Over at the CIA and the National Security Agency headquarters, they must be really enjoying watching Democrats in Philadelphia squirm over WikiLeaks’s exposure of tens of thousands of internal Democratic Party emails. There’s a word for what is happening in the intelligence community:
Blowback.
Throughout the entirety of the Obama administration, nothing was done as WikiLeaks damaged our national security with its serial leaks of highly classified intelligence documents.
.. When in 2010 WikiLeaks released more than 76,000 secret intelligence documents — exposing “the identities of at least 100 Afghans who were informing on the Taliban, including the names of their villages, family members, the Taliban commanders on whom they were informing, and even GPS coordinates where they could be found,” as I wrote in The Post — nothing was done.
.. Instead of targeting the CIA or the NSA, WikiLeaks has gone after an organization Democrats actually care about — the Democratic National Committee.
As Democrats Gather, a Russian Subplot Raises Intrigue
But the release on Friday of some 20,000 stolen emails from theDemocratic National Committee’s computer servers, many of them embarrassing to Democratic leaders, has intensified discussion of the role of Russian intelligence agencies in disrupting the 2016 campaign.
21st Century Fox responds to report that Roger Ailes is out at Fox News
New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman is reporting that Rupert Murdoch and his sons Lachlan and James have decided to remove Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, following a sexual harassment lawsuit by former anchor Gretchen Carlson.
.. According to Sherman, attorneys at Paul, Weiss are now conducting interviews with current and former Fox News staff in their offices “because of concerns that the Fox offices are bugged.”
Should Border Agents Scroll Through Foreigners’ Facebook Profiles?
A proposed change to a common U.S. customs form would allow the government to vet travelers’ social media accounts.
.. The form would ask some visitors to the U.S. to write down their social-media usernames so that agents can gather more information from their public profiles and timelines.
.. “We should have said, ‘We want your social media, both your private stuff and your public stuff,’” said Stephen Lynch, a Democratic representative from Massachusetts, during a heated House committee hearing in December. “That’s entirely reasonable to ask people who are coming from countries that are known to sponsor terror.”
.. Hall was referring to an incident in 2012, when two tourists from the U.K. were refused entry to the U.S., apparently over a pair of misguided tweets. One of the travelers tweeted that he would “destroy America,” a phrase he later said was slang for his intention to party during his trip. He also tweeted that he would dig up Marilyn Monroe’s grave—this, he claimed, was a reference to Family Guy, a TV show. The travelers were turned back at the Los Angeles airport.
.. Most people’s social media presences aren’t entirely accurate reflections of themselves. Hall, for example, often tweets about satanic death-metal music—but no, he’s not a satanist. “I just find it fascinating, and I used to play in a heavy-metal band,” Hall told me. “If you read from that that I’m traveling someplace to commit some sort of ritual, you’d have a pretty bad insight into what I think is important.”
..Of those people, a whopping 28 percent had something in their profiles that raised a red flag. (And that’s among volunteers who already held security clearances.).. Of those people, a whopping 28 percent had something in their profiles that raised a red flag. (And that’s among volunteers who already held security clearances.).. Comments can only be mailed to CBP’s office in Washington, a restriction Hall says is rare. (Most proposals can be commented on electronically.)