State computer systems contain a lot of information, including names, addresses, driver’s license numbers, birth certificates, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, and banking information. Health records in particular are valuable to criminals. It’s not only a question of personal information getting into the public domain. Computer system breaches also affect the public’s trust in government and cost taxpayers millions.   read more

The Obama administration’s effort to weaken the Islamic State (IS) inside Syria through the use of airstrikes has had the unintended consequence of helping the extremist group gain supporters. Syrian rebel group Abu Qusay publicly said it “won’t be allied with the West in a war against Islam” following U.S. attacks on IS positions. The attacks also might cause Al Nusra and IS, which have been at odds, to move closer to one another in a battle against the common enemy of the U.S.   read more

Move over Saudi Arabia, there’s about to be a new king of liquid petroleum in the world: the United States. With U.S. production booming, experts predict Saudi Arabia will be surpassed in the production of oil, ethane, propane and other liquid fuels by its No. 2 rival this month or next American oil corporations have significantly increased oil production since last decade thanks to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and other developments in drilling technology.   read more

The idea is not unlike the plot of the blockbuster movie “Armageddon,” in which the U.S. government sent a team into space with a nuclear weapon to blast apart an asteroid heading towards earth. There are about 100,000 asteroids 50 meters or larger in space, so officials think it’s better to be safe than sorry. It would take a 100-meter space rock to destroy a city the size of Washington, D.C. Last year a small asteroid shot over Russia and blew up with a force equal to 400 tons of TNT.   read more

Attorney General Eric Holder may have announced his resignation, but that doesn’t mean he’s mailing in his final days on the job. On the contrary, the Department of Justice is now preparing a major policy change that will forbid federal law enforcement from profiling based on religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The new guidelines will not contain an exemption for terrorism despite pressure from national security officials and others in the Obama administration for one.   read more

Every day, hundreds of millions of phone calls and texts are routed throughout North America by an obscure federal office operated by a private telecommunications company. This operation has gone largely unnoticed but a potential change in contractor has set off a debate in Washington. Michael Chertoff, a former Secretary of Homeland Security, has been brought in as a hired gun by Neustar to lobby for it to keep the job as “air traffic controller for the nation’s phone system.”   read more

Six companies have won permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use drones in the filming of movies in the United States. It’s the first time drones have been approved for use outside wilderness areas in Alaska.The Motion Picture Association of American led the lobbying effort.   read more

People around the world were surveyed on what they thought the gap between worker and CEO pay was, and what they thought the gap should be. Americans responded in 2012 that they thought bosses made 30 times what the average worker made, and that the ratio should ideally be 7 to 1. The actual ratio of CEO to worker pay was 354 to 1. Those of other nationalities had similar gaps between their ideal ratio and the ratio they thought existed.   read more

Judge Reggie B. Walton dismissed the complaint by FDA scientists who claimed the agency violated their constitutional rights by reading their emails questioning the safety of medical equipment. Walton decided the case couldn't proceed because the plaintiffs didn't first follow administrative remedies. But Walton conceded that "the plaintiffs have alleged no shortage of facts establishing that the defendants took...[prohibited] actions" against the whistleblowers.   read more

It is no secret that big business has long been an ally of the Republican Party. A computer mistake by the Republican Governors Association made it possible for a watchdog group to access its records and expose a corporate list of big-time donors. “This is a classic example of how corporations are trying to use secret money, hidden from the American people, to buy influence, and how the governors association is selling it,” said Democracy 21's Fred Wertheimer.   read more

Since Barack Obama—winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize—has become president, the U.S. military has bombed Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraq and now Syria, all predominately Muslim countries.   read more

The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said recently that Khorasan represented a more direct threat than IS. Clapper for the first time named the group’s leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, a Kuwaiti who, as a young man, worked closely with Osama bin Laden during the plotting of the 9/11 attacks.   read more

Former members of Congress and aides to the president have been left wondering what happened to the arms-reduction version of Obama who took over the Oval Office. Former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, whose positions favoring nuclear disarmament reportedly meant something to Obama at one time, told the newspaper that the president’s new position is “hard to explain.”   read more

Lawmakers took five weeks off from Washington during their summer break. They came back this month to work…for eight days. Now, they’re jetting off again to their districts, where they’ll spend nearly the next eight weeks not doing any legislative work. Congress is scheduled to return on November 12. Its members will have just a few more lame-duck weeks to avoid setting a record for enacting the least number of laws of any Congress since such statistics began being kept in 1973.   read more

The majority of accidental shooting deaths of children are performed by other children. In 73% of the cases, the shooter was age 14 or under. The shooters and victims are also overwhelmingly men and boys: 82% of shooters and 77% of victims were male. The deaths also usually occurred in familiar surroundings. Sixty-one percent were in the victim’s home, with 10% in a relative’s home, 10% in a friend’s home and 3% in a relative’s car.   read more

A new study produced by the Guttmacher Institute says the rate of women receiving contraception through their private health insurance at no cost to them jumped from 15% in 2012 to 67% by the spring of this year. The Affordable Care Act included a provision that required companies to include contraception coverage in their health plans.   read more