Feds say phone taps stopped
many attacks by terrorists


Top National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials say newly revealed surveillance programs have helped to stop more than 50 terrorist attacks in 20 countries around the world.  The officials delivered a strong defense of the exposed surveillance programs to the House Select Committee on Intelligence, saying they are essential to national security and have not violated any laws or Americans' privacy rights.

FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce outlined four terrorist plots that he said were foiled with the help of the top secret surveillance programs. Joyce said the NSA discovered one of the plots while monitoring a known extremist in Yemen who was in contact with an operative in Kansas City, Missouri.

"We found through electronic surveillance that they were actually in the initial stages of plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange,"Joyce said.

Joyce said those involved in the plot were arrested and later convicted.  Joyce also said an NSA intercept of an email from a terrorist in Pakistan in 2009 led authorities to Najibullah Zazi, who later pleaded guilty to a plot to bomb New York City's subway system. 

Joyce said the program also linked an American citizen, David Headley, in Chicago to the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India, and to a plot to bomb the offices of a Danish newspaper that published a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.  Joyce said the FBI would release details of more than 50 thwarted plots to the House and Senate intelligence committees in a classified setting, but not in an open hearing because of security concerns.

NSA chief Keith Alexander told the congressional panel U.S. intelligence officials were criticized after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks for not connecting the dots on pieces of information, and he said the surveillance programs are providing those dots.  Alexander sought to answer concerns about privacy, saying the surveillance programs are limited and properly supervised throughout the process.

"Let me start by saying that I would much rather be here today debating this point than trying to explain how we failed to prevent another 9/11," Alexander said.

The intelligence officials stressed that no phone calls can be monitored without a court order.  But some lawmakers expressed concern about the collection of ordinary Americans' phone records.  Rep. James Himes, a Democrat, said the recent disclosures by NSA contractor Edward Snowden still trouble him.

"They trouble me because of the breadth and the scope of the information collection.  They trouble me because I think this is historically unprecedented in the extent of the data that is being collected on potentially all American citizens," Himes said.

Another Democratic congressman, Adam Schiff, suggested that perhaps changes could be made to the Patriot Act provisions so that telecommunications companies could collect and store Americans' phone records instead of the government, and the government could ask for access to a specific individual's records only when there are substantial suspicions of a terrorist connection.


China gets short advantage
over leaks, experts predict


Analysts say the recent leaks exposing top-secret U.S. surveillance programs may benefit China temporarily, but will not likely sway Washington from putting more pressure on Beijing to stop alleged Chinese cyber hacking against U.S. targets.

The leaks by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden came at an opportune time for China, just before U.S. President Barack Obama planned to prominently raise the issue of Chinese cyber hacking during a summit in California.

The original documents leaked by Snowden had little to do with China.  They detailed a pair of classified domestic surveillance programs by the U.S. National Security Agency, under which authorities collected and monitored phone records and Internet usage.

Subsequent leaks by Snowden, who has fled to Hong Kong to fight extradition, revealed the NSA has been secretly spying on Chinese targets for years.  That accusation prompted an angry reaction from China's state-controlled media.

The Communist Party-controlled Global Times newspaper on Monday published an editorial calling for Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous sovereign territory of China, to not extradite Snowden.

It also praised him as a hero who exposed the U.S. government's violation of civil rights.

The Global Times, which often expresses official viewpoints, has also called for Beijing officials to meet directly with Snowden in order to obtain more intelligence information that could be used during future negotiations with the United States.

Such comments suggest China will use Snowden's information to deflect diplomatic pressure from Washington, which has attempted to hold China accountable for a series of high-profile cyber hacking attempts originating from its soil.

But there is not yet any evidence that Snowden has directly provided sensitive intelligence to Chinese officials.  In a question-and-answer session in The Guardian newspaper on Monday, Snowden denied having had any contact with the Chinese government. 

Jeffrey Reeves with Hawaii's Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies says that such assurances have done little to calm the fears of U.S. intelligence officials, since Snowden has promised to reveal more information in the coming days.

"I think absolutely there is a lot of concern from the FBI now that's investigating how much access he actually had," he said.  "And people from the NSA are very concerned that he could potentially have quite damaging information."

But Steven Lewis, a China scholar with Houston's Rice University, said it is unlikely Snowden is in direct contact with the Chinese government, given its official reaction.

"If he was actually being run as a spy, and it was viewed as an exceptionally sensitive thing by the Chinese government, I do not think the Global Times would be allowed to speculate on that issue," he said.

Lewis says the leaks may have embarrassed the United States and made it more difficult for Obama to raise the issue of cyber attacks during his talks with Xi.  But he doubts whether it will hamper U.S. efforts to raise the issue in the future.

William Martel, a professor of international security studies at Boston's Tufts University, agrees. He says that the United States will have no problem keeping up the pressure, as long as allegations of widespread Chinese cyber hacking continue to appear in the headlines.

"I think it takes a little pressure off China at this point, but long-term, if in fact, as many allege, that China has been engaging in cyber spying and hacking, the pressure and scrutiny will continue," he said.

President Obama echoed that sentiment in an interview that aired Monday on "The Charlie Rose Show" on PBS television. Obama said the Chinese have understood his very blunt message that cyber attacks have the potential to adversely affect the fundamentals of the U.S.-China relationship.


Manning's lawyer challenges
Twitter and Web evidence
 

The court-martial of the U.S. soldier accused of providing reams of classified documents to WikiLeaks in a case illustrating the challenge of keeping secrets in the digital age must decide whether tweets and Web pages can be admitted as evidence.
 
Lawyers for PFC Bradley Manning, 25, who is accused with providing more than 700,000 files to the anti-secrecy Web site in the biggest breach of classified U.S. data in the nation's history, argued on Tuesday that Twitter postings offered by prosecutors do not meet the court's standards.
 
“Anyone can create a Web page . . . that looks like WikiLeaks or that looks like Twitter,” argued the defense attorney, Capt. Joshua Tooman, when the government sought to admit a May 7, 2010, tweet from WikiLeaks seeking military Internet addresses, and the Web page of the Internet archive site archive.org that showed a 2009 WikiLeaks “Most Wanted” list of items it was seeking from the public.
 
Tooman said a government investigator had accessed the tweets indirectly, through Google, rather than directly through Twitter or WikiLeaks. He said the evidence failed to meet the test of authenticity since there was no way of knowing what the Web site looked like when the tweet or page was published.
 
Prosecutors argued those tweets, as well as one on Jan. 8, 2010, from WikiLeaks saying it had an encrypted video of a U.S. air attack, were evidence of a leak and should be admissible.
 
The judge, Col. Denise Lind, did not rule on the evidence. She ordered the trial into recess until a status hearing next Tuesday. The trial is scheduled to resume June 26.
 
Manning was an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2010 when WikiLeaks published the classified information. He faces 21 charges, the most serious being aiding the enemy, and faces life in prison without parole if convicted.


Military officials move to put
women in key combat roles


The U.S. military says that within the next three years, it will put women in key combat roles from which they were previously excluded. 

American women have been serving in combat roles and hundreds have been killed on the front lines for years, but they have been excluded from key positions in areas including special operations and infantry.

In January, then-Defense secretary Leon Panetta announced changes to regulations banning women from 237,000 positions.  

Tuesday officials from all four branches of the U.S. military gathered at the Pentagon to announce a timeline for those changes.  The Marines already have come up with new gender-neutral physical tests, and by the middle of 2015, the Army will have new standards that will allow women to be part of its elite Ranger regiment.

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick was among those making the announcement.  He said it is the start of a new era, and he referred to the action film series depicting a U.S. war hero who relies much on his brute strength.

“We're looking for smart, qualified operators.  You know, there's a new dynamic.  The days of Rambo are over.  We're looking for young men that can speak and learn a foreign language and understand culture, that can work with indigenous populations and culturally tuned manners.  The defining characteristic of our operators, intellect," said Sacolick.

The changes have prompted questions of whether changing standards will diminish military readiness. Among their concerns, critics say having women in tight-knit, high-stress situations will create privacy issues and hurt unit cohesiveness.

Officials Tuesday said they are fine-tuning their plans before beginning the implementation and looking at models of other countries such as Israel and Canada, which have successfully integrated women into their militaries.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said he is confident the changes will not diminish the U.S. military's effectiveness.


U.S. UK trade deal praised
as biggest in world history


At the G8 Summit in Britain, President Barack Obama and European leaders announced the start of an effort to reach what is being called the biggest trade deal in history. Officials are focusing on regional trade agreements because the long effort to reach a new global trade deal is stalled.

British Prime Minister David Cameron stood with U.S. President Barack Obama and European Union leaders to make the announcement.

"We are talking about what could be the biggest bilateral trade deal in history," Cameron noted. "A deal that will have a greater impact than all the other trade deals on the table put together."

It was one of Cameron’s key goals for the summit he hosted for leaders of eight of the world’s top industrialized countries.  But such regional trade deals are really not the leaders’ first choice, according to G8 expert Stephen Pickford of London’s Chatham House.

“I think everybody accepts that having a fully multi-lateral, universal trade deal is the best option.  But that seems to be unattainable at the moment.  And so I think people are focusing on what is the second best, which is to take forward trade liberalization between willing partners,” said Pickford.

But not all the partners are so willing, even in this effort among close allies. 

At preliminary talks, the French trade minister nearly vetoed the plan. 

France was concerned about trade in movies and other entertainment products.  French officials want to protect their industries from the power of Hollywood and American Internet companies.

But aside from such concerns, most leaders see trade as a jobs creator and a stimulus to economic growth worldwide. 


Republicans in House move
to derail citizenship for illegals


Work intensified on Tuesday to revamp the U.S. immigration system, but gaps widened between the Democratic-led Senate and Republican-led House of Representatives over what proposed changes should become law.
 
The net effect was to raise further doubts about the prospects for both houses approving a comprehensive measure that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants.
 
House Speaker John Boehner made a surprise announcement in telling reporters that he would only permit for consideration immigration bills backed by most of the 234 Republicans in the 435-member chamber.
 
“I don't see any way of bringing an immigration bill to the floor that doesn't have a majority support of Republicans,” Boehner said after a closed-door meeting with his caucus.
 
It is widely believed that most House Republicans oppose a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants, a key  feature of sweeping legislation now moving through the Senate.
 
Previously, Boehner had only said that he would await Senate passage of a bill before deciding what course the House would take on an issue at the top of President Barack Obama's legislative agenda this year.
 
Many Democrats had hoped Boehner would advance a bill like the Senate's, one containing the pathway to citizenship, and that it could pass the House with the combined backing of most of the 201 House Democrats and some Republicans.
 
But the House Judiciary Committee worked on Tuesday not on  pathways for the undocumented but on a Republican proposal to clamp down on them.
 
It would do so by allowing state and local law enforcement officers to get involved in immigration enforcement, an activity that is now conducted by federal agents. It would also let states and localities enact and enforce their own immigration laws, as long as they were consistent with federal laws.
 
“We can't just be fixated on securing the border,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said at the start of the panel's work session on the bill. He added that the Republican-backed bill would strengthen federal enforcement of immigration laws while ensuring “that where the federal government fails to act, states can pick up the slack.”
 
Rep. John Conyers, the senior Democrat on the committee, called the bill extreme and heinous. He likened it to an Arizona state law he said had resulted in “widespread racial profiling and unconstitutional arrests.”
 
Some Democrats said they were hopeful Boehner would back off his new requirement that any immigration bill be backed by a majority of House Republicans, just as he did in the past year on such issues as tax hikes on the wealthy, the U.S. debt limit, disaster relief and renewal of a landmark bill to curb domestic violence against women.
 
“Boehner is trying to maximize his leverage so he can get a bill that is as conservative as possible,” one Democratic aide said.
 
In the Senate, the immigration bill sponsored by a bipartisan “Gang of Eight” was moving more slowly than had been expected.
 
A split over how to strengthen border security has slowed action on the measure, which would legalize the 11 million illegal immigrants and eventually allow them to apply for citizenship.
 
The bill also would tighten security along the border with Mexico, but not sufficiently, so far, for many Senate Republicans.
 
Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota said he and some fellow Republicans were making progress on a compromise amendment that could be unveiled as early as Wednesday to deal with border security.
 
Boehner echoed complaints by many Republicans about the Senate bill, saying he believed the measure “is weak on border security.”
 
Once the Senate passes its bipartisan bill, there will be pressure on Boehner to bring it or a similar measure up for a vote in his chamber, regardless if most House Republicans oppose it.
 
“The political winds will be much different after the Senate passes its bill,” the Democratic aide said, especially if there is an overwhelming bipartisan tally.
 
The Republican Party urged its members to embrace comprehensive immigration reform after last year's election, which saw 71 percent of Hispanics, members of the fast-growing voting bloc, support Obama's re-election.
 
A Republican strategist predicted that Boehner would end up “saving Republicans from themselves” by eventually permitting a vote on the Senate bill in the House.
 
The strategist said the move could help rescue the Republican Party, but end up costing Boehner his speakership.


Chinese official's ex-friend
goes public with costly affair


A Chinese government official is facing accusations of supporting a mistress with extravagant spending beyond his modest salary, in the latest sex scandal to hit the ruling Communist Party.
 
The scandal erupted Friday when a 25-year-old female presenter for Chinese state television announced on her blog that she had a four-year affair with the deputy director of China's state archives, Fan Yue.
 
The presenter, Ji Yingnan, in an interview, said that Fan spent around $1.5 million on her during the relationship. She said Fan bought her jewelry, cars and other luxury items that a civil servant at his level typically would not be able to afford.
 
Prominent Chinese anti-corruption activist Zhu Ruifeng said Ji reached out to him recently to seek his help in exposing the affair. Zhu said he contacted Fan by phone to verify the woman's claims.
 
The activist said Fan acknowledged the affair and admitted spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on his mistress.
 
There was no immediate public comment from the state archives official about the scandal.
 
The former anchorwoman for the China Travel and Economic Channel revealed her affair with Fan by posting videos and photos of their four-year relationship on her blog. She provided many of the same images to Zhu, who published them on his own blog Friday.
 
Zhu said his post about the scandal attracted tens of thousands of views in the first half-hour before state Internet censors apparently blocked access to it. Ji’s blog also was shut down Friday, shortly after she posted the images.
 
Zhu accused the Chinese government of trying to cover up the scandal, and defiantly vowed to publish a new image of the affair every day. He previously exposed a sex scandal involving a lower-ranked municipal level Communist official in the southwestern city of Chongqing last November.
 
Ms. Ji said she wants an apology from Fan for allegedly failing to tell her that he has a wife and son. She said she decided to take her story to foreign media after complaining about the official to Chinese authorities and receiving no response.
 
Chinese state news agency Xinhua briefly reported the scandal on its microblog Monday before the post was removed. The Xinhua post quoted Fan's supervisor as saying the archives official resigned due to unspecified problems.
 
Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised tougher action on corruption since taking office earlier this year. His government has been running a campaign to punish officials who use taxpayer funds to engage in the kind of lavish and extravagant behavior that triggers public disgust.
 
The Chinese government has said it welcomes the support of citizen activists in highlighting cases of official corruption. But a recent editorial by the state-run People's Daily newspaper warned against relying on whistle-blowing mistresses to expose such wrongdoing.
 
In the article published last month, the newspaper said some mistresses seek "bribes or ... huge illegal profits" when disclosing affairs, proving that they are motivated by the same greed as the philandering officials.
 

NASA's capture of asteroid
said to have many benefits


The U.S. space agency says its proposed asteroid capture mission takes several of NASA's ongoing initiatives and aligns them for one major mission. 

These chunks of ancient space rocks hold clues about the formation of the universe, pose threats to our planet, and present new territory for explorers.

NASA's proposed asteroid mission is a logical next leap for the space agency, says associate administrator for human exploration and operations Bill Gerstenmaier.

"It essentially fits right with what we were doing already.  This whole mission activity captures a lot of what we were doing before.  It captures the observation things.  It captures the electric propulsion, and it captures and utilizes our Orion and SLS  just as it was envisioned," said Gerstenmaier of the capsule and rocket.

Astronomers already are identifying and tracking near-Earth asteroids in an attempt to find potential threats, which will help as NASA chooses a target.

And the space agency's engineers are working on propulsion technologies that use sunlight to efficiently produce low thrust, reducing the amount of propellant needed for such a mission.
       
"We're going to capture and redirect a 7-10 meter, approximately 500-ton near-Earth asteroid to a stable orbit in translunar space, probably a deep retrograde orbit around the moon, and this will enable an astronaut mission to the asteroid as early as 2021," said Gerstenmaier.

A successful mission would show that humans can alter an asteroid's path, and be useful if one is found to be a danger to Earth.