NATO has begun negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement with Afghanistan without waiting until the Karzai government signs the security deal with the US, the Pentagon and NATO have announced.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirmed that negotiations have begun between NATO senior civilian representative Maurits Jochems and Afghan national security adviser Rangin Spanta.

"I welcome the start of these talks today... while stressing that the NATO Status of Forces Agreement will not be concluded or signed until the signature of the Bilateral Security Agreement between the governments of Afghanistan and the United States," Rasmussen said in a statement.

NATO's chief added that SOFA is vital for NATO's "mission to train, advise and assist" the Afghan army and police after 2014.

The alliance's decision demonstrates "the international community's willingness to support Afghanistan after 2014," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.

"But, as both the NATO Secretary General and Secretary Hagel have made clear, the Alliance won't finalize their agreement with the Bilateral Security Agreement still hanging in the balance."

Earlier this year, the French independent administrative authority CNIL advised six European countries to take action over Google's privacy policies. Now Spain has become the first of the six to fine the search giant, demanding €900,000 ($1.24 million) for breaching the nation's privacy laws. The Wall Street Journal reports that the fine, administered by the Spanish Agency for Data Protection, is for three legal breaches: "gathering data on users, combining the data through several services and keeping the data indefinitely without the knowledge or consent of users."

The woman was shocked when she received two nude photos of herself by e-mail. The photos had been taken over a period of several months - without her knowledge - by the built-in camera on her laptop.

Fortunately, the FBI was able to identify a suspect: her high school classmate, a man named Jared Abrahams. The FBI says it found software on Abrahams's computer that allowed him to spy remotely on her and numerous other women.

Abrahams pleaded guilty to extortion in October. The woman, identified in court papers only as C.W., later identified herself on Twitter as Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf. While her case was instant fodder for celebrity gossip sites, it left a serious issue unresolved.

Most laptops with built-in cameras have an important privacy feature - a light that is supposed to turn on any time the camera is in use. But Wolf says she never saw the light on her laptop go on. As a result, she had no idea she was under surveillance.

That wasn't supposed to be possible. While controlling a camera remotely has long been a source of concern to privacy advocates, conventional wisdom said there was at least no way to deactivate the warning light. New evidence indicates otherwise.

America has always been the land of conspiracies, after all the nation was founded by a giant conspiracy hatched in taverns across the colonies. Today the term "conspiracy theory" has a dismissive air surrounding it, and maybe it shouldn't. Each section below addresses a popular theme in modern conspiracy theories and gives the details of when the United States government did exactly that.

The US government is targeting activists through surveillance, blackmailing or discrediting them... and killing them.

It's utterly insane to believe that the US government would waste its time harassing bloggers or activists of any kind. We live in a nation where we have the FBI to stop civil rights violations such as that, which is wonderful except for the fact that it is the FBI that has historically targeted activists in the past for surveillance, slander, and even tried to blackmail one into killing himself. That unfortunate victim of blackmail was a nonviolent activist in the south; a preacher even. Now his name graces street signs and schools across the country. He even has his own holiday. Of course, we are talking about Dr. Martin Luther King.

From the early 1960s the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the very agency tasked with protecting civil rights, embarked on a non-stop campaign against the activist who preached nothing but peace and love. His hotel rooms were bugged, he was followed night and day, and he was sent a letter along with audio proof of an extramarital affair. The letter ends with the subtle advice that, our now national hero, take his own life.

King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do it (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significance). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.

This is the real FBI at work. Surprisingly, the FBI has not admitted taking part in his assassination. The Department of Justice has, in fact, issued a statement arguing that the 1999 federal court decision that determined that "government agencies" participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King is wrong. The King family was awarded $100 as part of the suit, which was donated to charity. The minimal amount of the settlement was to show that the family was after the truth, not financial compensation.

With this in mind, is it really so far-fetched to believe that the FBI or other government agencies are doing the same thing today?

The 113th Congress has finished its first session, and lawmakers enacted fewer than 60 laws. No Congress since 1947 has done so little legislating. That's bad news for many of Washington's lobbyists. Howard Marlowe, for one, hasn't been feeling the joy of his job.

"One of the driest periods in the 35 years that I've been lobbying," he says.

An old Washington hand, Marlowe has a small, boutique lobbying firm specializing in local infrastructure projects. His client base includes airports, shipping ports and local governments. Marlowe & Company already took a hit when Congress swore off earmarks, the targeted money that financed many infrastructure jobs.

This year is even worse. Marlowe says congressional committees have lost interest in government programs.

"You get more press attention, more cameras, more ink time, whatever it may be, by holding an oversight hearing than you do by holding a legislative hearing on how to fix our roads or what to do to improve education," he says.

Brian Schweitzer, the former Democratic governor of Montana who may run for president in 2016, spoke Wednesday night to Progress Iowa, a liberal grassroots organization, in Altoona, Iowa. In his speech, Schweitzer criticized Democrats who voted for the Iraq war, a group that includes a potential rival for the Democratic nomination: Hillary Clinton.

Watch Schweitzer's remarks below:

Under pressure from Senate Democrats, the President partly suspends the individual mandate

It seems Nancy Pelosi was wrong when she said "we have to pass" ObamaCare to "find out what's in it." No one may ever know because the White House keeps treating the Affordable Care Act's text as a mere suggestion subject to day-to-day revision. Its latest political retrofit is the most brazen: President Obama is partly suspending the individual mandate.

The White House argued at the Supreme Court that the insurance-purchase mandate was not only constitutional but essential to the law's success, while refusing Republican demands to delay or repeal it. But late on Thursday, with only four days to go before the December enrollment deadline, the Health and Human Services Department decreed that millions of Americans are suddenly exempt.

Individuals whose health plans were canceled will now automatically qualify for a "hardship exemption" from the mandate. If they can't or don't sign up for a new plan, they don't have to pay the tax. They can also get a special category of ObamaCare insurance designed for people under age 30.

So, Merry Christmas. If ObamaCare's benefit and income redistribution requirements made your old, cheaper, better health plan illegal, you now have the option of going without coverage without the government taking your money as punishment. You can also claim the tautological consolation of an ObamaCare hardship exemption due to ObamaCare itself.

The Pentagon has secured a 630 billion dollar budget for next year, even though it's failed to even account for the money it's received since 1996. A whopping 8.5 trillion dollars of taxpayer cash have gone to defense programs - none of which has been audited. This black budget has sparked concerns over potential fraud, as Gayane Chichakyan reports.

President Barack Obama's half brother is publishing an autobiography that details the domestic abuse that served as the theme for his earlier semiautobiographical novel, which featured an abusive parent patterned on their late father. In fact, Mark Obama Ndesandjo says he wants to "set the record straight" about some of the lies President Obama included in his bestselling 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father."

Ndesandjo also recounts his sporadic but intense encounters with his brother over the years in "Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery." The self-published book is to be released in February. In "Dreams From My Father," Obama seeks to learn more about their father, a mostly absent figure, after learning of his death in a car crash in 1982 at age 46.

Ndesandjo's book comes four years after his novel, "Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Novel of Love in the East." As in his first book, Ndesandjo wanted to raise awareness of domestic abuse by using his family's story, although he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that the president's relatives have not universally welcomed his airing of private matters in public. Ndesandjo spoke ahead of a news conference to launch the book in Guangzhou on Thursday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called China's behavior during recent stand-off with an American warship "irresponsible" at a press conference on Thursday.

In early December, Chinese warships confronted the USS Cowpens guided missile warship in the South China Sea after it was reportedly conducting surveillance on Beijing's new aircraft carrier, the Liaoning.

According to U.S. officials, the Chinese ordered the Cowpens to stop in its tracks, but the Navy refused because it was operating in international waters. The Chinese ship then attempted to cut off the Cowpens' path by stopping in front of it, forcing the Navy to take evasive maneuvers in order to avoid a collision.

"That action by the Chinese, cutting in front ...100 yards out in front of the Cowpens, was not a responsible action," Hagel said, according to Agence France-Presse. "It was unhelpful, it was irresponsible."