Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner is again demanding answers to his inquiry on how the government spies on Congress.

The author of the post-9/11 law that granted the government much of its modern surveillance authority is again demanding the government explain how and to what extent it spies on members of Congress and their staffers.

"Tapping into computers used by members of Congress and attempts to use the Justice Department to intimidate congressional staff is a gross violation of the constitutional principles of separation of powers," Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner wrote in a Thursday letter to Deputy Attorney General James Cole. "It paints an almost-Nixonian picture of an administration that believes it can act with impunity behind a veil of secrecy."

The Wisconsin Republican's new letter arrives on the heels of dramatic accusations leveled this week by Sen. Dianne Feinstein that the CIA hacked her intelligence panel's computers during its investigation into the spy agency's Bush-era interrogation programs. The letter asks Cole to respond to an earlier request sent last month by Sensenbrenner, in tandem with Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Darrell Issa, asking for a clarification of recent congressional testimony where he said the government "probably" spies on members of Congress.

"We probably do," Cole said in response to a string of questions from Issa during a House Judiciary hearing in February. "But we're not allowed to look at any of those [phone lines], however, unless we have reasonable, articulable suspicion that those numbers are related to a known terrorist threat."


The admission should not have been surprising, but it still incensed a number of lawmakers. The administration has repeatedly argued that while virtually all phone records are subject to its data sweeps - a technique it says is necessary to assemble the whole haystack in order to find the needle - it examines only records determined to be relevant to a terrorism investigation.

What's happened in Ukraine is part of a military and intelligence agenda, it is part of a global economic agenda, and is in fact an act of warfare, because it is a coup d'état, which was supported by foreign powers and there ample evidence to that effect, in addition, the US and NATO have been practicing the worst case scenario of the World War III, Michel Chossudovsky, professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and an advisor to governments of developing countries, told the Voice of Russia.

Riyadh wants to contain radical groups and media at odds with foreign jihad policy

Saudi Arabia has threatened to blockade neighbouring Qatar by air, land and sea unless Doha cuts ties with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, closes global channel al-Jazeera, and expels local branches of the US Brookings Institution and Rand Corporation think tanks.

The threat was issued by Riyadh before it withdrew its ambassador to Doha and branded as "terrorist organisations" the brotherhood, Lebanon's Hizbullah and al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Jabhat al-Nusra.

Although the kingdom has long been the font of Sunni ultra-orthodox Salafism and jihadism, it now seeks to contain radical movements and media and other organisations giving them publicity.

King Abdullah has decreed that any Saudi who fights abroad could be jailed for 20-30 years, and those who join, endorse or provide moral or material support to groups classified as "terrorist" or "extremist" will risk prison sentences of five to 30 years.

The European and American public are being systematically lied to about the Ukraine crisis. Storm Clouds Gathering bring you the condensed truth on recent events in Ukraine.

The recognition of Kosovo independence set a precedent that gives Crimeans, as well as Basques and Catalans, a right for self-determination, German opposition leader said, lashing out against Angela Merkel's support of sanctions against Russia.

Gregor Gysi, a parliamentary head of the largest lower-house opposition party in Germany - the Left Party - has spoken out on Thursday against German Chancellor's unquestioning support of the coup-appointed Ukrainian government.

"They formed a new government..... Immediately recognized by president Obama by the EU and German government as well. Miss Merkel! The vice- prime minister, the defense minister, minister of agriculture, environment minister, the attorney general.. They are fascists!" he stated.

Russia has vetoed a UN Security Council's resolution declaring the upcoming referendum on the future status of autonomous republic of Crimea invalid and urging all states not to recognize its results.

China abstained as 13 council members supported the resolution and Russia voted against.

The draft resolution noted that the Ukrainian government in Kiev has not authorized the referendum and said that it cannot be valid.

"This referendum can have no validity, and cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of Crimea; and calls upon all States, international organizations and specialized agencies not to recognize any alteration of the status of Crimea on the basis of this referendum and to refrain from any action or dealing that might be interpreted as recognizing any such altered status," the documents reads.

Moscow has a veto right as one of five permanent members of the Security Council.

It was "no secret that Russia would vote against the US draft resolution," Russia's envoy at the UN Vitaly Churkin said ahead of the voting. He added that Moscow would respect the choice of Crimeans.

"We cannot accept its basic assumption: to declare illegal the planned March 16 referendum where there residents of the Republic of Crimea should decide on their future," Churkin said, explaining Moscow's decision to veto the proposed document.

"The philosophy of the authors of the draft runs counter to one of the basic principles of the international law - the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Article 1 of the UN Charter," the Russian diplomat said.

His lifelong belief in socialism inspired several generations of socialists and radicals, and infuriated the establishment

The conductor was striding through the early train from Paddington to Penzance apologising as we shuddered to a halt just east of the Tamar. "I'm sorry for the delay," he told Tony Benn, sitting opposite me. "There was a lightning strike on the line ahead."

"Lightning strike!" said Benn, assuming industrial action. "What's it about?"

"It's about God, sir," said the guard, referring to the harsh weather of the previous night, and the two men smiled at each other.

That night I stayed in Cornwall. The prospect of spending nine hours on a train in one day was too draining. Benn came straight back, arriving in Paddington around 11pm so he could be up at 6am the next day to drive to Burford to address a Levellers rally. Around the time I was ordering my second round of sandwiches from the buffet car on my way back from Cornwall, he was heading back to London from Burford to speak to a pro-Palestinian demonstration, when his car exploded on the motorway. I was 33; he was 77.

When I next saw him I suggested, in jest, that he slow down, if only to stop me looking bad. He laughed and said he planned to work right up to the end. "The last entry in my diary will be: 'St Thomas's hospital: I'm not feeling very well today'," he said. He even had plans for his gravestone. "I'd like it to say: 'Tony Benn - he encouraged us.'"

Fears of possible armed assaults and provocation in Ukraine and neighboring countries are on the rise after yet another report that rocket grenade launchers, firearms and munitions have been stolen from a military warehouse in western Ukraine.

A source in the Ukrainian Interior Ministry told RIA Novosti that the coup appointed Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has recently been notified that a large cache of guns and ammunition was missing from one of the military warehouses.

"Reports to Avakov indicate that over 5,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 2,741 Makarov handguns, 123 light machineguns and 12 Shmel rocket launchers were stolen from the Interior Troops' depots in the Lvov Region in late February," the source said.

"The investigation has also established that 1,500 F-1 hand grenades and a large number of munitions are missing," it added.

So Bill Gates recently gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine. The vast majority of the interview focused on his philanthropic efforts, with a particular focus on poverty and climate change. However, several questions were brought up on illegal NSA surveillance in general, and Edward Snowden in particular.

His answers reveal one of the biggest problems facing America today, which is the fact that the billionaire class as a whole does not question or rock the boat whatsoever. They criticize only when it is convenient or easy to do so, never putting themselves at risk for the sake of civil liberties and the Constitution.

In mosts cases, this is due to the fact that they themselves are the characters pulling the strings of the political class in Washington D.C. So when it comes down to it, their policies ultimately become our policies.

It is also important to note that Microsoft was a particularly eager participant in NSA spying from the very beginning. For example, according to the following PRISM slide provided by Edward Snowden, we see that Gates' company was the first to become involved. In fact, they were participating a full six months before Yahoo!, while Apple didn't join until a year after Steve Jobs died.

Every sane sentient being knows that Ukraine's "unity" is not worth a new hot or warm war. Or even the current Western-peddled Cold War-style hysteria. Especially when Russia, once again, fights fascism - as embodied by some of the key players now in power in Kiev, and the US and EU's response is to relentlessly demonize Russia.

Crimea - historically, culturally, sentimentally - is Russian, conquered by Catherine the Great from the Ottomans in 1783. Sevastopol was founded by Catherine. If a swing band would play a version of I Left My Heart in Sevastopol, all hearts involved would be Russian.

Yet those eminent Western practitioners of state idolatry have ruled that the population of Crimea has no right to conduct a referendum to decide its future - be it rejoining Russia or remaining in Ukraine with a huge degree of autonomy, according to the 1992 constitution. The eminences could not possibly admit that does not suit their geopolitical power play.

Thus the current Mass; a ritualistic, hysterical invoking in unison of "international law" (Obama), (distorted) history and even morality (in the US's case, considering the historical record, a positively dreadful joke).