Report: Britain spied on world leaders at G-20 summit - World News

A new report based on the information leaked by Edward Snowden is suggesting Britain spied on world leaders at two London summits in 2009. Meanwhile, protestors are demonstrating in support of Snowden in China. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

LONDON -- British spies intercepted the phone calls of foreign politicians and delegates at the G-20 summit in 2009, according to documents provided to The Guardian by self-declared NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the newspaper reported Monday.

U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ also monitored the computers of delegates at the London conference and tried to capture their passwords, the newspaper said.

Among the foreign politicians targeted were then-President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, and Turkish finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, the newspaper said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham says leaker Edward Snowden's actions "compromised our national security" and elaborates on his definition of justice in locating Snowden.

The report came hours before President Barack Obama and other world leaders from the G-8 countries - all of which are in the G-20 ? were due to attend a two-day summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

Although espionage at international conferences has often been rumored, it is rare for evidence to be uncovered, The Guardian said.

It said the evidence was contained in classified documents shown to its reporters by Snowden, a U.S. citizen who worked for a private defense contractor and now faces a federal investigation into a string of embarrassing leaks about the National Security Agency and the PRISM surveillance program.

Snowden is reportedly in Hong Kong, where he told The Guardian that he was hoping to fight the U.S. government in the courts.

A spokesman for Britain?s foreign ministry declined to comment on the report. A spokesman for GCHQ said the agency never commented on intelligence matters.

Related:

This story was originally published on Mon Jun 17, 2013 8:29 AM EDT

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/17/18998007-report-britain-spied-on-world-leaders-at-g-20-summit?lite

Chris Kyle Russian meteor Meteor Hits Russia Dorner Manifesto Valentines Day Quotes nerlens noel Mark Balelo

CBS News says reporter's computer was hacked

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A CBS News investigative reporter's computer was remotely accessed by an unauthorized party several times late last year, the news organization said on Friday, citing an analysis by an outside cyber security firm.

The review found that Washington-based reporter Sharyl Attkisson's computer "was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012," CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair said in a statement.

The forensic analysis showed the hacker appeared to have searched and extracted data, and then "used sophisticated methods" to cover up the unauthorized activity, McNair added.

McNair said CBS News is "taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access."

Attkisson is known for reporting on the anti-gun-trafficking program Operation Fast and Furious, as well as on the attack in September on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed.

Fast and Furious was aimed at slowing the flow of illegal firearms from Arizona to Mexico but instead it allowed some weapons to be trafficked. A Justice Department internal watchdog later condemned the program's strategy of ignoring low-level gun purchases, and several department officials including the U.S. attorney in Arizona resigned.

After Attkisson revealed the compromise of her computer in a radio interview last month, a Justice Department spokesman told the Politico newspaper that prosecutors were not involved.

The department gathered data on reporters of at least two other news outlets, the Associated Press and Fox News, for recent leak investigations.

Attkisson said in the radio interview that the hacking began in February 2011 when she was reporting on stories critical of the Obama administration, including the gun operation, according to Politico. Both her work and her home computers may have been targeted, she said in the interview.

Media organizations in the United States and around the world have reported a string of attacks on their computers or records.

The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal all have reported infiltration they said was linked to Chinese hackers targeting their coverage of the Asian powerhouse nation.

Social media, too, has been a target. Facebook in February said sophisticated hackers who appeared to be from China had infiltrated its network. Twitter also that month said it had been compromised.

CBS is also among the media outlets targeted by Syrian government supporters in recent months. Others targeted included the Financial Times, ITV News, BBC, Reuters and the Associated Press.

The attacks - some directed at websites and others at Twitter feeds - were linked to the Syrian Electronic Army, an online group that supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, media organizations said.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by David Ingram in Washington and Liana Baker in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cbs-news-says-reporter-attkissons-computer-hacked-162312625.html

Super Bowl Winners

Dems tap star power, money for Mass. Senate race

BOSTON (AP) ? Democrats are dispatching a lineup of political heavyweights to Massachusetts, backed by a river of outside money, to head off the possibility that another upstart Republican pulls off a Senate special election stunner.

National Republican groups have been reluctant to devote resources to a race that many Washington-based strategists have thought unwinnable for the GOP. Yet both parties know special elections draw far fewer voters ? and they remember the special election in 2010 that ended with a Republican winning the Senate seat long-held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.

And Democrats, already down one Senate seat with the death this week of Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, don't want to appear complacent even as polls suggest a likely victory when voters cast ballots in two weeks.

In support of the party's nominee, longtime Rep. Ed Markey, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is visiting Massachusetts this weekend. President Barack Obama, Democrats' most powerful political weapon in a state that overwhelmingly backed him last fall, campaigns with Markey just days later.

Gabriel Gomez, the Republican running to replace former Sen. John Kerry, is casting Obama's visit as a sign of the GOP's own fortunes. "Congressman Markey must be feeling some extreme heat to bring in somebody of President Obama's caliber," says Gomez, a former Navy SEAL with no political experience.

Gomez drew attention Thursday when former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani joined him in downtown Boston, and Gomez plans to greet voters outside the TD Garden before the Boston Bruins playoff game Friday. Markey is pushing back with a campaign swing Friday alongside Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

Until now, the special election has garnered little attention inside Massachusetts following the Boston Marathon bombings, much less outside the state. Republicans are waiting to see if the contest tightens enough to justify spending big on TV ads to try to repeat the shocker of 2010 when the Scott Brown unexpectedly won Kennedy's seat.

Brown served less than a full term. He was defeated last year by Elizabeth Warren, a liberal Democrat and former Harvard Law School professor.

Markey, the dean of the state's congressional delegation, has led every public and private poll released in recent weeks. He enjoys the inherent advantages of being a Democrat in a state where Democrats dramatically outnumber Republicans.

But Republicans believe there's an outside chance that they can again eke out a victory over a Democrat in the liberal-leaning state.

Both sides expect a flood of new advertising in the coming days. So far, Democrats have outspent Republicans roughly $2 million to $1.5 million, according to officials who track political advertising. The Senate Democrats' campaign arm has reserved another $750,000 for statewide television ads to help Markey, while the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC planned to invest another $700,000 in the final weeks. The League of Conservation Voters also has pledged to spend $400,000 on mailings to benefit the Democratic nominee.

The spending disparity aside, the uncertainty of off-year special elections and the lessons of Brown's 2010 victory loom large for Republicans and Democrats alike.

"Democrats are confident, but we're taking nothing for granted," said Matt Canter, the deputy executive director of Senate Democrats' national campaign arm.

More than Democratic pride is at stake. Democrats narrowly control the Senate, and party officials acknowledge that Obama can't afford to lose another reliably liberal vote when he has big-ticket legislative priorities on his plate. Upcoming votes on immigration and the budget could come down to just a few votes.

After Lautenberg's death, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tapped a fellow Republican to fill the seat until a special election in October.

Few GOP stars or organizations have been willing to help Gomez, who acknowledged having voted for Obama in 2008.

___

Associated Press writers Josh Lederman in Washington and Steve LeBlanc and Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dems-tap-star-power-money-mass-senate-race-083108713.html

presidential debate