Lawmakers say intel agencies stonewalling on surveillance probe(FOX NEWS)

Lawmakers probing the surveillance of key officials in the Trump campaign and administration say the intelligence agencies now nominally under the president’s control are stonewalling efforts to get to the bottom of who revealed names and leaked protected information to the press.

The House and Senate Intelligence Committees are currently investigating allegations the Obama administration spied on Trump associates – and possibly Trump himself – for as long as the year preceding his inauguration. And while former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice has been implicated as at least one of the officials who sought redacted names from surveillance transcripts, multiple lawmakers and investigators for the panel told Fox News the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency – all agencies in position to aid the probe – are not cooperating.

“Our requests are simply not being answered,” said one House Intelligence committee source about the lack of responsiveness. “The agencies are not really helping at all and there is truly a massive web for us to try and wade through.”CONTINUE READING

 

Pepsi pulls Kendall Jenner ad after backlash(FOX NEWS)

Pepsi has decided to pull its ad featuring Kendall Jenner at a protest.

In the ad, Jenner is seen approaching a police officer and handing him a can of Pepsi as a demonstration carries on.

The ad received a lot of backlash on social media with some charging that it was making light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Initially the brand defended the commercial before eventually removing it.

“This is a global ad that reflects people from different walks of life coming together in a spirit of harmony, and we think that’s an important message to convey,” a statement from Pepsi on Tuesday read.CONTINUE READING

‘Jihadi cool’: How ISIS switched its recruitment and social media master plan(FOX NEWS)

The “caliphate” is crumbling. ISIS is losing territory and the flow of foreign fighters has fallen in recent months. But that doesn’t mean the brutal jihadist group has stopped its technology-driven recruitment quest. While the process used to happen more openly on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, experts say the process has gone dark, relying more heavily on end-to-end encryption apps.

“ISIS lost a lot of important media heads and lost thousands of important Twitter accounts,” Syrian activist Hussam Eesa, founder and public relations manager of online activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, told Fox News. “So they have changed from Twitter to Telegram.”

Telegram and the similar no-cost, end-to-end encrypted messenger app WhatsApp are widely used in both the Middle East and the West. Last month Khalid Masood, who killed four people in London and wounded 50 on Westminster Bridge, used WhatsApp to send a message to an unknown person shortly before his attack. U.K. Counterterrorism police have said his communications are the main line of inquiry in the investigation, although thus far authorities have been unable to access those messages due to the secretive software.CONTINUE READING

Trump says Rice may have committed crime with unmasking requests(FOX NEWS)

President Trump told Fox News on Wednesday that former national security adviser Susan Rice “may have” committed a crime by trying to unmask the identities of Trump associates caught up in surveillance reports — though the ex-Obama official contends her actions were routine and above board.

Asked directly by Fox News if Rice may have broken a law, Trump did not mince words.

”It certainly looks like she may have,” Trump said, shortly after his joint press conference with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House.

The president earlier told The New York Times he thinks Rice committed a crime. A Rice spokesman told the Times in response they would not “dignify the president’s ludicrous charge with a comment.”CONTINUE READING

Trump administration revokes Obama-era directive blocking controversial water project(FOX NEWS)

The Trump administration issued a memo late last week revoking two federal directives implemented under President Obama that had blocked a controversial water project in California’s Mojave Desert.

An acting assistant director at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rescinded two legal guidances that reinforced the agency’s 2015 decision that Cadiz Inc. could not use an existing federal railroad right-of-way in its long-standing project to pump groundwater from the project’s planned well field in the Mojave Desert and sell it to urban areas throughout Southern California that rely on the Colorado River Aqueduct.

While the BLM’s one-page order didn’t specifically mention the Cadiz project, it eases the way for the company to argue for the reversal of the findings of the agency’s California field office, which said the company needed federal approval to construct its 43-mile water pipeline. The memo also noted that any future right-of-way decisions will be determined by the BLM’s office in Washington, D.C.CONTINUE READING

Nivea apologizes for ‘White Is Purity’ ad(FOX NEWS)

Nivea pulled a “White Is Purity” deodorant ad after critics blasted the German skin care company for promoting white supremacy, according to reports on Wednesday.

The ad appeared on Facebook last week and was aimed at the company’s customers in the Middle East.

The spot pitching Nivea’s “Invisible for Black and White” showed a woman with her back to the camera and her dark hair flowing over a white robe.

At the bottom of the ad, in all caps, the slogan said: “WHITE IS PURITY.”CONTINUE READING

Risk of homegrown Islamist extremism rising – House report(FOX NEWS)

Cases of homegrown Islamist extremism in the United States continue to rise, according to the House Homeland Security’s latest Terror Threat Snapshot.

The committee, led by Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, released its monthly report on Wednesday, which noted that of the 204 homegrown “jihadist cases” in the U.S. since 9/11, 36 occurred in the last 12 months.

“We must remain clear-eyed about the threats we face,” McCaul said.

The report cited charges against Said Azzam Mohamad Rahim, who was charged in March with making false statements regarding his support for ISIS and terrorist activities; and Elvis Redzepagic, a 26-year-old who was arrested for attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS, and allegedly, trying to enter Syria to join ISIS or the Nusra Front on two different occasions.CONTINUE READING

Pro-ISIS hackers release ‘kill list’ with 8,786 targets in US, UK(FOX NEWS)

An ISIS-linked group of hackers Wednesday released a “kill list” of 8,786 names and addresses in the U.S. and U.K., calling for lone wolf attacks on the targets in a chilling video posted online.

The hackers, known as the United Cyber Caliphate (UCC), orders those watching to: “Kill them wherever you find them.”

In a posting Sunday night on Telegram — a private messaging app — the group first warned that a release of the names was imminent.

About 10 minutes later, the hackers posted the actual list, which includes names of seemingly random inviduals from primarily the U.S. and U.K., according to the terror monitor SITE.CONTINUE READING HERE

North Korea likely behind $81M hack at the Federal Reserve, report says(FOX NEWS)

North Korea may have been behind last year’s $81 million heist at the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, according to new evidence.

According to a new report from Kaspersky Labs, a cyber security firm, there is digital evidence that Lazarus, a group linked to the heist, used a direct connection from an IP address in North Korea to a European server, which ultimately was behind controlling the systems used in the heist.CLICK HERE FOR MORE