News of the World

[kyonides]

NSA director urges Congress to renew controversial intelligence authority

NSA Director and head of U.S. Cyber Command Gen. Paul Nakasone said in remarks on Thursday that intelligence authorities up for renewal later this year have played a key role in protecting the United States against cyberattacks.

Nakasone’s remarks at a virtual meeting of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board offered a preview of what is expected to be an intense political fight later this year to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — a law that provides U.S. intelligence agencies wide-ranging authorities to conduct surveillance of foreign persons located abroad and which civil liberties advocates argue is in desperate need of greater transparency.

Section 702 will expire at the end of the year unless Congress acts, and on Thursday Nakasone made the case that “the authority plays an outsized role in protecting our nation.”
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NSA General Counsel April Doss and Mike Herrington, the FBI’s senior operations advisor for FISA Section 702 reauthorization, said in remarks at the Thursday event that the law is a key tool in combatting growing cyber threats but were vague on details regarding operations the law has enabled, instead offering to brief PCLOB members in a classified setting.

A law that's vague on details on how some obscure entity should operate...
 That should make you think quite a lot, don't you think?  

Biden’s Home Where Documents Were Discovered Has Had Many Visitors

On Sunday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) sent a letter to the Biden White House, requesting that he release the visitors logs for his residence from the start of Biden’s presidency onward. The Biden White House soon replied that it does not keep visitor logs for the personal residence.

Even without full visitor logs, publicly available information has indicated that a number of visitors have been to the Delaware property in recent years. For example, an October 2021 White House press release stated Biden hosted Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) at the property to discuss Biden’s political agenda.

In his letter to the White House, Comer also said his committee is in possession of evidence that the president’s son, Hunter Biden, listed his father’s Wilmington address on his driver’s license as recently as 2018.
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In their 2021 book “Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency,” journalists Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen described how the 2020 Biden campaign held several campaign meetings in Biden’s home. One excerpt from the book described a meeting in January 2019, in which Biden met at his home with his political advisers, including long-time confidante Steve Ricchetti, campaign manager Greg Shultz, and “heavyweight money bundler” Mark Gilbert.

Another excerpt describes a March 12, 2020, meeting in which Biden gathered at his house with his debate prep team, a group that included his sister, Valerie Owens Biden, and his press aide Elizabeth Alexander. Also present at that meeting was the current White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, current Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, 2020 deputy campaign adviser Kate Bedingfield, 2020 campaign adviser Symone Sanders, and “a handful of other advisers.”

Bob Bauer, the former White House counsel for the Obama administration, also participated in debate prep with Biden in the basement of his Wilmington home, preparing him for the final three debates before the 2020 general election, according to the book.

In “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House,” author Chris Whipple also described how Biden was in the library of his Wilmington home on Jan. 6, 2021, with current White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed when they saw the news that demonstrators had breached the U.S. Capitol.

Biden Says Americans Would ‘Need Some F-15s’ to Fight Government

Biden made the comments during the National Action Network’s (NAN) annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast in Washington, where he vowed to ban what he called “assault weapons,” referring to semiautomatic sporting rifles in the style of an AR-15.

“I love my right-wing friends who talk about ‘the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots,'” he said. “If you need to worry about taking on the federal government, you need some F-15s. You don’t need an AR-15.”

Biden’s comment was a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” Jefferson wrote in a 1787 letter to William Stephens Smith, the son-in-law of John Adams.
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“If you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons,” he said during a June 2021 speech outlining his plan to tackle gun violence.

Is a sitting US president asking people to depose him by force?  

Turkish Bank Urges US Supreme Court to Halt Prosecution Over Dodging Iran Sanctions

A bank controlled by Turkey told the Supreme Court Jan. 17 that it should not be criminally prosecuted in U.S. courts for allegedly helping Iran defy U.S. economic sanctions because it enjoys legal immunity as an arm of the Turkish government.

The petitioner in the case of Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States, court file 21-1450, also known as Halkbank, is 75 percent owned by the Turkish Wealth Fund, which in turn is owned by the Republic of Turkey.

Istanbul-based Halkbank is accused of participating in a criminal conspiracy involving money laundering, bank fraud, and assisting terrorism-sponsoring Iran in evading U.S. economic sanctions.

The case has made U.S. relations with Turkey, a NATO ally, difficult at times. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the U.S. government’s decision to prosecute the bank was “ugly” and “unlawful” and has urged that the case be withdrawn.

A trial against Halkbank has been put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the appeal.

US Defense Chief to Hold Talks With ‘Critical Allies’ Amid China, North Korea Threats

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit South Korea and the Philippines to bolster ties with “critical allies” in the face of growing threats posed by the communist Chinese and North Korean regimes, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
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The visit follows Austin’s recent meeting with Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada at the Pentagon on Jan. 12, at which they agreed to start “intensive discussions” on the roles of the U.S.-Japan alliance after Japan acquired counterstrike capability.
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North Korea fired an unprecedented number of missiles last year, one of which involved a Hwasong-17, which experts dubbed a “monster missile” capable of striking anywhere in the United States and beyond.
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However, Austin cast doubt on claims that the CCP was planning an imminent invasion of Taiwan despite the regime’s recent provocative actions toward the self-ruled island.
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Japan is concerned about its own vulnerability as the CCP boosts its military drills near Taiwan and the East China Sea, where the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands are situated.

Any attack on Taiwan could also threaten Philippine security because of its proximity to Taiwan, which sits on the north side of the Luzon Strait.

Philippine President Marcos Jr. said Monday that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is facing “strong pressure” from major powers to choose sides amid geopolitical rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region.
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Marcos said that ASEAN nations would forge alliances and pursue their own goals without being influenced by any countries. He signed 14 bilateral agreements with CCP leader Xi Jinping on Jan. 4, including a maritime security deal.