The German tabloid Bild alleged that Obama was personally briefed in 2010 about the operation to target Merkel’s phone by the NSA’s director, Keith Alexander, and that he authorized it to continue. The Wall Street Journal cited numerous unnamed sources who said the White House didn’t learn of the NSA spying until this past summer, when the operation against Merkel was shut down.   read more

The criminal complaint filed against Muhtorov relies heavily on e-mails and phone calls that the government intercepted without obtaining a search warrant as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Muhtorov’s attorney will now be able to file papers asking the trial court to suppress that evidence, and the inevitable appeals will eventually reach the Supreme Court.   read more

Farmer Steven Jensen discovered a six-inch fountain of oil bubbling up from his land and reported a pipeline spill. Investigators determined that a quarter-sized hole in a Tesoro Logistics pipeline had befouled at least seven acres of Jensen’s farm with more than 865,000 gallons/20,600 barrels of oil, making it one of the largest inland oil pipeline accidents in U.S. history. Nevertheless, North Dakota officials kept the massive oil spill a secret for eleven days.   read more

The eavesdropping discovery has raised concerns not only among defense lawyers, but also civil libertarians who point out the government could conduct warrantless spying with the bracelets.   read more

Numerous problems have plagued the U.S. Air Force’s nuclear missile silos, including a protective blast door twice being left open while officers were asleep. Protocol for the service’s ICBM force allows a silo operator to sleep during long shifts, but only as long as security procedures are followed, which include shuttering blast doors designed to keep intruders out of the classified facilities.   read more

TSA claims that the purpose of the expanded passenger data scans is to identify low-risk passengers in order to lighten their security screening at the airport and thus make actual searches more targeted. Previously, the air travel background checks, called Secure Flight, only involved a comparison of a passenger’s name, gender and date of birth to terrorist watch list data. Now it is clearly much more.   read more

The government shutdown produced a tremendous amount of negativity towards Washington on the part of media pundits, and while Congress’ reputation suffered considerably from the attacks, other parts of the federal government came out unscathed. In fact, many federal agencies and those working for them have positive or very positive ratings among Americans, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.   read more

Most physicians believe that, except for cases of deficiencies arising from specific medical problems or the effects of chemotherapy, Low-T is a myth made up by marketers. “There is no such disease” says Dr. Joel Finkelstein, a Harvard Medical School expert on male hormonal changes during aging. “The market for testosterone gels evolved because there is an appetite among men and because there is advertising. The problem is that no one has proved that it works and we don’t know the risks.”   read more

The Nuclear Regulator Commission (NRC) has been accused of inconsistent oversight of the nation’s nuclear power plants, most of which are operating beyond their originally intended lifespan. Those with the most high-level violations from 2000 to 2012 were Davis-Besse (14) in Oak Harbor, Ohio; Cooper (11); Kewaunee (9); Perry (8); Palisades (8) in Covert, Michigan; and Fort Calhoun (8) in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska.   read more

At the Vicksburg Convalescent Center in Mississippi, employee Lee Ray Martin billed $101,000 in personal expenses to the trust accounts of 83 residents. She pleaded guilty in August to multiple counts of exploitation of vulnerable adults. Martin and others managed to go so far with their crimes because of lax oversight by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates nearly all of the nation’s 16,000 nursing homes.   read more

Buried within the bill that restored funding to Washington and averted a default on the U.S. debt was $2.9 billion for the Olmsted Lock and Dam project, which would impact Illinois, Tennessee and Kentucky. McConnell had championed funding for the dam in his home state in previous years. The original allotment for the project—which is to be constructed on the Ohio River by URS Corporation—was $775 million.   read more

More than half of the families of fast-food workers “are enrolled in one or more public programs, compared to 25 percent of the workforce as a whole,” according to the academics’ report. It also noted that 26% of the workers are parents, and 42% are older than 18. McDonald’s employees, who number 700,000 in the U.S., collected $1.2 billion in public assistance, the most of any fast-food chain.   read more

Something like brake pads may seem innocent enough, unless they wind up in Iran, whose air force is in need of parts for U.S.-made jets purchased before the Islamic revolution 34 ago. Three of the many companies that are likely to benefit from the administration’s decision are Lockheed Martin, which makes C-130 transport planes, Textron, builder of Kiowa Warrior helicopters, and Honeywell, which outfits military choppers.   read more

More than 40% said that the ACA provides subsidies to undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance, establishes something resembling a death panel, and reduces benefits for seniors currently enrolled in Medicare—none of which are true. In addition, a Public Policy Polling survey showed that 27% of Americans—including 47% of African-Americans–didn’t know that Obamacare and ACA are the same thing.   read more

Threatening to upend a tradition of equality that dates back to the founding of the country, Republican political leaders in Kansas and Arizona are discussing plans to establish a multi-tier voting rights system for their states if they lose a voting rights case currently in federal court. The net effect would be to bar some U.S. citizens—mostly immigrants, racial minorities, the elderly, and the poor—from voting in state and local elections even as they cast ballots in federal contests.   read more

Sensenbrenner’s bill would do the following: • Limit the collection of phone records to known terrorist suspects • End “secret laws” by making courts disclose surveillance policies • Create a special court advocate to represent privacy interests • Allow companies to disclose how many requests for users’ information they receive from the government • Restrict a loophole involving overseas surveillance that has allowed the NSA to target Internet and email activities of Americans.   read more