Hillary Clinton CAUGHT COLLUDING WIth AP to Announce Delegate Win Before California! https://t.co/OLjG86bt7q via @gatewaypundit

— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) June 7, 2016

Clinton declares herself the Democratic nominee https://t.co/KycocZc2l9 pic.twitter.com/ZbnBRjnWYi

— The Hill (@thehill) June 8, 2016

The impossible-to-answer question, of course, will be how much yesterday's @AP call of nomination for Clinton widened her #CAPrimary margin

— Doug Sovern (@SovernNation) June 8, 2016

The Dense-Pack Theory of Obama Scandals Accelerates into Hyperdrive

◼ In an article a year ago in the New York Post, Glenn Reynolds added up the IRS scandal alongside the Obama administration’s other debacles, including Benghazi, its journalist-snooping scandal, and Kathleen Sebelius’ shakedown of the healthcare industry before asking, “Tired already?” - Ed Driscoll/PJMedia
◼ “Scandalclipse” - Johan Goldberg/National Review

Have you noticed that basically the only way this White House can get out from under one scandal or controversy is by getting crushed by another? The White House was reeling from the VA scandal, which is why they rolled out the Bergdahl news. They didn’t expect that the Bergdahl story would become so controversial; fortunately they were rescued by the June 6 news of thousands of immigrant children showing up at the border. Hey, quick question: I can’t get my kid out of an airport without her getting messy. Isn’t it strange that all of these kids seem to show up, after a 1,000-mile journey looking so spiffy? Anyway, the immigrant-kid story was pretty brutal for the White House; fortunately they were rescued three days later by the news that ISIS had taken Mosul. The “Who Lost Iraq?” narrative isn’t great for the White House either, which is why it might have been a relief when the IRS announced on June 13 that they lost Lois Lerner’s e-mails.

◼ Does a rogue, low-level email archiving company have backups of ‘lost’ IRS emails? - Michelle Malkin

...Sonasoft’s six-year business relationship with the IRS came to an abrupt end at the close of fiscal year 2011, as congressional investigators began looking into the IRS conservative targeting scandal and IRS employees’ computers started crashing left and right....

◼ Obama: Not 'even a smidgen of corruption' in IRS scandal; Blames Fox News & Conservative groups

AP photographer hits White House: 'Once we lose access, we'll never get it back'

◼ In the latest media charge that the White House has reneged on promises to be “transparent,” two of AP's White House staff told a convention in Denver this week that the president's team often bars coverage of Obama events because they are “hypersensitive” about his Image. - Paul Bedard/Washington Examiner

At the Newspaper Association of America's mediaXchange convention in Denver, AP White House photographer Charles Dharapak said that instead of letting reporters and photographers in at major news events, like the president's recent meeting with the Dalai Lama, it is issuing “virtual press releases” on social media.

He suggested that in cutting reporters from events that have historically received coverage, the White House is limiting access to independent news organizations. "Once we lose access, we'll never get it back," he told convention participants.

◼ No Reporters on Michelle Obama's Trip to China - Daniel Halper/Weekly Standard

"Michelle Obama’s trip to China starting on Wednesday will be nonpolitical, the White House says, a 'people-to-people exchange' emphasizing the importance that both nations place on education. As if to underscore the point, no reporters are traveling with the first lady, and she does not plan to give interviews while there," reports the New York Times....

"Some conservative commentators are calling the China trip a junket. The White House will not say how much it will cost."

Reporter Bob Franken Blasts Obama on MSNBC: ‘Most Hostile’ to Press ‘in U.S. History’

◼ link - Noah Rothman/Mediaite

The segment began with Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank observing that a number of photojournalists have protested this White House’s decision to block photographers from independent media outlets from getting the best shots in favor of White House-approved photographers. He noted that this practice can be construed as an effort to attempt to manipulate public opinion.

“Let’s use the ‘P’ word here: it’s propaganda,” said syndicated columnist and former White House reporter Bob Franken. “Every administration tries to manipulate the press, but this is the most hostile to the media that has been in United States history.”

◼ If only this discussion had addressed the media's role - particularly MSNBC's! - in propagandizing the nation. That really would have been extraordinary. - Noel Sheppard/Newsbusters
◼ Photojournalists Protest White House’s Aggressive, ‘Stalinist’ Image-Making of Obama - Noah Rothman/Mediaite
◼ NPR Reporter Frustrated by WH’s Transparency: ‘Have to Take Their Word’ on Obamacare Site Fixes - Noah Rothman/Mediaite
◼ Even Obama-besotted NPR is losing patience. - Discussion at Lucianne

REPORT: OBAMA BRINGS CHILLING EFFECT ON JOURNALISM

◼ The U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration. - BRETT ZONGKER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Committee to Protect Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists' records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad....

"In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press," wrote Downie, now a journalism professor at Arizona State University. "The administration's war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post's investigation of Watergate."

...To bypass journalists, the White House developed its own network of websites, social media and even created an online newscast to dispense favorable information and images. In some cases, the White House produces videos of the president's meetings with major figures that were never listed on his public schedule. Instead, they were kept secret - a departure from past administrations, the report noted.

Syria again throws spotlight on selective leak policy

◼ Obama is coming under fire from Republicans, editorialists and even civil libertarians for his seemingly selective outrage — and selective investigation — when it comes to the sharing of American secrets. - Jonathan Allen/Politico

President Barack Obama has defended his aggressive pursuit and prosecution of certain leakers by arguing that the release of national security secrets can endanger American forces.

But he and his aides have been silent so far on his own administration’s campaign to detail war plans for a series of strikes on Syria that are expected in the coming days. A National Security Council spokeswoman referred questions about whether Obama would launch an investigation into Syria leaking to the Justice Department....

One former Obama White House official said it’s too easy to reach the conclusion that the Syria plans were part of a coordinated leak by the administration.

“I think way too often reporters assume a leak is on purpose rather than just a leak,” the former official said. “Unless there’s evidence otherwise, it’s my experience that these things are rarely planned.”

Still, there’s been no talk of looking into who leaked. And some observers have little doubt.

“It’s remarkable. I haven’t seen anything like that in the past,” retired Gen. Paul Eaton of the National Security Network said of the Syria leaking, suggesting it may have been designed to see what reaction the plans would draw from various audiences at home and abroad.

“This administration has done a lot of trial balloon work,” he said.

◼ No Regime Change—and Maybe No Strike At All - Lee Smith/Weekly Standard

If Obama is now giving the impression that, in spite of all the press leaks early this week that made him look decisive and virile, he’s having second thoughts, the defiant Assad’s allies and supporters are rallying around the regime and puffing their chests. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, threatened retaliation against Israel, a boast echoed in pro-Hezbollah corners in Lebanon. On a pro-regime Facebook page, a caricature of a bulked up Syrian soldier tells a trembling Uncle Sam, “Looks like you’ve forgotten what the Syrian Arab Army is.”

◼ Distinguished Admiral: The White House isn't just leaking(information), it's coming out through a hose. - Discussion at Lucianne

◼ In Syria, U.S. credibility is at stake - David Ignatius/Washington Post

Using military power to maintain a nation’s credibility may sound like an antiquated idea, but it’s all too relevant in the real world we inhabit. It has become obvious in recent weeks that President Obama, whose restrained and realistic foreign policy I generally admire, needs to demonstrate that there are consequences for crossing a U.S. “red line.” Otherwise, the coherence of the global system begins to dissolve.

The Snowden story, they both said, was a battle they were waging together, a fight against powers of surveillance that they both believe are a threat to fundamental American liberties. UPDATED

◼ How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets - New York Times

She is not as expansive or carefree as Greenwald, which adds to their odd-couple chemistry. She is concerned about their physical safety. She is also, of course, worried about surveillance. “Geolocation is the thing,” she said. “I want to keep as much off the grid as I can. I’m not going to make it easy for them. If they want to follow me, they are going to have to do that. I am not going to ping into any G.P.S. My location matters to me. It matters to me in a new way that I didn’t feel before.”

There are lots of people angry with them and lots of governments, as well as private entities, that would not mind taking possession of the thousands of N.S.A. documents they still control. They have published only a handful — a top-secret, headline-grabbing, Congressional-hearing-inciting handful — and seem unlikely to publish everything, in the style of WikiLeaks. They are holding onto more secrets than they are exposing, at least for now.

“We have this window into this world, and we’re still trying to understand it,” Poitras said in one of our last conversations. “We’re not trying to keep it a secret, but piece the puzzle together. That’s a project that is going to take time. Our intention is to release what’s in the public interest but also to try to get a handle on what this world is, and then try to communicate that.”

The deepest paradox, of course, is that their effort to understand and expose government surveillance may have condemned them to a lifetime of it.

“Our lives will never be the same,” Poitras said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to live someplace and feel like I have my privacy. That might be just completely gone.”

◼ Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow for 9 hours - The Guardian
◼ HELD UNDER UK TERRORISM ACT - NYT

“What’s amazing is this law, called the Terrorism Act, gives them a right to detain and question you about your activities with a terrorist organization or your possible involvement in or knowledge of a terrorism plot,” Mr. Greenwald said. “The only thing they were interested in was N.S.A. documents and what I was doing with Laura Poitras. It’s a total abuse of the law.” He added: “This is obviously a serious, radical escalation of what they are doing. He is my partner. He is not even a journalist.”

◼ 'Profound attack on press freedoms' - Glenn Greenwald/The Guardian

This is obviously a rather profound escalation of their attacks on the news-gathering process and journalism. It's bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It's worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they felt threatened by. But the UK puppets and their owners in the US national security state obviously are unconstrained by even those minimal scruples.

If the UK and US governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded. If anything, it will have only the opposite effect: to embolden us even further. Beyond that, every time the US and UK governments show their true character to the world - when they prevent the Bolivian President's plane from flying safely home, when they threaten journalists with prosecution, when they engage in behavior like what they did today - all they do is helpfully underscore why it's so dangerous to allow them to exercise vast, unchecked spying power in the dark.

◼ Britain forced Guardian to destroy copy of Snowden material - Reuters

...In an article posted on the British newspaper's website on Monday, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said that a month ago, after the newspaper had published several stories based on Snowden's material, a British official advised him: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back."

...The Guardian reported, and UK authorities subsequently confirmed, that David Miranda, Greenwald's Brazilian partner, was detained by British authorities under an anti-terrorism law as he was in transit from Berlin to Brazil and was changing planes at London's Heathrow Airport....

Greenwald told the New York Times that Miranda went to Berlin to deliver materials downloaded by Snowden to Poitras and to acquire from Poitras a different set of materials for delivery to Greenwald, who lives with Miranda near Rio de Janeiro.
Greenwald said British authorities seized all electronic media, including data memory sticks, which Miranda was carrying. But Greenwald told the Forbes website that "everything" Miranda had "was heavily encrypted."

The Mother of All Scandals

◼ IRS? AP? NSA? Benghazi? - Victor Davis Hanson/PJM

There were absolutely no professional consequences for publicly lying — to the nation, to television audiences, to the relatives of the deceased, to the United Nations — that the Nakoula video was the cause of the deaths of our Benghazi personnel. Barack Obama was reelected. Hillary “what difference does it make” Clinton retired from the secretary of State post to congratulations and media frenzy about her likely 2016 presidential campaign. Susan Rice was promoted to National Security advisor.

There is almost no one left at his 2012 post. In addition to the above, General Carter Ham, in charge of Africa Command, has retired. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has retired. CIA Director David Petraeus has resigned.

How did it happen that just nine months after the attack, most all of the relevant decision-makers — Clinton, Ham, Panetta, Petraeus, Rice — have vanished from their jobs?

...A False Campaign?

The election of 2012 may well have been altered by the Benghazi cover-up, in ways that transcend debate moderator Candy Crowley’s puerile and unprofessional efforts to shield Obama from Romney’s questioning about the deaths. Imagine the fallout on voters had we been told from the very beginning that an al-Qaeda affiliate had stormed our consulate — ill-prepared and unable to obtain needed beefed-up security, reliant for safety on local suspect tribal militias, in a country that had deteriorated into a failed society after our Libyan bombing — and slaughtered four Americans, apparently stationed in Benghazi to help in some way a covert CIA operation.

So here we have it: a beleaguered “consulate” that was refused additional security and relied on local militias, apparently due to administration worry over destroying an Obama campaign narrative of a reborn Libya and dying al-Qaeda. A CIA operation of some sort supplied something to someone, but what and why and to whom, we are not supposed to know. Four Americans, the very best the country had to offer, are dead, denied assistance when assistance could have saved them — the why and the how and the when of it all we are not told. We fear it might have been a crackpot cost-benefit analysis: four lives versus another Mogadishu and an Obama November defeat.

We know only that the dead were far more heroic than the leaders who chose not to aid them.

◼ Obama's "phoney" scandals in exquisite detail. - Discussion at Lucianne

"No fair, objective journalist can look at the facts of this flagrant abuse of power and not conclude that it is a massive political scandal deserving of constant, merciless scrutiny"

◼ Are media buying into ‘phony scandal’ claim?

...The "phony scandal" line was the unofficial talking point of the week in Washington. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made it his fallback retort from the podium -- when asked about the president's new wave of speeches on the economy, Carney explained Obama was trying to refocus Washington away from "fake" controversies.
For three speeches in a row, Obama hammered this refrain: "With this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball."

...But given the attention their own networks gave the IRS and other scandals just a few weeks earlier, a number of journalists and media personalities refused to go easy on the president this week.

On MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough ripped into Carney on Wednesday after the press secretary claimed the attention on "phony scandals" had all "come to naught."



◼ Carney shifts away from ‘phony’ scandals, Scarborough says not so fast - MSNBC

Scarborough Goes Off On Jay Carney: 'I'm Not Someone You Talk Down To From Your Podium'

“Is that the truth or not, Jay?” Scarborough asked. “I want to talk about the economy, but don’t give me talking points because that doesn’t work on this show and you’ve been here long enough to realize that doesn’t work on this show!”

FEDS DEMAND WEB FIRMS TURN OVER PASSWORDS

◼ Secret demands mark escalation in Internet surveillance by the federal government through gaining access to user passwords, which are typically stored in encrypted form. - C/Net

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

◼ NSA's New Spy Facility is 7 Times Bigger Than Pentagon... - DefenseOne

◼ How Nancy Pelosi Saved the NSA Surveillance Program - John Hudson/FP The Cable

Ahead of the razor-thin 205-217 vote, which would have severely limited the NSA's ability to collect data on Americans' telephone records if passed, Pelosi privately and aggressively lobbied wayward Democrats to torpedo the amendment, a Democratic committee aid with knowledge of the deliberations tells The Cable.

Dirty Wars author Jeremy Scahill: is journalism being criminalised? – video interview

◼ In the wake of whistleblower Edward Snowden's leak of NSA files, Jeremy Scahill, author of Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield and featured reporter in the new documentary film of the same name, says under the Obama administration journalists are being intruded upon and whistleblowers are being charged with crimes. - Guardian.uk

Michael Hastings’ Chilling Final Story:Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans

◼ Besides Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, most Democrats abandoned their civil liberty positions during the age of Obama. With a new leak investigation looming, the Democrat leadership are now being forced to confront all the secrets they’ve tried to hide. - Michael Hastings/Buzzfeed

For most bigwig Democrats in Washington, D.C., the last 48 hours has delivered news of the worst kind — a flood of new information that has washed away any lingering doubts about where President Obama and his party stand on civil liberties, full stop.

Glenn Greenwald’s exposure of the NSA’s massive domestic spy program has revealed the entire caste of current Democratic leaders as a gang of civil liberty opportunists, whose true passion, it seems, was in trolling George W. Bush for eight years on matters of national security....

Transparency supporters, whistleblowers, and investigative reporters, especially those writers who have aggressively pursued the connections between the corporate defense industry and federal and local authorities involved in domestic surveillance, have been viciously attacked by the Obama administration and its allies in the FBI and DOJ.

Jacob Appplebaum, a transparency activist and computer savant, has been repeatedly harassed at American borders, having his laptop seized. Barrett Brown, another investigative journalist who has written for Vanity Fair, among others publications, exposed the connections between the private contracting firm HB Gary (a government contracting firm that, incidentally, proposed a plan to spy on and ruin the reputation of the Guardian’s Greenwald) and who is currently sitting in a Texas prison on trumped up FBI charges regarding his legitimate reportorial inquiry into the political collective known sometimes as Anonymous.

◼ Michael Hastings conspiracy theories: Web goes wild after NSA, CIA reporter killed in crash... - NY Daily News

Less than a day after the BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone reporter died in a fiery car crash at age 33, conspiracy theorists are speculating that there is more than meets the eye over Hasting's demise.

News of reporter and writer Michael Hastings´ death at the age of only 33 has shaken the journalism community across the nation, as well as fans of the writer´s hard-hitting reporting.(Snip)conspiracy theorists are speculating that there is more than meets the eye over Hasting´s demise. Twitter, Facebook, and sharing site Reddit were abuzz Wednesday, with some users commenting that it was suspicious that Hastings, who famously brought down U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal in a Rolling Stone cover story, died while in the middle of covering several hot-button topics like monitoring by the National Security Agency and the CIA.

...As the International Business Times notes, "some of the details surrounding the story [of Hastings' death] read like a poorly-written political thriller."

...A community board on Reddit has already begun delving into possible conspiracy theories, from opinions that the car was either rigged to lose control or burst into flames at a certain time to brake wires being frayed.

"A warning to other journalists to not dig too deep," one Reddit user wrote. "Stick with the party line if you want a long, happy life."

◼ Michael Hastings’ Chilling Final Story - Bryan Preston/PJMedia

Journalist Michael Hastings was killed early Tuesday morning in a bizarre car incident in Los Angeles. Hastings, 33, was best known for writing the Rolling Stone story that ended in Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s resignation as head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Hastings’ final story, “Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans,” was a searing take on the NSA snooping scandal, which Hastings described as “North Korea-esque.” Hastings pulled no punches as he linked the NSA scandal to the Department of Justice’s spying on reporters and the IRS abuse scandal. Hastings built a case that the same Democrats who turned Bush-era anti-terrorism techniques into wedge issues that helped them capture Congress and the White House in 2006 and 2008 were now defending much worse and more widespread spying on American citizens by the Obama administration....

At the end of the story, Hastings mentions by name several Americans who have come under questionable government scrutiny in the Obama years. Several are household names, but some are not.

Hastings died in a fatal single-car crash at 4:25 on Tuesday morning. A witness said his car “suddenly jackknifed” before crossing the median and hitting a tree, causing a ferocious explosion that reportedly threw the engine block of the brand new Mercedes Hastings was driving 30 or 40 yards from the car. Mercedes engine blocks typically weigh between 290 and 540 pounds. It would take tremendous speed or force to throw one nearly half the length of a football field.

“It sounded like a bomb went off in the middle of the night,” another witness told the TV station. “The house shook, my windows were rattling.”

Hastings’ body was burned “beyond recognition,” according to reports.

◼ WikiLeaks says Michael Hastings contacted it just before his death. Are they implying he was murdered? - Telegraph

◼ WikiLeaks: Hastings Said He Was Being Investigated By FBI - CBS LA

Questions persist following the death of Michael Hastings Tuesday, after reports that the award-winning journalist told WikiLeaks the government was watching him.

WikiLeaks tweeted a message to their millions of followers Wednesday stating that the 33-year-old author and war correspondent had contacted the organization’s lawyer to say he was being watched by the FBI.

AP: Sources have stopped talking...

◼ US seizure of journalist records called 'chilling' - France24

The US government's secret seizure of Associated Press phone records had a "chilling effect" on newsgathering by the agency and other news organizations, AP's top executive said Wednesday.

"Some longtime trusted sources have become nervous and anxious about talking with us," AP president and chief executive Gary Pruitt said in a speech to the National Press Club.

"In some cases, government employees we once checked in with regularly will no longer speak to us by phone. Others are reluctant to meet in person ... This chilling effect on newsgathering is not just limited to AP.

"Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me that it has intimidated both official and nonofficial sources from speaking to them as well."

◼ Associated Press president Gary Pruitt on Wednesday slammed the Department of Justice for acting as “judge, jury and executioner” in the seizure of the news organization’s phone records and he said some of the wire service’s longtime sources have clammed up in fear. - MacKenzie Weinger/Politico

“This chilling effect is not just at AP, it’s happening at other news organizations as well,” Pruitt added. “Journalists from other news organizations have personally told me it has intimidated sources from speaking to them. Now, the government may love this. I suspect they do. But beware the government that loves secrecy too much.”

MEDIA FAIL: POLL SHOWS OBAMA LOST PUBLIC TRUST

◼ While our corrupt media has done its best to turn the page on Barack Obama's myriad of scandals, the deep-dive numbers in a new Fox News poll are absolutely devastating for the president. These numbers also reflect what we are seeing in other polls and Obama's overall approval ratings -- though the media are willfully ignoring reporting on both. - John Nolte/Breitbart

-- 56 percent of voters believe Obama did not try to rescue the doomed garrison in Benghazi, Libya because he didn’t want to risk his re-election.

-- 62 percent agree that Obama’s NSA phone surveillance constitutes “an unacceptable and alarming invasion of privacy rights.”

-- 63 percent believe that Obama’s Justice Department seized reporter’s records for political reasons, compared to 29 percent who take the administration’s national security argument to be true.

-- 68 percent believe that the White House isn’t telling the truth about the targeting of the president’s political enemies by the IRS. Just 24 percent believe the White House line that Team Obama neither directed nor was aware of the targeting.

-- 74 percent said that when it comes to openness and transparency, the Obama administration is either the same or worse than George W. Bush’s administration.

The first number, showing a full 56% believe Obama ignored the pleas for help from our diplomats in Libya for political purposes, is a mind-blower. It also proves that the mainstream media's attempt to downplay the scandal, and to vigorously fight against the truth getting out, is simply not working. - More, at the link.

Jeanine Pirro: “In God We Trust – In This Government, Not So Much” (Video)

◼ Pirro grabbed hold of the “trust” theme in her opening statement on her Fox Show show, “Justice With Judge Jeanine”, and she didn’t let go. - Nice Deb

It’s the swift eroding of “trust” people have in this dishonest and corrupt Regime that has made the NSA surveillance story into such a scandal. We’re seeing ”hookers and drugs in the State Dept, Big Brother invading your privacy, and more vindictive retaliatory acts towards those Americans perceived by this administration as the enemy…” Who can trust such a Regime?

CBS News confirms multiple breaches of Sharyl Attkisson’s computer

◼ CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson revealed in May that her computer had been compromised. When asked about the situation, CBS News responded with a statement that it was conducting an investigation. - Erik Wemple/Washington Post

That investigation has reached the following conclusions, according to CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair:

“A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.

This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.

CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access.”

◼ Hacking occurred during time when Attkisson was reporting on Benghazi attack - Ed Morrissey/HotAir

What was going on in “late 2012″? Well, that would have been the controversy over the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi. And, checking the record, we see that Attkisson had a very interesting scoop on October 20th, relying on anonymous military sources that called into question the Obama administration’s claim that they couldn’t have responded in time to assist in the attack:

CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle.

The State Department, White House and Pentagon declined to say what military options were available. A White House official told CBS News that, at the start of the attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies.”

But it was too late to help the Americans in Benghazi. The ambassador and three others were dead.

A White House official told CBS News that a “small group of reinforcements” was sent from Tripoli to Benghazi, but declined to say how many or what time they arrived.

Retired CIA officer Gary Berntsen believes help could have come much sooner. He commanded CIA counter-terrorism missions targeting Osama bin Laden and led the team that responded after bombings of the U.S. Embassy in East Africa.

“You find a way to make this happen,” Berntsen says. “There isn’t a plan for every single engagement. Sometimes you have to be able to make adjustments. They made zero adjustments in this. They stood and they watched and our people died.”

Before the Rosen revelation, the DoJ would have been unthinkable as a suspect. If I were CBS now, though, I’d be executing a FOIA demand to know whether Eric Holder and the Department of Justice acquired a Rosen-like warrant on Attkisson in the days after that scoop went live.

◼ 'I assume someone wanted to see what I was working on' - John P. Filo/AP via Washington Post

She said in an interview Friday that she was “outraged” by the breach, which did not appear to be aimed at extracting personal financial information.

“This wasn’t any ordinary malware of a phishing attempt,” that is, an effort to gain personal information, she said. “I assume someone wanted to see what I was working on.”

JONAH GOLDBERG: The IRS and NSA scandals show the president can't be trusted to keep politics out of government.

◼ We can't trust Obama - Jonah Goldberg/LA Times

AP Demolishes the Obama Presidency in One Brutal Piece

◼ If you’re a Democrat, you might want to hold your hand over your child’s eyes. - Independent Journal Review

This is from Liz Sidotti of the Associated Press (that’s right — the AP):

Read the whole delicious thing, savor it, and then share the news to your friends who may not understand what “right-wingers” have been squawking about for four long years.

◼ COLUMN: MOUNTING CONTROVERSIES ARE ALL ABOUT TRUST - LIZ SIDOTI | The Associated Press

SNOOPING CONCERNS EMERGE OVER CONGRESSIONAL BLACKBERRIES SERVICED BY VERIZON

◼ Amid the revelations that the National Security Agency has been secretly monitoring the records of millions of phone calls across the country via telephone service provider Verizon, Congress is concerned that the NSA's actions may have also captured phone calls of lawmakers and their staffers. It should be noted that Verizon is one of the main service providers to government issued Blackberries members and their staff use to communicate with one another. - Breitbart News

A senior hill staffer on the House side told Breitbart News on Sunday, “I have grave concerns over the privacy of communications between staff and their member of Congress. All of our communications go through Verizon or ATT to reach our Blackberries." The staffer added, "Through a blanket seizing of these communications, the NSA is permanently intercepting and storing privileged material. This rasies further constitutional issues regarding separation of powers."

A senior Senate staffer agreed telling Breitbart News, "Senators and staff all use Verizon phones. So the executive branch is monitoring the meta data of the Senate. This seems like a violation of the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution."

Edward Snowden has blown the whistle on this presidency. You have to wonder: Will Obama see out his full term?

◼ Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations - Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras in Hong Kong
guardian.co.uk VIDEO INTERVIEW at the link

◼ Suddenly the worse-than-Watergate rhetoric doesn't seem overblown. And I do wonder: can a president who's presided over, and possibly encouraged, Chinese-style surveillance of The Land of the Free honestly expect to serve out his full term? - Damian Thompson/The Telegraph

"They could pay off the Triads," says Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower interviewed by the Guardian in his Hong Kong hideout. Meaning: the CIA could use a proxy to kill him for revealing that Barack Obama has presided over an unimaginable – to the ordinary citizen – expansion of the Federal government's powers of surveillance over anyone....

Snowden will be a Right-wing hero as well as a Left-libertarian one. Why? First, he thought carefully about what he should release, avoiding (he says) material that would harm innocent individuals. Second, he's formidably articulate. Quotes like the following are pure gold for opponents of Obama who've been accusing the President of allowing the Bush-era "surveillance state" to extend its tentacles even further:

NSA is focussed on getting intelligence wherever it can by any means possible… Increasingly we see that it's happening domestically. The NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone, it ingests them by default, it collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyses them and it measures them and its stores them for periods of time … While they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government or someone they suspect of terrorism, they're collecting your communications to do so. Any analyst at any time can target anyone…

I do not see how Obama can talk his way out of this one. Snowden is not Bradley Manning: he's not a disturbed disco bunny but a highly articulate network security specialist who has left behind a $200,000 salary and girlfriend in Hawaii for a life on the run. He's not a sleazy opportunist like Julian Assange, either. As he says: "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

It will be very difficult for the Obama administration to portray Snowden as a traitor. For a start, I don't think US public opinion will allow it. Any explanations it offers will be drowned out by American citizens demanding to know: "So how much do you know about me and my family? How can I find out? How long have you been collecting this stuff? What are you going to do with it?"

◼ EDWARD SNOWDEN, THE N.S.A. LEAKER, COMES FORWARD - Amy davidson/New Yorker

“I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the President, if I had a personal e-mail,” Edward Snowden told the Guardian. Snowden is twenty-nine; he had worked in a technical capacity for the C.I.A. and then, by way of his employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, as a contractor for the N.S.A. He is the reason our country has, in the last week, been having a conversation on privacy and the limits of domestic surveillance. That was overdue, and one wishes it had been prompted by self-examination on the part of the Obama Administration or real oversight by Congress. But both failed, and it came in the form of Snowden handing highly classified documents—a lot of them—to journalists.

He did so, he said, because he had seen “abuses”—the framework for an “architecture of oppression”—and had come to “realize that these things have to be decided by the public, not someone who is hired by the government.” Snowden, of course, is someone hired by the government, and will be asked why he thought the decision to expose secrets was his. He offered, in his interview, several answers: one is that the normal processes were broken. The second was that he is willing to come out in the open himself. Saturday night, the N.S.A. asked for a criminal investigation into the leaks. As we learn more about him, in the next days, those answers are worth evaluating seriously.

All of the talk about not specifically targeting Americans should not be reassuring: “The NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for a period of time.”

And why should this bother us? Snowden:

It’s getting to the point, you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they could use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.

As he must know, that scrutiny will now be applied to him.

◼ Edward Snowden, NSA Contractor, Claims to Be Source of Surveillance Program Leaks - ABC

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◼ Code name ‘Verax’: Snowden, in exchanges with Post reporter, made clear he knew risks - Barton Gellman/Washington Post

Edward Joseph Snowden, 29, knew full well the risks he had undertaken and the awesome powers that would soon be arrayed to hunt for him. Pseudonyms were the least of his precautions as we corresponded from afar. Snowden was spilling some of the most sensitive secrets of a surveillance apparatus he had grown to detest. By late last month, he believed he was already “on the X” — exposure imminent.

“I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end,” he wrote in early May, before we had our first direct contact. He warned that even journalists who pursued his story were at risk until they published.

The U.S. intelligence community, he wrote, “will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information.”

I did not believe that literally, but I knew he had reason to fear.

A series of indirect contacts preceded our first direct exchange May 16. Snowden was not yet ready to tell me his name, but he said he was certain to be exposed — by his own hand or somebody else’s. Until then, he asked that I not quote him at length. He said semantic analysis, another of the NSA’s capabilities, would identify him by his patterns of language.

“You can’t protect the source,” he wrote, “but if you help me make the truth known, I will consider it a fair trade.” Later, he added, “There’s no saving me.”

I asked him, at the risk of estrangement, how he could justify exposing intelligence methods that might benefit U.S. adversaries.

“Perhaps I am naive,” he replied, “but I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.” The steady expansion of surveillance powers, he wrote, is “such a direct threat to democratic governance that I have risked my life and family for it.”...