WASHINGTON (AP) — Two days before attention shifts to the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, the White House is trying to create a little buzz for America’s future filmmakers. At a film festival Friday afternoon, President Barack Obama will
According to Reporters Without Borders, America dropped 13 spots on the World Press Freedom Index 2014, designed to rank 180 countries in terms of the freedoms journalists enjoy and the regulations placed on them by government authorities. The Index, published
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has finally started to crack down on waste and fraud in its phone subsidy program for the poor by compiling a database of subscribers. The $1.85 billion program, called Lifeline, and popularly referred to as
If you were planning on attempting to enroll on the ObamaCare website Saturday night you might want to go bowling instead. For the third time since its inception the website is going offline due to needed repairs, and will be
Curious consumers headed over to healthcare.gov on Sunday found themselves out of luck, as the fragile website was out of service. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesman said the website’s outage was the fault of a private contractor.
As the Democrats and White House watch President Barack Obama’s signature accomplishment crumble before the nation’s eyes, another rift has opened up right in the middle of late night television. While Obama has been given a pass for the past
How fitting that a documentary about a sports underdog would stand tall against the biggest movies Hollywood has to offer. Linsanity: The Movie, chronicling the improbable rise of Asian-American basketball player Jeremy Lin, scored the second-highest per-screen average at theaters
Those cynical about politicians’ inability to cut spending amid the government shutdown only need to look at the A’s and Raiders wins Sunday in the Oakland Coliseum. It used to be taxpayers might be asked to subsidize one stadium to
AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the National Security Agency (NSA) so the NSA can have access to 81 percent of all international phone calls made into the United States. A secret inspector
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on Thursday wrote that American workers were “sacrificed completely” by special interest groups like the National Council of La Raza and the Chamber of Commerce in the Senate’s immigration reform bill. “The president, the Senate, and
Can the federal government legally control access to the Internet? That’s the question before a top federal appeals court this week. On Sept. 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear arguments in Verizon v.
Al Jazeera America is urging customers to send letters asking cable providers to add the network to their lineups before the channel’s August 20 premiere. The fledgling news network faces the same critical issue as Al Gore’s former network; after
(AP) TV blackouts aren’t shutting out fans completelyBy RYAN NAKASHIMAAP Business WriterLOS ANGELESA week into the blackout of CBS programming to millions of Time Warner Cable subscribers, viewers are finding workarounds. Nancy Keiter, a graphic designer in New York, plans
(AP) Time Warner blackout of CBS goes into 2nd dayBy TOM KRISHERAP Business WriterTime Warner Cable’s blackout of CBS continued Saturday, and neither side indicated a resolution of their dispute over fees is imminent. Time Warner dropped CBS Friday in
EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) filed an emergency petition yesterday with the Supreme Court to stop the National Security Agency from collecting phone records from American citizens. The petition asks the court to vacate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)
Sometimes all it takes is a new coat of paint. In 2012, leftist activist journalist Glenn Greenwald and leftist activist filmmaker Laura Poitras had a story on their hands that was just barely treading water. Despite dramatic and shocking allegations,
Business Insider: James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times — who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for this story on the NSA gaining the cooperation of U.S. telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to customer data
By STACY A. ANDERSONAssociated PressWASHINGTONJennifer Lopez says Latinos in the United States are starting to realize their power in politics and media, making the timing good for her latest undertaking: lobbying for greater diversity in TV programming. The entertainer spoke
UPDATE: At the start of Wednesday’s hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Chair Sen. Barbara Mikulski announced she has agreed to Vice-Chair Sen. Richard Shelby’s request to have a full hearing on revelations about NSA surveillance and its PRISM data-mining
On Tuesday, Jay Leno mocked the Obama administration’s surveillance programs by saying besides Tim Tebow and Patriots coach Bill Belichick only the National Security Agency knew the Patriots were going to sign the popular quarterback. “Do you know about that,
Senator Rand Paul has chosen once again to speak directly to millennials, this time regarding the NSA. In an op-ed at PolicyMic, he talks privacy, security, and constitutional rights to the generation most active in the digital community: This assault
Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who broke the story of the NSA’s indiscriminate collection of Verizon customers’ phone records, takes on Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) arguments defending the program and dismissing its threats to Americans’ rights and privacy. While Greenwald mistakenly
In a piece published Thursday a former general counsel for the National Security Agency argues that collection of call metadata is necessary to fight terrorism. But his hypothetical case fails to explain why the NSA needs data on local calls
On Friday, President Barack Obama defended secret programs to monitor Americans’ phone calls, emails, and other internet activities, labeling them “modest encroachments” on privacy. “In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother, and how this is a potential program
On Thursday, Senate Democrats were harshly critical of the the Obama administration’s collection of private domestic and international phone records from Verizon customers. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), according to The Hill, said the operation was an “outrageous breach” of privacy. “I have
It only took four scandals hitting at once, but for the first time in his presidency, President Obama is looking and acting like a president swamped by scandal. Friday was supposed to be a banner day for the roll-out of
The federal government may store private phone records ,and Internet data that it has seized through the Prism program, in the National Security Agency’s Utah Data Center that is being built and set to open this fall. The UK Guardian reported on
Yesterday America learned that the U.S. government is gathering information on our phone calls and can follow our every keystroke. We are reassured that the information is to stop terrorists. And yet the government fails to stop terrorists when it
The WSJ is reporting that in addition to monitoring cell phone records, emails and web activity, the National Security Agency is monitoring credit card transactions. “NSA has established similar relationships with credit-card companies, three former officials said.” The arrangement gave
CBS Dallas-Fort Worth: Verizon customers in Collin County, Texas will soon be able to send text messages to 911 and receive a response–possibly as early as next month. The wireless company just days ago implemented a similar program in the
Senator Mark Kirk questioning Attorney Gen. Eric Holder as he testifies before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Justice Department’s FY2014 budget.
In response to So Totally Unlike Watergate You Guys: Senator Kirk Asks Holder if the Executive Spied on the Coequal Branch of Congress: One of the most interesting moments of the hearing came a few minutes later when Sen. Kirk
Was it really more than five years ago when a charismatic senator from Illinois promised the most transparent administration ever along with many other lofty vows? For some Hollywood celebrities, 2008 might as well be last week to hear them
In August 2007 Senator Obama gave a foreign policy speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in which he mapped out a five point plan for a new approach to foreign policy. Part of that approach was a promise to reign
In response to Oceans of data, drought of analysis: The big picture here is that Congress drafted the Patriot Act, voted on it, and then sent it off to be signed into law by President Bush. While the Patriot Act
…which would give the Executive “leverage” — as in blackmail leverage — over what the Constitution demands be a coequal branch of government. Eric Holder’s answer? That he’d like to answer that in closed session. This is less and less
On March 12, 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and other intelligence officials testified about current and future threats to the United States. Senator Ron Wyden asked: “Does the NSA collect any kind of data at all on millions
It seemed improbable that today’s bombshell report from The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald about the National Security Agency seizing the phone records of every Verizon cell phone customer was something limited to just one carrier. The USA Today reported in 2006
As scandals engulf the Obama Administration, Democrats and the media have consoled themselves that Obama’s overall approval numbers have remained steady. That is certainly true and, for many, suggests that Obama is evading political fallout from the scandals. A number
