U.S. spy agency abandons controversial surveillance technique

The U.S. National Security Agency said on Friday it had stopped a form of surveillance that allowed it to collect without a warrant the digital communications of Americans who mentioned a foreign intelligence target in their messages, marking an unexpected triumph for privacy advocates long critical of the practice.

The decision to stop the once-secret activity, which involved messages sent to or received from people believed to be living overseas, came despite the insistence of U.S. officials in recent years that it was both lawful and vital to national security.

The halt is among the most substantial changes to U.S. surveillance policy in years and comes as digital privacy remains a contentious issue across the globe following the 2013 disclosures of broad NSA spying activity by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-surveillance-idUSKBN17U2OF

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Future Cleveland development could be hit in crackdown on visas-for-cash program

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A federal immigration program lets rich foreign families come to the United States and stay, as long as they invest $500,000 in job-creating economic development and pass background checks.

The visa-for-cash program is supposed to help down-on-their-heels areas where banks and U.S. citizens might be reluctant to invest, and its promoters say it paid off wildly in cities like Cleveland -- and helped about 1,500 foreigners who invested in the area, mostly living in China at the time, get two-year visas or permanent residency in the United States.

But it's also helped fund upscale developments like shopping centers with Apple stores, Hyatt hotels and offices in relatively affluent places like Westlake and midtown Manhattan. The family of Jared Kushner, son-in-law and adviser to President Donald Trump, used the program to attract $100 million from Asian investors for a 50-story luxury apartment building, Trump Bay Street, in Jersey City, N.J. Trump's name is on the building but he is not an owner.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/04/cleveland_development_could_be.html

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What They Don’t Want You To Know: North Korea Is A Large Opium Producer Just Like Afghanistan

North Korea’s opium poppies remained at least somewhat secreted from its citizens under the rule of Kim Jong-il.

Prior to the U.S. invasion and occupation that sent production and cultivation skyrocketing 35-fold in just the first 13 years, the Taliban had successfully decimated the opium poppy crop in Afghanistan.

Nearly 16 years later, Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trafficking business is still roaring along unhindered, and — with U.S. troops literally guarding the occupied nation’s 90-percent share of the world’s opium supply — potential competitors rightly seemed scarce.

That is until North Korea just said ‘no’ to the Drug War.

“In its early stage, the Kim Jong-un regime declared a war against drugs, getting rid of poppy fields,” Kang Cheol-hwan, president of the defector organization, North Korea Strategy Center, told Yonhap News Agency last month. “But now they are cultivating them again.”

North Korea’s opium poppies remained at least somewhat secreted from its citizens under the rule of Kim Jong-il.

http://www.trueactivist.com/what-they-dont-want-you-to-know-north-korea-is-a-large-opium-producer-just-like-afghanistan/#.WPjz4JQNhOs.twitter

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The Syria Strikes: A Conspiracy Theory

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES: https://www.corbettreport.com/syriastrikes/

 The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the Syria Strikes from the truth-telling truth-tellers in the truthful government and true mainstream news!...in under 5 minutes!!

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Those tunnels the U.S is bombing in Afghanistan? They were built by the CIA

Those tunnels the U.S is bombing in Afghanistan? They were built by the CIA https://t.co/u66ScoiNpX (via @GabiElenaDohm) pic.twitter.com/mAaUrQ0yLk

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 14, 2017

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Maureen McPhilmy, Bill O'Reilly Ex-Wife Once Dated Flavor Flav?

Flavor Flav

As new details emerge around Bill O'Reilly's divorce from Maureen McPhilmy, new reports have indicated that the ex-wife once date rapper Flavor Flav.

Maureen McPhilmy, the ex-wife of the Fox News host reportedly dated Flavor Flav before their marriage, according to reports Tuesday.

http://www.enstarz.com/articles/14829/20130319/maureen-mcphilmy-bill-oreilly-ex-wife-divorce-once-dated-flavor-flav.htm

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A Republican Congressman tried to boot a woman from a town hall over a piece of paper

https://mullin.house.gov/

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Evidence Suggests S-Y-R-I-A G-A-S ATTACK Is False Flag

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Wells Fargo Whistle-Blower Wins $5.4 Million and His Job Back

A federal regulator on Monday ordered Wells Fargo to pay $5.4 million to a former manager who said he was fired in 2010 after reporting to his supervisors and to a bank ethics hotline what he suspected was fraudulent behavior.

The bank must also rehire him, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/business/04-wells-fargo-whistleblower-fired-osha.html?_r=0

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Senator’s Probe Into Opioid Makers Omits Largest Manufacturer From Her Home State

On Tuesday, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) demanded internal documents from drug manufacturers Purdue Pharma, Janssen/Johnson & Johnson, Insys, Mylan and Depomed in order to investigate the marketing practices of these corporations and determine if they knew of the dangers their products present. The documents requested include internal sales and marketing materials, addiction studies and contributions made to “independent” third-party advocacy groups that work to prevent tighter federal regulations for opiate painkillers.

However, these five opiate manufacturers represent only 13.4 million of the more than 236 million prescriptions – less than 6 percent of the total market share – of opiates that were filled last year. Noticeably absent from McCaskill’s list is the largest opiate manufacturer in the U.S., Mallinckrodt, which had more than 43.8 million prescriptions for its opiate painkillers filled last year – a whopping 18.6 percent of the total market share.

Upon further investigation, Mallinckrodt’s omission from the investigation seems quite dubious. Based within McCaskill’s home state of Missouri, Mallinckrodt donated 2,500 dollars to McCaskill’s campaign committee in 2015, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/senators-probe-into-opioid-makers-omits-largest-manufacturer-from-her-home-state/226478/

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Clinton Foundation donors include dozens of media organizations, individuals

NBC Universal, News Corporation, Turner Broadcasting and Thomson Reuters are among more than a dozen media organizations that have made charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, the foundation's records show.

The donations, which range from the low-thousands to the millions, provide a picture of the media industry's ties to the Clinton Foundation at a time when one of its most notable personalities, George Stephanopoulos, is under scrutiny for not disclosing his own $75,000 contribution when reporting on the foundation.

The list also includes mass media groups like Comcast, Time Warner and Viacom, as well a few notable individuals, including Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecom magnate and largest shareholder of The New York Times Company, and James Murdoch, the chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox. Both Slim and Murdoch have given between $1 million to $5 million, respectively.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundation-donors-include-dozens-of-media-organizations-individuals-207228

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